Publications

Adair, D, Darcy, S & Frawley, S 2017, 'Paralympic Paradigm: A Research Agenda' in Managing the Paralympics, Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, pp. 289-293.
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Ben-Nissan, B & Choi, AH 2017, 'Calcium Phosphate Nanocoatings: Production, Physical and Biological Properties, and Biomedical Applications' in Nanobioceramics for Healthcare Applications, WORLD SCIENTIFIC (EUROPE), pp. 105-149.
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Ben-Nissan, B, Choi, AH & Macha, I 2017, 'Advances in Bioglass and Glass Ceramics for Biomedical Applications' in Springer Series in Biomaterials Science and Engineering, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 133-161.
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� Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017. Tissue engineering and advanced biomedical technologies have proved to be potential to improve the quality of human life. During the last four decades, the capability to engineer or repair new functional tissues has been a very effective approach to improve the quality of life of patients. Since its discovery by Hench and co-workers in the 1960s, bioglasses and glass ceramics have attracted considerable attention of many researchers because of their unique properties which can easily be tailored by manipulating its compositions and morphology. Over the years, many questions concerning its interactions with both hard and soft tissues have been answered with a multidisciplinary team of surgeons, scientists and engineers. Many clinical Bioglass� and other similar structures and compositions are being used for bone augmentation and restoration, in orthopaedic, dental and maxillofacial surgery and in general in the field of tissue engineering. They have proved to be efficient and effective, some with outperformance over other bioceramic and metal prostheses. It is our aim in this chapter to present the development of these important biomaterials focusing on the history, synthesis, properties, modern characterisation methods and the current development of nano- and biocomposite materials for clinical applications.

Ben-Nissan, B, Choi, AH, Latella, BA & Bendavid, A 2017, '3.8 Biomedical Thin Films: Mechanical Properties ☆' in Comprehensive Biomaterials II, Elsevier, pp. 128-143.
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© 2017 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved. In materials applied for medical applications, thin film coatings (including micro- and nanocoatings) offer the possibility of modifying the surface properties of a range of surgical materials and implants such as hip or knee replacements. The essential requirement of any artificial implant is to prevent immune rejection or inflammatory responses. Metals, ceramic, and polymers have all been used for implants. High-quality metal alloys of titanium, vanadium, and chromium are commonly used for orthopedic prostheses in order to avoid toxicity. Coatings on these alloys are aimed at improving abrasion resistance, corrosion resistance, and ion release protection; increasing bioactivity; and improving environment and structure for new bone attachment. In turn, they improve reliability, performance, and longevity of a range of biomedical implants and devices. Industrial techniques for the production of micro- and nanocoatings are many, including physical vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, thermal and plasma spraying, and sol-gel processing. Micro- and nanocoatings are clinically used to improve bioactivity and improve bone-implant bonding, improve abrasion and wear resistance, and reduce metal ion release in a range of orthopedic and maxillofacial implants.

Choi, AH & Ben-Nissan, B 2017, 'Calcium Phosphate Nanocomposites for Biomedical and Dental Applications: Recent Developments' in Handbook of Composites from Renewable Materials, Wiley, pp. 423-450.
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© 2017 Scrivener Publishing LLC. Interests in nanostructured materials for advanced technologies have been growing throughout the past decade, and the current emphasis is on the production of nanocomposites which are relevant to a number of biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and regeneration. It is possible through the use of the composite approach to engineer the strength of the nanocomposite scaffold to become close to those of human bone. At present, the most common biomaterials used in nanocomposites for clinical applications are those selected from a handful of available and well-characterized biocompatible ceramics such as calcium phosphate and various natural and synthetic polymers such as chitosan and polylactic acid. This chapter aims to give a brief introduction and recent developments in calcium phosphate nanocomposite coatings and nanocomposites or nanolaminates for tissue-engineering scaffolds and delivery vehicles for pharmaceutical and therapeutic substances.

Choi, AH, Macha, IJ, Akyol, S, Cazalbou, S & Ben-Nissan, B 2017, 'Nanostructured Calcium Phosphates for Drug, Gene, DNA and Protein Delivery and as Anticancer Chemotherapeutic Devices' in Clinical Applications of Biomaterials, Springer International Publishing, pp. 227-256.
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© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. During the past two decades, a number of materials and devices have been utilised in drug delivery applications. A range of biomaterials with different morphologies and pore sizes are currently utilised. For any given biomaterial or bioceramic, having an adequate control of the chemical composition as well as the critical pore sizes is important in terms of controlling the effectiveness when used to deliver drugs locally. In comparison to all currently known and used biomaterials, given the fact that it possesses chemical similarity to human bone, and most importantly its dissolution characteristics which allow for bone regeneration and growth, calcium phosphate holds a special consideration. Moreover, due to their interconnected pore structure, marine materials such as shells and coral exoskeletons show potential for applications in drug delivery due to their easy conversion to calcium phosphates with controllable dissolution rates. This chapter covers a range of current methods used specifically for natural materials that can be converted to calcium phosphates and mixed with polymeric materials as thin film or nanostructured drug, genes, protein and range of delivery and as anticancer chemotherapeutic devices.

Coutts, AJ, Crowcroft, S & Kempton, T 2017, 'Developing athlete monitoring systems' in Sport, Recovery, and Performance, Routledge, UK, pp. 19-32.
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Athlete monitoring is now common practise in high-performance sport. Fundamentally, athlete monitoring involves quantifying the athletes training load and their responses to that training. The main reasons for monitoring athletes are that it can provide information to refine the training process, increase athlete performance readiness and reduce risk of injury and illness. Through a systematic approach to athlete monitoring an improved understanding of the complex relationships between training, performance, and injury can be obtained. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the training theory that underpins athlete monitoring and discuss the key components of an athlete monitoring system. Additionally, a discussion of methods used to analyse and interpret these data will also be provided.

Darcy, S 2017, 'Accessibility as a Key Management Component of the Paralympics' in Darcy, S, Frawley, S & Adair, D (eds), Managing the Paralympics, Palgrave Macmillan UK, UK, pp. 49-92.
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The Paralympics are undoubtedly the pinnacle sporting event for people with disability where accessibility is both a facilitator and a potential legacy of the event. Accessibility is so ubiquitous to contributing to legacy yet the operationalisation of accessibility has been so poorly understood globally that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPWD) has placed it central to the preamble in “recognising the importance of accessibility to the physical, social, economic and cultural environment, to health and education and to information and communication” (United Nations 2006, p. np). In doing so, the CRPWD recognises accessibility as the enabler for people with disability enjoying citizenship. Similarly, accessibility at the Paralympic Games has had a history of being considered the best they could do rather than on the cutting edge of accessibility for most of its early years. The informal convergence of the Olympic and Paralympic Games from Barcelona 1992 raised significant issues for disability access in host cities (Gold and Gold 2007). Although the requirement to run the two events together only really became binding with the 2008 Beijing Games, from 1992 potential hosts with an established record of upholding disability rights and legislation had a clear advantage in the bidding process that raised the expectations that the Paralympics would be incorporated with the highest level of accessibility.

Darcy, S, Frawley, S & Adair, D 2017, 'The Paralympic Games: Managerial and Strategic Directions' in Managing the Paralympics, Palgrave Macmillan UK, UK, pp. 1-19.
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In 2020 it will be 60 years since the first Paralympic Games in Rome (International Paralympic Committee 2015a, b). Over that time the Paralympics have grown into the world’s third largest sporting event behind the Olympic Games and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. Each successive Paralympic Games has made contribution to this growth: introducing new sports, encouraging more countries to attend, increased scope of broadcasting, record ticket sales, and alternative media channels to promote the event and its athletes. From 1960 to 2020 this has led to 11-fold increase in athlete participation, “from less than 400 in 1964 to over 4,250 at London 2012 and a projected 4,350 for Rio 2016” (International Paralympic Committee 2015b). Geographically, those countries represented at the Games have grown from 21 to 164 competing for some 500 medal event 23, evolving from an event for wheelchair athletes to numerous activities involving nine different impairment types (International Paralympic Committee 2015b). The summer Paralympics now has a cumulative TV audience of 3.8 billion people and has an increasing presence on social media: at London 2012, for example, some 1.3 million tweets mentioned “Paralympic” (International Paralympic Committee 2015b). Like the Olympics, the focus of these statistics has often been on the summer Paralympics, but there has also been important growth in the winter Paralympic Games (Legg and Gilbert 2011).

Darcy, SA & Almond, B 2017, 'Case study: Sydney’s 'Cultural Ribbon' (Australia)' in Aragall, F, Neumann, P & Sagramola, S (eds), Design for All in Tourist Destinations ECA 2017, EuCAN – European Concept for Accessibility Network, pp. 78-83.

Dat Dang, Doan Hoang & Nanda, P 2017, 'Data protection and mobility management for cloud' in Kumar, V, Ko, R & Chaisiri, S (eds), Data Security in Cloud Computing, Institution of Engineering and Technology, USA, pp. 117-149.
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Cloud computing has become an alternative IT infrastructure where users, infrastructure providers, and service providers all share and deploy resources for their business processes and applications. In order to deliver cloud services cost-effectively, users’ data is stored in a cloud where applications are able to perform requests from clients efficiently. As data is transferred to the cloud, data owners are concerned about the loss of control of their data and cloud service providers are concerned about their ability to protect data when it is moved about both within and out of its own environment. Many security and protection mechanisms have been proposed to protect cloud data by employing various policies, encryption techniques, and monitoring and auditing approaches. However, data is still exposed to potential disclosures and attacks if it is moved and located at another cloud where there is no equivalence security measure at visited sites. In a realistic cloud scenario with hierarchical service chain, the handling of data in a cloud can be delegated by a cloud service provider (CSP) to a subprovider to another. However, CSPs do not often deploy the same protection schemes. Movement of user’s data is an important issue in Cloud and it has to be addressed to ensure the data is protected in an integrated manner regardless of its location in the environment. The user is concerned whether its data is located in locations covered by the service level agreement (SLA) and data operations are protected from unauthorized users. When user’s data is moved to data centres located at locations different from its home, it is necessary to keep track of its locations and data operations. This chapter discusses data protection and mobility management issues in cloud environment and in particular the implementation of a trust-oriented data protection framework.

Godara, P & Milthorpe, B 2017, '7.37 Surgical Adhesion and Its Prevention' in Comprehensive Biomaterials II, Elsevier, pp. 733-745.
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Adhesion of freely moving tissues and organs due to surgical injury and trauma can be a serious postoperative complication. High rates of incidence due to surgical intervention, especially associated with abdominal procedures, have been reported. This chapter gives an introduction to the formation of adhesions, with particular focus on peritoneum, urinary and reproductive (female) systems, tendon, ligament, joint, and pericardium. A number of techniques, treatments, and materials have been proposed for the prevention/reduction of adhesion formation. Of these, barrier methods are considered the only effective method currently available. An overview of biomaterials currently used as barriers for postsurgical tissue adhesion is presented. Current clinical practice utilizes solid membranes/mechanical barriers, spray-on, and gel and liquid barriers. These barriers can be either resorbable, nonresorbable, or a combination of both. Complications of barrier films are examined, and design criteria for barrier membranes are presented. Adhesion formation can be beneficial in particular circumstances, such as for anchoring implants, and these uses are commented upon. Much advancement has been made in this area, thanks to the increasing knowledge and understanding regarding the events that control adhesion formation, but there is still a long way to go before an optimum solution to this problem is found.

Hoang, DB & Farahmandian, S 2017, 'Security of Software-Defined Infrastructures with SDN, NFV, and Cloud Computing Technologies' in Zhu, S, Scott-Hayward, S, Jacquib, L & Hill, R (eds), Computer Communications and Networks, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, pp. 3-32.
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Over the last decade, cloud computing, software-defined networking (SDN), and network functions virtualization (NFV) technologies have been developed to address the inefficiency of IT infrastructures, the complexity of network manual configuration and management, the inability of the Internet to provision services on demand, and the rigidity of telecom service providers. However, clouds, SDN, and NFV bring with them not only their common security issues but also their domain-specific security issues. Furthermore, clouds, SDN, and NFV overlap in both architectures and shared resources. Software-defined infrastructure (SDI) is an approach that overcomes those problems and provides an environment for provisioning rapid and on-demand services. This chapter focuses on existing and emerging security challenges and solutions of cloud, SDN, and NFV and their integrated software-defined infrastructure as well as the security of the underlying virtualization technology. The chapter also reviews and discusses the development of a promising software-defined security (SDSec) approach.

Javad, T, Yu, D & Youhong, T 2017, 'Biomedical polymer hybrid composites' in Hybrid Polymer Composite Materials, Elsevier, pp. 135-162.
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Khoo, BL, Chaudhuri, PK, Lim, CT & Warkiani, ME 2017, 'Advancing Techniques and Insights in Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) Research' in Cancer Drug Discovery and Development, Springer International Publishing, pp. 71-94.
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Cancer is a major cause of mortality worldwide, with a disease burden estimated to grow over the coming decades. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are rare cancer cells released from the primary or metastatic tumors and transported though the peripheral circulatory system to their specific secondary locations. The presence of CTCs in the a cancer patient’s blood has been used as a prognostic biomarker, with lower CTC count correlating with greater overall survival [1]. In spite of its clinical potential, the isolation and detection of CTCs has been a challenging task due to its rare presence amongst other blood cells (as low as 1-10 CTCs per billions of blood cells) and variability in terms of both morphological and biochemical markers. Recent developments of microfluidics technology have paved the way for better isolation and characterization of CTCs due to several advantages such as lower sample volume, higher sensitivity and throughput and lesser production cost [2, 3]. In this chapter, various CTC isolation devices are classified under two major categories: microfluidics and conventional macro-scale devices, as illustrated in Fig. 1. We will be discussing both label-free methods and antibody-dependent methods for CTC isolation, and will provide discussion and future perspectives on the advantages and drawbacks of both these techniques on potential clinical applications. Advancement in these technologies for CTCs and associated components, such as exosomes, led to an unraveling of tumor variation, ranging histology, molecular, proteomic and functional heterogeneity, which will be discussed in the subsequent sections.

Macha, IJ, Ben-Nissan, B, Choi, A & Cazalbou, S 2017, 'Development and In Vitro Analysis of a New Biodegradable PLA/Hydroxyapatite (HAp) Composite for Biomedical Applications' in Clinical Applications of Biomaterials, Springer International Publishing, pp. 411-423.
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© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. The development of new drugs or formulations for the treatments of different musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) has now being a focus of pharmaceutical and scientific societies. Targeted and multidelivery of drug and key minerals to support bone repair and regeneration at the defect site, from flexible biodegradable devices at the rate within the therapeutic window, seem to be an effective strategy. However, the drug delivery vehicles available are neither flexible and degradable nor able to deliver both pharmaceutical drug and minerals effectively. The use of biodegradable polymer and bioceramic for composite development with enough flexibility and potential for slow in situ drug delivery for biomedical applications could be one of the real options to mitigate MSDs problem. In vitro analysis of the developed devices is a vital step towards clinical trial and commercialization of the implant. Different approach and results have been compared to draw guidelines for the development and testing of thin film composite applications as a slow drug delivery vehicle.

Mawad, D, Figtree, G & Gentile, C 2017, 'Current Technologies Based on the Knowledge of the Stem Cells Microenvironments' in Birbrair, A (ed), Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Springer International Publishing, pp. 245-262.
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Pandya, HJ, Draz, MS, Warkiani, ME & Shafiee, H 2017, 'Diagnostic Devices with Microfluidics' in Piraino, F, Selimović, Š & Iniewski, K (eds), Diagnostic Devices with Microfluidics, CRC Press, pp. 145-161.
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Infectious diseases remain the primary public health challenge in many countries. Every year, infectious diseases account for more than 13 million deaths around the world, and for 30% of the total burden of disease. Developing countries are especially challenged with infectious diseases. According to world health organization (WHO), 50% of the total deaths in developing countries are attributed to various infections, including respiratory tract infections, diarrheal diseases, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis, and malaria. In the healthcare system, a diagnostic cycle consists of several time-consuming steps besides sample transportation, pre-and postanalytical phases, result transmission, and batching practices augmenting the turnaround time from disease interpretation to results (Figure 7.1) [1-3]. The downside of experience-based empiric therapy management involves the choice of inappropriate antibiotherapy or late initiation of treatment often resulting in treatment failure [4-7].

Phillips, JL & Hickman, L 2017, 'Integrated care and multidisciplinary team work' in Daly, J, Speedy, S & Jackson, D (eds), Contexts of Nursing, Elsevier Australia, Sydney.

Rodgers, KJ, Samardzic, K & Main, BJ 2017, 'Toxic Nonprotein Amino Acids' in Plant Toxins, Springer Netherlands, pp. 263-285.
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Sandseter, EBH, Little, H, Ball, D, Eager, D & Brussoni, M 2017, 'Risk and Safety in OutdoorPlay' in The SAGE Handbook of Outdoor Play and Learning, SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 113-126.
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The importance of stimulating and challenging outdoor play for the health and developmentof children, as this Chapter describes, is now the topic of copious research. Play provision has,however, been set on a different trajectory in recent decades; one which has been morepreoccupied with the creation of injury free or 'safe’ environments and is in part driven by thefear of litigation. An unintended consequence has been the curtailment ofessential childhood developmental opportunities. The workplace model of zero tolerance toaccidents and associated risk exposure is inappropriate in the context of children and play. Itis proposed that a more balanced approach to play provision is needed which recognizes thatrisk exposure is not entirely bad and that children benefit from and require risk-takingopportunities. This has implications at all levels of play provision, from policy formulation toplay practice.

Wiwanitkit, V 2017, 'Application of Finite Element Analysis for Nanobiomedical Study' in Musa, SM (ed), Computational Finite Element Methods in Nanotechnology, CRC Press, United States, pp. 401-421.
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'Nanostructured materials' refer to certain materials that have delicate structures and sizes that fall within the range of 1100 nm. As a consequence of this size, an extensive development of nanotechnology has taken place in the !elds of materials science and engineering in the past decade. Yet, such developments have not come as a surprise, when it is appreciated that these nanostructured materials have the ability to be adapted and integrated into biomedical devices. This is possible because most biological systems, including viruses, membranes and protein complexes, exhibit natural nanostructures.

Agar, M, Luckett, T, Luscombe, G, Phillips, J, Beattie, E, Pond, D, Mitchell, G, Davidson, PM, Cook, J, Brooks, D, Houltram, J, Goodall, S & Chenoweth, L 2017, 'Effects of facilitated family case conferencing for advanced dementia: A cluster randomised clinical trial', PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 8, pp. e0181020-e0181020.
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© 2017 Agar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Background: Palliative care planning for nursing home residents with advanced dementia is often suboptimal. This study compared effects of facilitated case conferencing (FCC) with usual care (UC) on end-of-life care. Methods: A two arm parallel cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted. The sample included people with advanced dementia from 20 Australian nursing homes and their families and professional caregivers. In each intervention nursing home (n = 10), Palliative Care Planning Coordinators (PCPCs) facilitated family case conferences and trained staff in person-centred palliative care for 16 hours per week over 18 months. The primary outcome was family-rated quality of end-of-life care (End-of-Life Dementia [EOLD] Scales). Secondary outcomes included nurse-rated EOLD scales, resident quality of life (Quality of Life in Late-stage Dementia [QUALID]) and quality of care over the last month of life (pharmacological/ non-pharmacological palliative strategies, hospitalization or inappropriate interventions). Results: Two-hundred-eighty-six people with advanced dementia took part but only 131 died (64 in UC and 67 in FCC which was fewer than anticipated), rendering the primary analysis underpowered with no group effect seen in EOLD scales. Significant differences in pharmacological (P < 0.01) and non-pharmacological (P < 0.05) palliative management in last month of life were seen. Intercurrent illness was associated with lower family-rated EOLD Satisfaction with Care (coefficient 2.97, P < 0.05) and lower staff-rated EOLD Comfort Assessment with Dying (coefficient 4.37, P < 0.01). Per protocol analyses showed positive relationships between EOLD and staff hours to bed ratios, proportion of residen...

Ahadi, A, Sablok, G & Hutvagner, G 2017, 'miRTar2GO: a novel rule-based model learning method for cell line specific microRNA target prediction that integrates Ago2 CLIP-Seq and validated microRNA–target interaction data', Nucleic Acids Research, vol. 45, no. 6, pp. e42-e42.
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© 2016 The Author(s). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are ∼19-22 nucleotides (nt) long regulatory RNAs that regulate gene expression by recognizing and binding to complementary sequences on mRNAs. The key step in revealing the function of a miRNA, is the identification of miRNA target genes. Recent biochemical advances including PAR-CLIP and HITS-CLIP allow for improved miRNA target predictions and are widely used to validate miRNA targets. Here, we present miRTar2GO, which is a model, trained on the common rules of miRNA-target interactions, Argonaute (Ago) CLIP-Seq data and experimentally validated miRNA target interactions. miRTar2GO is designed to predict miRNA target sites using more relaxed miRNA-target binding characteristics. More importantly, miRTar2GO allows for the prediction of celltype specific miRNA targets. We have evaluated miRTar2GO against other widely used miRNA target prediction algorithms and demonstrated that miRTar2GO produced significantly higher F1 and G scores. Target predictions, binding specifications, results of the pathway analysis and gene ontology enrichment of miRNA targets are freely available at http://www.mirtar2go.org.

Alizadeh, A, Warkiani, ME & Wang, M 2017, 'Manipulating electrokinetic conductance of nanofluidic channel by varying inlet pH of solution', Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 1-15.
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© 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. The electrokinetic conductivity of micro-/nanofluidic systems, which strongly depends on the local solution properties (e.g., pH and ionic strength), has wide applications in nanosystems to control the system performance and ion rectification. Accurate and active manipulation of this parameter is proven to be very challenging since, in nanoscale, the ion transport is particularly dominated by the acquired surface charge on the solid–liquid interfaces. In this study, we propose an approach to manipulate the nanochannel electrokinetic conductivity by changing the pH value of the solution at the inlet in order to impose asymmetrical conditions inside nanochannel. The variable surface charge of walls is determined by considering the chemical adsorption on the solid–liquid interface and the electrical double layer interaction. The presented numerical model, which couples Poisson–Nernst–Planck and Navier–Stokes equations, can fully consider the electro-chemo-mechanical transport phenomena and predict the electrokinetic conductivity of nanofluidic channels with good accuracy. Modeling results show that the electrokinetic conductivity of the nanofluidic systems can be regulated by varying the solution pH at the inlet. It is revealed that the stronger electric double layers interaction can enhance the sensitivity of the nanochannel electrokinetic conductance to the inlet pH. This unique behavior of the nanochannel electrokinetic conductivity could broaden potential applications in biomedical, energy, and environmental systems using nanofluidic devices.

Alturki, R & Gay, V 2017, 'Usability Testing of Fitness Mobile Application : Case Study Aded Surat App', International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 105-125.
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Alvarado, R, To, J, Lund, ME, Pinar, A, Mansell, A, Robinson, MW, O'Brien, BA, Dalton, JP & Donnelly, S 2017, 'The immune modulatory peptide FhHDM‐1 secreted by the helminth Fasciola hepatica prevents NLRP3 inflammasome activation by inhibiting endolysosomal acidification in macrophages', The FASEB Journal, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 85-95.
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The NLRP3 inflammasome is a multimeric protein complex that controls the production of IL-1b, a cytokine that influences the development of both innate and adaptive immune responses. Helminth parasites secrete molecules that interact with innate immune cells, modulating their activity to ultimately determine the phenotype of differentiated T cells, thus creating an immune environment that is conducive to sustaining chronic infection. We show that one of these molecules, FhHDM-1, a cathelicidin-like peptide secreted by the helminth parasite, Fasciola hepatica, inhibits the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome resulting in reduced secretion of IL-1β by macrophages. FhHDM-1 had no effect on the synthesis of pro-IL-1β. Rather, the inhibitory effect was associatedwith the capacity of the peptide to prevent acidification of the endolysosome. The activation of cathepsin B protease by lysosomal destabilization was prevented in FhHDM-1-treated macrophages. By contrast, peptide derivatives of FhHDM-1 that did not alter the lysosomal pH did not inhibit secretion of IL-1b. Wepropose a novel immunemodulatory strategy usedby F. hepatica,whereby secretion of theFhHDM-1 peptide impairs the activation of NLRP3 by lysosomal cathepsin B protease, which prevents the downstream production of IL-1b and the development of protective T helper 1 type immune responses that are detrimental to parasite survival.-Alvarado,R., To, J., Lund, M. E., Pinar, A., Mansell, A., Robinson, M. W., O'Brien, B. A., Dalton, J. P., Donnelly, S. The immune modulatory peptide FhHDM-1 secreted by the helminth Fasciola hepatica prevents NLRP3 inflammasome activation by inhibiting endolysosomal acidification in macrophages. FASEB J. 31, 85-95 (2017). www.fasebj.org.

Andaluz-Ojeda, D, Nguyen, HB, Meunier-Beillard, N, Cicuéndez, R, Quenot, J-P, Calvo, D, Dargent, A, Zarca, E, Andrés, C, Nogales, L, Eiros, JM, Tamayo, E, Gandía, F, Bermejo-Martín, JF & Charles, PE 2017, 'Superior accuracy of mid-regional proadrenomedullin for mortality prediction in sepsis with varying levels of illness severity', Annals of Intensive Care, vol. 7, no. 1.
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� 2017, The Author(s). Background: The use of novel sepsis biomarkers has increased in recent years. However, their prognostic value with respect to illness severity has not been explored. In this work, we examined the ability of mid-regional proadrenomedullin (MR-proADM) in predicting mortality in sepsis patients with different degrees of organ failure, compared to that of procalcitonin, C-reactive protein and lactate. Methods: This was a two-centre prospective observational cohort, enrolling severe sepsis or septic shock patients admitted to the ICU. Plasma biomarkers were measured during the first 12�h of admission. The association between biomarkers and 28-day mortality was assessed by Cox regression analysis and Kaplan–Meier curves. Patients were divided into three groups as evaluated by the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score. The accuracy of the biomarkers for mortality was determined by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) analysis. Results: A total of 326 patients with severe sepsis (21.7%) or septic shock (79.3%) were enrolled with a 28-day mortality rate of 31.0%. Only MR-proADM and lactate were associated with mortality in the multivariate analysis: hazard ratio 8.5 versus 3.4 (p� < �0.001). MR-proADM showed the best AUROC for mortality prediction at 28�days in the analysis over the entire cohort (AUROC [95% CI] 0.79 [0.74–0.84] ) (p� < �0.001). When patients were stratified by the degree of organ failure, MR-proADM was the only biomarker to predict mortality in all severity groups (SOFA�≤�6, SOFA�=�7–12, and SOFA�≥�13), AUROC [95% CI] of 0.75 [0.61–0.88] , 0.74 [0.66–0.83] and 0.73 [0.59–0.86] , respectively (p� < �0.05). All patients with MR-proADM concentrations ≤0.88�nmol/L survived up to 28�days. In patients with SOFA�≤�6, the addition of MR-proADM to the SOFA score increased the ability of SOFA to identify non-survivors, AUROC [95% CI] 0.70 [0.58–0.82] and 0.77 [0.66–0...

Argha, A, Li, L & Su, SW 2017, 'Design ofH2(H∞)-based optimal structured and sparse static output feedback gains', Journal of the Franklin Institute, vol. 354, no. 10, pp. 4156-4178.
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© 2017 The Franklin Institute This paper is devoted to the problem of designing an H2 (H∞)-based optimal sparse static output feedback (SOF) controller for continuous linear time invariant systems. Incorporating an extra term for penalising the number of non-zero entries of the static output (state) feedback gain into the optimisation objective function, we propose an explicit scheme and an iterative process in order to identify the desired sparse structure of the feedback gain. In doing so, the so-called reweighted ℓ1-norm, which is known as a convex relaxation of the ℓ0-norm, is exploited to make a convex problem through an iterative process rather than the original NP-hard problem. This paper will also show that this problem reformulation allows us to incorporate additional constraints, such as regional pole placement constraints which provide more control over the satisfactory transient behavior and closed-loop pole location, into the designing problem. Then using the obtained structural constraints, we solve the structural H2 (H∞) SOF problem. Illustrative examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

Argha, A, Li, L & W. Su, S 2017, 'Sliding mode stabilisation of networked systems with consecutive data packet dropouts using only accessible information', International Journal of Systems Science, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 1291-1300.
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© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper develops a novel stabilising sliding mode for systems involving uncertainties as well as measurement data packet dropouts. In contrast to the existing literature that designs the switching function by using unavailable system states, a novel linear sliding function is constructed by employing only the available communicated system states for the systems involving measurement packet losses. This also equips us with the possibility to build a novel switching component for discrete-time sliding mode control (DSMC) by using only available system states. Finally, using a numerical example, we evaluate the performance of the designed DSMC for networked systems.

Argha, A, Su, SW & Celler, BG 2017, 'Heart rate regulation during cycle-ergometer exercise via event-driven biofeedback', Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 483-492.
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© 2016, International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering. This paper is devoted to the problem of regulating the heart rate response along a predetermined reference profile, for cycle-ergometer exercises designed for training or cardio-respiratory rehabilitation. The controller designed in this study is a non-conventional, non-model-based, proportional, integral and derivative (PID) controller. The PID controller commands can be transmitted as biofeedback auditory commands, which can be heard and interpreted by the exercising subject to increase or reduce exercise intensity. However, in such a case, for the purposes of effectively communicating to the exercising subject a change in the required exercise intensity, the timing of this feedback signal relative to the position of the pedals becomes critical. A feedback signal delivered when the pedals are not in a suitable position to efficiently exert force may be ineffective and this may, in turn, lead to the cognitive disengagement of the user from the feedback controller. This note examines a novel form of control system which has been expressly designed for this project. The system is called an “actuator-based event-driven control system”. The proposed control system was experimentally verified using 24 healthy male subjects who were randomly divided into two separate groups, along with cross-validation scheme. A statistical analysis was employed to test the generalisation of the PID tunes, derived based on the average transfer functions of the two groups, and it revealed that there were no significant differences between the mean values of root mean square of the tracking error of two groups (3.9 vs. 3.7 bpm, p= 0.65). Furthermore, the results of a second statistical hypothesis test showed that the proposed PID controller with novel synchronised biofeedback mechanism has better performance compared to a conventional PID controller with a fixed-rate biofeedback mechanism (Group 1: 3.9 vs...

Asadnia, M, Khorasani, AM & Warkiani, ME 2017, 'An Accurate PSO-GA Based Neural Network to Model Growth of Carbon Nanotubes', Journal of Nanomaterials, vol. 2017, pp. 1-6.
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By combining particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithms (GA) this paper offers an innovative algorithm to train artificial neural networks (ANNs) for the purpose of calculating the experimental growth parameters of CNTs. The paper explores experimentally obtaining data to train ANNs, as a method to reduce simulation time while ensuring the precision of formal physics models. The results are compared with conventional particle swarm optimization based neural network (CPSONN) and Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) techniques. The results show that PSOGANN can be successfully utilized for modeling the experimental parameters that are critical for the growth of CNTs.

Asadnia, M, Mousavi Ehteshami, SM, Chan, SH & Warkiani, ME 2017, 'Development of a fiber-based membraneless hydrogen peroxide fuel cell', RSC Advances, vol. 7, no. 65, pp. 40755-40760.
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Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) electrospun nano-fiber is suggested as the substrate material for developing biocompatible membraneless hydrogen peroxide fuel cells.

Aya-Bonilla, CA, Marsavela, G, Freeman, JB, Lomma, C, Frank, MH, Khattak, MA, Meniawy, TM, Millward, M, Warkiani, ME, Gray, ES & Ziman, M 2017, 'Isolation and detection of circulating tumour cells from metastatic melanoma patients using a slanted spiral microfluidic device', Oncotarget, vol. 8, no. 40, pp. 67355-67368.
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Circulating Tumour Cells (CTCs) are promising cancer biomarkers. Several methods have been developed to isolate CTCs from blood samples. However, the isolation of melanoma CTCs is very challenging as a result of their extraordinary heterogeneity, which has hindered their biological and clinical study. Thus, methods that isolate CTCs based on their physical properties, rather than surface marker expression, such as microfluidic devices, are greatly needed in melanoma. Here, we assessed the ability of the slanted spiral microfluidic device to isolate melanoma CTCs via label-free enrichment. We demonstrated that this device yields recovery rates of spiked melanoma cells of over 80% and 55%, after one or two rounds of enrichment, respectively. Concurrently, a two to three log reduction of white blood cells was achieved with one or two rounds of enrichment, respectively. We characterised the isolated CTCs using multimarker flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry and gene expression. The results demonstrated that CTCs from metastatic melanoma patients were highly heterogeneous and commonly expressed stem-like markers such as PAX3 and ABCB5. The implementation of the slanted microfluidic device for melanoma CTC isolation enables further understanding of the biology of melanoma metastasis for biomarker development and to inform future treatment approaches.

Bakirov, R, Gabrys, B & Fay, D 2017, 'Multiple adaptive mechanisms for data-driven soft sensors', Computers & Chemical Engineering, vol. 96, pp. 42-54.
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Recent data-driven soft sensors often use multiple adaptive mechanisms to cope with non-stationary environments. These mechanisms are usually deployed in a prescribed order which does not change. In this work we use real world data from the process industry to compare deploying adaptive mechanisms in a fixed manner to deploying them in a flexible way, which results in varying adaptation sequences. We demonstrate that flexible deployment of available adaptive methods coupled with techniques such as cross-validatory selection and retrospective model correction can benefit the predictive accuracy over time. As a vehicle for this study, we use a soft-sensor for batch processes based on an adaptive ensemble method which employs several adaptive mechanisms to react to the changes in data.

Ben-Nissan, B & Vance, L 2017, 'Editorial', Journal of the Australian Ceramic Society, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 1-1.
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Bhattarai, P & Phillips, JL 2017, 'The role of digital health technologies in management of pain in older people: An integrative review', Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, vol. 68, pp. 14-24.
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© 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd Pain is one of the most distressing and debilitating health issues faced by older people. The burden of unrelieved pain experienced by older people and its associated high symptom and economic costs demands consideration of new strategies to better this condition. As the global uptake of digital technology increases, exploring its potential to impact positively on older peoples’ pain self-management practices warrants investigation. This integrative review aimed to evaluate the use of digital health technology for management of older people's pain across care-settings. Searches were conducted to identify relevant English language studies published in CINHAL, Medline, Academic Search Complete, EMBASE, Cochrane library databases, and Google and Google Scholar websites. A total of 1003 papers were identified, 9 met the inclusion criteria. The highest level of evidence (Level II) was generated by three Phase II randomized controlled trials. These trials demonstrated the feasibility of computer based interactive or instructive video interventions however there was limited evidence to support their use for reduction of pain intensity and interference. Qualitative evidence demonstrated older people's willingness to use mobile technologies (iPhone or digital pen) to help manage their pain, however, the need of device-use training and connectedness with clinicians were highlighted. In conclusion, there is some evidence that integrating digital health technology into older peoples’ pain self-management plan is feasible and acceptable. However, the provision of high-quality technological interventions informed by a thorough understanding of older people's digital technology pain management needs is required to ensure greater integration of this technology in clinical practice.

Bilsborough, JC, Kempton, T, Greenway, K, Cordy, J & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Longitudinal Changes and Seasonal Variation in Body Composition in Professional Australian Football Players', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 10-17.
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Purpose:To compare development and variations in body composition of early-, mid-, and late-career professional Australian Football (AF) players over 3 successive seasons.Methods:Regional and total-body composition (body mass [BM], fat mass [FM], fat-free soft-tissue mass [FFSTM], and bone mineral content [BMC]) were assessed 4 times, at the same time of each season—start preseason (SP), end preseason (EP), midseason (MS), and end season (ES)—from 22 professional AF players using pencil-beam dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Nutritional intake for each player was evaluated concomitantly using 3-d food diaries. Players were classified according to their age at the beginning of the observational period as either early- (<21 y, n = 8), mid- (21 to 25 y, n = 9), or late- (>25 y, n = 5) career athletes.Results:Early-career players had lower FFSTM, BMC, and BM than mid- and late-career throughout. FM and %FM had greatest variability, particularly in the early-career players. FM reduced and FFSTM increased from SP to EP, while FM and FFSTM decreased from EP to MS. FM increased and FFSTM decreased from MS to ES, while FM and FFSTM increased during the off-season.Conclusions:Early-career players may benefit from greater emphasis on specific nutrition and resistance-training strategies aimed at increasing FFSTM, while all players should balance training and diet toward the end of season to minimize increases in FM.

Bisbe, J & Sivabalan, P 2017, 'Management control and trust in virtual settings: A case study of a virtual new product development team', Management Accounting Research, vol. 37, pp. 12-29.
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© 2017 Elsevier Ltd In this case study, we draw on theory relating to the trust-control nexus to investigate how formal Management Control Systems (MCS) and inter-personal trust relate in Virtual Teams (VTs), and examine the implications of this interplay for VT outcomes. Taking a virtual new product development team as our research site, we evidence the reciprocal influences between trust and formal MCS in a virtual setting. We show that in addition to formal MCS helping uphold inter-personal trust, trust enables the adoption and workability of incomplete formal MCS, hence expanding and shaping the set of control alternatives that are available to a VT. We further extend prior theory by providing evidence of synergies between inter-personal trust and formal MCS that span both the decision-facilitating and decision-influencing MCS roles, indicating that the combination of trust and formal MCS enhances the informational and motivational effects of controls, as well as the motivational effects of trust, on VT outcomes. Overall, this study adds to the accounting literature by shedding light on how formal MCS help manage highly interdependent tasks in dispersed contexts where inter-personal trust is present.

Borges, TO, Bullock, N, Aitken, D & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Accuracy and Validity of Commercially Available Kayak Ergometers', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 1267-1270.
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Methods:This study compared 3 commercially available ergometers for within- and between-brands difference to a first-principle calibration rig.Results:All ergometers underestimated true mean power, with errors of 27.6% ± 3.7%, 4.5% ± 3.5%, and 22.5% ± 1.9% for the KayakPro, WEBA, and Dansprint, respectively. Within-brand ergometer power differences ranged from 17 ± 9 to 22 ± 11 W for the KayakPro, 3 ± 4 to 4 ± 4 W for the WEBA, and 5 ± 3 to 5 ± 4 W for the Dansprint. The linear-regression analysis showed that most kayak ergometers have a stable coefficient of variation (0.9–1.7%) with a moderate effect size.Conclusion:Taken collectively, these findings show that different ergometers present inconsistent outcomes. Therefore, we suggest that athlete testing be conducted on the same ergometer brand, preferably the same ergometer. Optimally, that ergometer should be calibrated using a first-principle device before any athlete testing block.

Bourdon, PC, Cardinale, M, Murray, A, Gastin, P, Kellmann, M, Varley, MC, Gabbett, TJ, Coutts, AJ, Burgess, DJ, Gregson, W & Cable, NT 2017, 'Monitoring Athlete Training Loads: Consensus Statement', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. s2, pp. 161-170.
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Monitoring the load placed on athletes in both training and competition has become a very hot topic in sport science. Both scientists and coaches routinely monitor training loads using multidisciplinary approaches, and the pursuit of the best methodologies to capture and interpret data has produced an exponential increase in empirical and applied research. Indeed, the field has developed with such speed in recent years that it has given rise to industries aimed at developing new and novel paradigms to allow us to precisely quantify the internal and external loads placed on athletes and to help protect them from injury and ill health. In February 2016, a conference on “Monitoring Athlete Training Loads—The Hows and the Whys” was convened in Doha, Qatar, which brought together experts from around the world to share their applied research and contemporary practices in this rapidly growing field and also to investigate where it may branch to in the future. This consensus statement brings together the key findings and recommendations from this conference in a shared conceptual framework for use by coaches, sport-science and -medicine staff, and other related professionals who have an interest in monitoring athlete training loads and serves to provide an outline on what athlete-load monitoring is and how it is being applied in research and practice, why load monitoring is important and what the underlying rationale and prospective goals of monitoring are, and where athlete-load monitoring is heading in the future.

Braun, M 2017, 'Comparative evaluation of online and in-class student team presentations', Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, vol. 14, no. 3.
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Student team presentations are commonly utilised in tertiary science courses to help students develop skills in communication, teamwork and literature research, but they are subject to constraints arising from class size, available time, and limited facilities. In an alternative approach, student teams present online using a variety of tools, such as screencast and blended media, but it is not clear whether this offers an authentic alternative to in-class experience. In this study, the two modes of presentation were compared in terms of student perceptions and academic performance. A survey probed students’ familiarity with digital technology, presentation anxiety, and differential perceptions of the two modes. Aside from a confirmation bias, no significant difference was found between those who presented in class and online. In a notable exception, a clear asymmetry appeared when students were asked to choose a mode for a future presentation: none of the online presenters opted for the in-class mode while a third of in-class presenters selected the online mode. Presentation anxiety was similar for in-class and online presenters and was insensitive to gender and familiarity with English. No significant difference was detected between the modes in terms of academic performance.

Burston, A, Eley, R, Parker, D & Tuckett, A 2017, 'Validation of an instrument to measure moral distress within the Australian residential and community care environments', International Journal of Older People Nursing, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. e12144-e12144.
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Aim and objectivesThe aim of this study was to gain insight into the experience of moral distress within the aged care workforce. The objective of this study was to use and validate an existing instrument to measure moral distress within the aged care setting.BackgroundMoral distress, a phenomenon associated with worker satisfaction and retention, is common within nursing. Instruments to measure moral distress exist; however, there are no validated instruments to measure moral distress within an aged care setting.Design and methodAn existing instrument, the Moral Distress Scale (Revised) was identified and amended. Amendments were subject to expert review for face and content validity. Data were collected from aged care nurses working in residential and community aged care, in Australia. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha with exploratory factor analysis undertaken for construct validity.Results106 participants completed the survey, 93 (87.7%) identified as female and 13 (12.3%) male. Participants ranged in age from 21 to 73 years, with a mean time working in nursing of 20.6 years. The frequency component of the instrument demonstrated an alpha of 0.89, the intensity component 0.95 and the instrument as a whole 0.94. Three factors were identified and labelled as: Quality of Care, Capacity of Team and Professional Practice. Mean scores indicate a low occurrence of moral distress, but this distress, when experienced, was felt with a moderate level of intensity. Primary causes of moral distress were insufficient staff competency levels, poor quality care because of poor communication and delays in implementing palliation....

Cahill, PJ, Lobb, EA, Sanderson, C & Phillips, JL 2017, 'What is the evidence for conducting palliative care family meetings? A systematic review', Palliative Medicine, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 197-211.
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Background: Structured family meeting procedures and guidelines suggest that these forums enhance family–patient–team communication in the palliative care inpatient setting. However, the vulnerability of palliative patients and the resources required to implement family meetings in accordance with recommended guidelines make better understanding about the effectiveness of this type of intervention an important priority. Aim and design: This systematic review examines the evidence supporting family meetings as a strategy to address the needs of palliative patients and their families. The review conforms to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Statement. Data sources: Six medical and psychosocial databases and “CareSearch,” a palliative care–specific database, were used to identify studies reporting empirical data, published in English in peer-reviewed journals from 1980 to March 2015. Book chapters, expert opinion, and gray literature were excluded. The Cochrane Collaboration Tool assessed risk of bias. Results: Of the 5051 articles identified, 13 met the inclusion criteria: 10 quantitative and 3 qualitative studies. There was low-level evidence to support family meetings. Only two quantitative pre- and post-studies used a validated palliative care family outcome measure with both studies reporting significant results post-family meetings. Four other quantitative studies reported significant results using non-validated measures. Conclusion: Despite the existence of consensus-based family meeting guidelines, there is a paucity of evidence to support family meetings in the inpatient palliative care setting. Further research using mor...

Capistrano, S, van Reyk, D, Chen, H & Oliver, B 2017, 'Evidence of Biomass Smoke Exposure as a Causative Factor for the Development of COPD', Toxics, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 36-36.
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© 2017 by the authors. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive disease of the lungs characterised by chronic inflammation, obstruction of airways, and destruction of the parenchyma (emphysema). These changes gradually impair lung function and prevent normal breathing. In 2002, COPD was the fifth leading cause of death, and is estimated by theWorld Health Organisation (WHO) to become the third by 2020. Cigarette smokers are thought to be the most at risk of developing COPD. However, recent studies have shown that people with life-long exposure to biomass smoke are also at high risk of developing COPD. Most common in developing countries, biomass fuels such as wood and coal are used for cooking and heating indoors on a daily basis. Women and children have the highest amounts of exposures and are therefore more likely to develop the disease. Despite epidemiological studies providing evidence of the causative relationship between biomass smoke and COPD, there are still limited mechanistic studies on how biomass smoke causes, and contributes to the progression of COPD. This review will focus upon why biomass fuels are used, and their relationship to COPD. It will also suggest methodological approaches to model biomass exposure in vitro and in vivo.

Chai, AB, Ammit, AJ & Gelissen, IC 2017, 'Examining the role of ABC lipid transporters in pulmonary lipid homeostasis and inflammation', Respiratory Research, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 41-9.
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© The Author(s). 2017 Open Access Respiratory diseases including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are characterised by excessive and persistent inflammation. Current treatments are often inadequate for symptom and disease control, and hence new therapies are warranted. Recent emerging research has implicated dyslipidaemia in pulmonary inflammation. Three ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters are found in the mammalian lung - ABCA1, ABCG1 and ABCA3 - that are involved in movement of cholesterol and phospholipids from lung cells. The aim of this review is to corroborate the current evidence for the role of ABC lipid transporters in pulmonary lipid homeostasis and inflammation. Here, we summarise results from murine knockout studies, human diseases associated with ABC transporter mutations, and in vitro studies. Disruption to ABC transporter activity results in lipid accumulation and elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines in lung tissue. Furthermore, these ABC-knockout mice exhibit signs of respiratory distress. ABC lipid transporters appear to have a crucial and protective role in the lung. However, our knowledge of the underlying molecular mechanisms for these benefits requires further attention. Understanding the relationship between cholesterol and inflammation in the lung, and the role that ABC transporters play in this may illuminate new pathways to target for the treatment of inflammatory lung diseases.

Chai, R, Ling, SH, San, PP, Naik, GR, Nguyen, TN, Tran, Y, Craig, A & Nguyen, HT 2017, 'Improving EEG-Based Driver Fatigue Classification Using Sparse-Deep Belief Networks', Frontiers in Neuroscience, vol. 11, no. 103, pp. 1-14.
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This paper presents an improvement of classification performance for electroencephalography (EEG)-based driver fatigue classification between fatigue and alert states with the data collected from 43 participants. The system employs autoregressive (AR) modeling as the features extraction algorithm, and sparse-deep belief networks (sparse-DBN) as the classification algorithm. Compared to other classifiers, sparse-DBN is a semi supervised learning method which combines unsupervised learning for modeling features in the pre-training layer and supervised learning for classification in the following layer. The sparsity in sparse-DBN is achieved with a regularization term that penalizes a deviation of the expected activation of hidden units from a fixed low-level prevents the network from overfitting and is able to learn low-level structures as well as high-level structures. For comparison, the artificial neural networks (ANN), Bayesian neural networks (BNN) and original deep belief networks (DBN) classifiers are used. The classification results show that using AR feature extractor and DBN classifiers, the classification performance achieves an improved classification performance with a of sensitivity of 90.8%, a specificity of 90.4%, an accuracy of 90.6% and an area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) of 0.94 compared to ANN (sensitivity at 80.8%, specificity at 77.8%, accuracy at 79.3% with AUC-ROC of 0.83) and BNN classifiers (sensitivity at 84.3%, specificity at 83%, accuracy at 83.6% with AUROC of 0.87). Using the sparse-DBN classifier, the classification performance improved further with sensitivity of 93.9%, a specificity of 92.3% and an accuracy of 93.1% with AUROC of 0.96. Overall, the sparse-DBN classifier improved accuracy by 13.8%, 9.5% and 2.5% over ANN, BNN and DBN classifiers respectively.

Chai, R, Naik, GR, Ling, SH & Nguyen, HT 2017, 'Hybrid brain–computer interface for biomedical cyber-physical system application using wireless embedded EEG systems', BioMedical Engineering OnLine, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 1-23.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: One of the key challenges of the biomedical cyber-physical system is to combine cognitive neuroscience with the integration of physical systems to assist people with disabilities. Electroencephalography (EEG) has been explored as a non-invasive method of providing assistive technology by using brain electrical signals. Methods: This paper presents a unique prototype of a hybrid brain computer interface (BCI) which senses a combination classification of mental task, steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) and eyes closed detection using only two EEG channels. In addition, a microcontroller based head-mounted battery-operated wireless EEG sensor combined with a separate embedded system is used to enhance portability, convenience and cost effectiveness. This experiment has been conducted with five healthy participants and five patients with tetraplegia. Results: Generally, the results show comparable classification accuracies between healthy subjects and tetraplegia patients. For the offline artificial neural network classification for the target group of patients with tetraplegia, the hybrid BCI system combines three mental tasks, three SSVEP frequencies and eyes closed, with average classification accuracy at 74% and average information transfer rate (ITR) of the system of 27 bits/min. For the real-time testing of the intentional signal on patients with tetraplegia, the average success rate of detection is 70% and the speed of detection varies from 2 to 4 s.

Chai, R, Naik, GR, Nguyen, TN, Ling, SH, Tran, Y, Craig, A & Nguyen, HT 2017, 'Driver Fatigue Classification With Independent Component by Entropy Rate Bound Minimization Analysis in an EEG-Based System', IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 715-724.
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This paper presents a two-class electroencephalography (EEG)-based classification for classifying of driver fatigue (fatigue state vs. alert state) from 43 healthy participants. The system uses independent component by entropy rate bound minimization analysis (ERBM-ICA) for the source separation, autoregressive (AR) modeling for the features extraction and Bayesian neural network for the classification algorithm. The classification results demonstrate a sensitivity of 89.7%, a specificity of 86.8% and an accuracy of 88.2%. The combination of ERBM-ICA (source separator), AR (feature extractor) and Bayesian neural network (classifier) provides the best outcome with a p-value < 0.05 with the highest value of area under the receiver operating curve (AUC-ROC=0.93) against other methods such as power spectral density (PSD) as feature extractor (AUC-ROC=0.81). The results of this study suggest the method could be utilized effectively for a countermeasure device for driver fatigue identification and other adverse event applications.

Chan, YL, Saad, S, Al-Odat, I, Oliver, BG, Pollock, C, Jones, NM & Chen, H 2017, 'Maternal L-Carnitine Supplementation Improves Brain Health in Offspring from Cigarette Smoke Exposed Mothers', Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, vol. 10, pp. 1-15.
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© 2017 Chan, Saad, Al-Odat, Oliver, Pollock, Jones and Chen. Maternal cigarette smoke exposure (SE) causes detrimental changes associated with the development of chronic neurological diseases in the offspring as a result of oxidative mitochondrial damage. Maternal L-Carnitine administration has been shown to reduce renal oxidative stress in SE offspring, but its effect in the brain is unknown. Here, we investigated the effects of maternal L-Carnitine supplementation on brain markers of oxidative stress, autophagy, mitophagy and mitochondrial energy producing oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) complexes in SE offspring. Female Balb/c mice (8 weeks) were exposed to cigarette smoke prior to mating, during gestation and lactation with or without L-Carnitine supplementation (1.5 mM in drinking water). In 1 day old male SE offspring, brain mitochondrial damage was suggested by increased mitochondrial fusion and reduced autophagosome markers; whereas at 13 weeks, enhanced brain cell damage was suggested by reduced fission and autophagosome markers, as well as increased apoptosis and DNA fragmentation markers, which were partially reversed by maternal L-Carnitine supplementation. In female SE offspring, enhanced mitochondrial regeneration was suggested by decreased fission and increased fusion markers at day 1. At 13 weeks, there was an increase in brain energy demand, oxidative stress and mitochondrial turnover, reflected by the protein changes of OXPHOS complex, fission and autophagosome markers, as well as the endogenous antioxidant, which were also partially normalized by maternal L-Carnitine supplementation. However, markers of apoptosis and DNA fragmentation were not significantly changed. Thus L-Carnitine supplementation may benefit the brain health of the offspring from smoking mothers.

Chan, YL, Saad, S, Machaalani, R, Oliver, BG, Vissel, B, Pollock, C, Jones, NM & Chen, H 2017, 'Maternal Cigarette Smoke Exposure Worsens Neurological Outcomes in Adolescent Offspring with Hypoxic-Ischemic Injury', Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, vol. 10, pp. 1-17.
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© 2017 Chan, Saad, Machaalani, Oliver, Vissel, Pollock, Jones and Chen. Hypoxic-ischemic (HI) encephalopathy occurs in approximately 6 per 1000 term newborns leading to devastating neurological consequences, such as cerebral palsy and seizures. Maternal smoking is one of the prominent risk factors contributing to HI injury. Mitochondrial integrity plays a critical role in neural injury and repair during HI. We previously showed that maternal cigarette smoke exposure (SE) can reduce brain mitochondrial fission and autophagosome markers in male offspring. This was accompanied by increased brain cell apoptosis (active caspase-3) and DNA fragmentation (TUNEL staining). Here, we aimed to investigate whether maternal SE leads to more severe neurological damage after HI brain injury in male offspring. Female BALB/c mice (8 weeks) were exposed to cigarette smoke prior to mating, during gestation, and lactation. At postnatal day 10, half of the pups from each litter underwent left carotid artery occlusion, followed by exposure to 8% oxygen (92% nitrogen). At postnatal day 40–44, maternal SE reduced grip strength in grip traction and foot fault tests, which were also reduced by HI injury to similar levels regardless of the maternal group. Limb coordination was impaired by maternal SE which was not worsened by HI injury. Maternal SE increased anxiety level in the offspring, which was normalized by HI injury. Apoptosis markers were increased in different brain regions by maternal SE, with the cortex having further increased TUNEL by HI injury, along with increased markers of inflammation and mitophagy. We conclude that maternal SE can worsen HI-induced cellular damage in male offspring well into adolescence.

Chen, Q, Lan, C, Chen, B, Wang, L, Li, J & Zhang, C 2017, 'Exploring Consensus RNA Substructural Patterns Using Subgraph Mining', IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 1134-1146.
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Chen, Q, Wang, Y, Chen, B, Zhang, C, Wang, L & Li, J 2017, 'Using propensity scores to predict the kinases of unannotated phosphopeptides', Knowledge-Based Systems, vol. 135, pp. 60-76.
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© 2017 Protein phosphorylation is the process of binding a protein kinase to a specific site in a protein substrate for post-translational modification. Thousands of distinct phosphorylation sites have been identified, but most of them are not annotated with any kinase information. This work proposes a novel kinase-subgrouping propensity method (kiSP) to predict the binding kinases for phosphopeptides. Existing methods do not distinguish the residue conservation properties of the kinase family subgroups for annotation. Our method exploits maximum entropy variance to prune non-conserved sites from the subset of phosphopeptides that bind to the same kinase family. We also use maximal mutual information to estimate an appropriate upstream-downstream window size for this subset. A propensity score for every kinase family is calculated from its positive and negative data, which indicates its effectiveness as a site for each test phosphopeptide. Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms current algorithms in specificity and sensitivity under cross-validation. kiSP is also demonstrated to correctly predict kinase families for phosphopeptides with unknown kinase information.

Cheng, YY, Mok, E, Tan, S, Leygo, C, McLaughlin, C, George, AM & Reid, G 2017, 'SFRPTumour Suppressor Genes Are Potential Plasma-Based Epigenetic Biomarkers for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma', Disease Markers, vol. 2017, pp. 1-10.
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Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is associated with asbestos exposure. Asbestos can induce chronic inflammation which in turn can lead to silencing of tumour suppressor genes. Wnt signaling pathway can be affected by chronic inflammation and is aberrantly activated in many cancers including colon and MPM.SFRPgenes are antagonists of Wnt pathway, andSFRPs are potential tumour suppressors in colon, gastric, breast, ovarian, and lung cancers and mesothelioma. This study investigated the expression and DNA methylation ofSFRPgenes in MPM cells lines with and without demethylation treatment. Sixty-six patient FFPE samples were analysed and have showed methylation ofSFRP2(56%) andSFRP5(70%) in MPM.SFRP2andSFRP5tumour-suppressive activity in eleven MPM lines was confirmed, and long-term asbestos exposure led to reduced expression of theSFRP1andSFRP2 genes in the mesothelium (MeT-5A) via epigenetic alterations. Finally, DNA methylation ofSFRPs is detectable in MPM patient plasma samples, with methylatedSFRP2andSFRP5showing a tendency towards greater abundance in patients. These data suggested thatSFRPgenes have tumour-suppresive activity in MPM and that methylated DNA fromSFRPgene promoters has the potential to serve as a biomarker for MPM patient plasma.

Cho, C-M, Parker, D & Blyth, S 2017, 'COMMUNITY BASED HOME VISITING SERVICE IN KOREA: CITY OF GWANGMYEONG.', Aust Nurs Midwifery J, vol. 24, no. 7, p. 38.
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There has been growing interest in enhancing the quality of life of the economically vulnerable through programs aimed at improving the equality of and accessibility to public health services for these people.

Choi, G, Karacan, I, Cazalbou, S, Evans, L, Sinutok, S & Ben-Nissan, B 2017, 'Conversion of Calcified Algae (<i>Halimeda </i>sp) and Hard Coral (<i>Porites </i>sp) to Hydroxyapatite', Key Engineering Materials, vol. 758, pp. 157-161.
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Calcium phosphate materials can be produced using a number of wet methods that are based on hydrothermal or co-precipitation methods that might use acidic or basic chemical environments. In our previously published works, we have investigated calcium phosphates such as monetite, hydroxyapatite, and whitlockite which were successfully produced by mechano-chemical methods and/or hydrothermal treatments from a range of marine shells and corals which were obtained from the Great Barrier Reef. The aim of the current work was to analyze and compare the mechanisms of conversion of one hard coral species and one calcified algae species from the Great Barrier Reef.

Clark, K, Lam, LT, Talley, NJ, Phillips, JL & Currow, DC 2017, 'Identifying Factors That Predict Worse Constipation Symptoms in Palliative Care Patients: A Secondary Analysis', Journal of Palliative Medicine, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 528-532.
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© Copyright 2017, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2017. Objective: The aim of this work was to investigate whether variables identified as likely to impact the experience of constipation in other clinical settings similarly affected the experiences of constipated palliative care patients. Background: The majority of palliative care patients with cancer are likely to be bothered by constipation symptoms at some point in their disease trajectory. Despite this, it remains unclear as to which factors predict more severe problems. Methods: This study was conducted in a sample of 94 constipated palliative care patients who were asked to voluntarily complete a series of questions regarding their demographic and other characteristics, including whether they had chronic constipation symptoms, that is, constipation symptoms for 12 months. Other variables included age, body mass index, sex, performance status, and regular opioids and their doses. At the same time, they were asked to complete the Patient Assessment of Constipation Symptoms (PAC-SYM) and Patient Assessment of Constipation Quality of Life (PAC-QOL) questionnaires. Results: Descriptive statistics summarized baseline data. Unadjusted associations between the selected variables on PAC-SYM were examined by using bi-variate analyses. Significant variables identified on bi-variate analyses were included in a multivariate analysis. The final results identified that only the chronicity of constipation symptoms predicted more severe symptoms. This relationship persisted when this single variable was retained in the final model, illustrating that PAC-SYM scores are 0.41 higher in patients with chronic constipation compared with those without it (p = 0.02). In contrast, regular opioid use was not identified as a significant factor (p = 0.56). Discussion: This study suggests that the factor most likely to predict worse constipation symptoms was the duration that people had experienced problems. Further, those who perceiv...

Cohen, R, Newton-John, T & Slater, A 2017, 'The relationship between Facebook and Instagram appearance-focused activities and body image concerns in young women', Body Image, vol. 23, pp. 183-187.
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© 2017 The present study aimed to identify the specific social networking sites (SNS) features that relate to body image concerns in young women. A total of 259 women aged 18–29 years completed questionnaire measures of SNS use (Facebook and Instagram) and body image concerns. It was found that appearance-focused SNS use, rather than overall SNS use, was related to body image concerns in young women. Specifically, greater engagement in photo activities on Facebook, but not general Facebook use, was associated with greater thin-ideal internalisation and body surveillance. Similarly, following appearance-focused accounts on Instagram was associated with thin-ideal internalisation, body surveillance, and drive for thinness, whereas following appearance-neutral accounts was not associated with any body image outcomes. Implications for future SNS research, as well as for body image and disordered eating interventions for young women, are discussed.

Collier, A, Breaden, K, Phillips, JL, Agar, M, Litster, C & Currow, DC 2017, 'Caregivers' Perspectives on the Use of Long-Term Oxygen Therapy for the Treatment of Refractory Breathlessness: A Qualitative Study', Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 33-39.
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© 2016 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Context Despite limited clinical evidence, long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) is used for the management of refractory breathlessness in people with life-limiting illnesses who are not necessarily hypoxemic. Objectives The aim of this study was to understand caregiver factors associated with caring for someone with LTOT from the perspectives and experiences of caregivers themselves. Methods The qualitative study used semistructured interviews. The study was conducted in two states in Australia. Participants (n = 20) were self-nominated caregivers of people receiving LTOT for refractory breathlessness in the palliative setting. Results Data analyses established one overarching theme titled: “Oxygen giveth (something to help caregivers relieve breathlessness) and oxygen taketh away (from patients who lose some autonomy).” The theme captured caregivers' feelings of extreme distress in response to witnessing refractory breathlessness, and oxygen fulfilling several critical and beneficial roles in this context. In parallel, caregivers also explicitly and implicitly articulated several downsides to the use of LTOT. Conclusion Caregivers find caring for someone with refractory breathlessness extremely distressing. The benefits of LTOT are often overestimated, whereas its potential harms are underestimated. As significant stakeholders of people receiving LTOT, caregivers should be provided with opportunities to collaborate with clinicians in evidence-based decision making, efforts should be made to provide them with information and education about the most effective pharmacological and nonpharmacological strategies to manage refractory breathlessness in a palliative care setting including the appropriate use of LTOT to enable them to do so.

Comas, M, Gordon, CJ, Oliver, BG, Stow, NW, King, G, Sharma, P, Ammit, AJ, Grunstein, RR & Phillips, CL 2017, 'A circadian based inflammatory response – implications for respiratory disease and treatment', Sleep Science and Practice, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-19.
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Circadian clocks regulate the daily timing of many of our physiological, metabolic and biochemical functions. The immune system also displays circadian oscillations in immune cell count, synthesis and cytokine release, clock gene expression in cells and organs of the immune system as well as clock-controlled genes that regulate immune function. Circadian disruption leads to dysregulation of immune responses and inflammation which can further disrupt circadian rhythms. The response of organisms to immune challenges, such as allergic reactions also vary depending on time of the day, which can lead to detrimental responses particularly during the rest and early active periods. This review evaluates what is currently known in terms of circadian biology of immune response and the cross-talk between circadian and immune system. We discuss the circadian pattern of three respiratory-related inflammatory diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, allergic rhinitis and asthma. Increasing our knowledge on circadian patterns of immune responses and developing chronotherapeutic studies in inflammatory diseases with strong circadian patterns will lead to preventive measures as well as improved therapies focussing on the circadian rhythms of symptoms and the daily variation of the patients’ responses to medication.

Cooper, ER, McGrath, KCY, Li, X, Akram, O, Kasz, R, Kazlauskas, R, McLeod, MD, Handelsman, DJ & Heather, AK 2017, 'The use of tandem yeast and mammalian cell in vitro androgen bioassays to detect androgens in internet‐sourced sport supplements', Drug Testing and Analysis, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 545-552.
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Sport supplements containing steroids never approved for therapeutic use have the potential for abuse by athletes. Most are marketed online and may contain undisclosed steroids yet are readily available despite lacking toxicological or pharmacological evaluation. In this study, 18 supplements purchased online underwent organic solvent extraction to isolate any steroids they contained. From the 18 supplements, 19 steroids were identified and for each, its intrinsic androgenic potency was determined by a yeast cell (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) androgen bioassay and its potential androgenic potency was determined by a liver (HuH7) cell androgen bioassay. The yeast bioassay showed that of the 19 steroids tested, 6 demonstrated strong intrinsic bioactivity, with 4 metabolically activated to even stronger androgens. Moreover, 4 steroids with moderate and 1 with intrinsically weak androgenic bioactivity were activated to more potent androgens. Finally, 8 steroids were metabolically inactivated or deactivated into weaker androgens. Our results show that Internet‐sourced sport supplements may contain intrinsically strong androgens, or precursors that can be metabolized to them. These potentially potent pharmacologically active steroids are being used without regulatory control or consumer awareness of their potential adverse effects. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Coutinho, D, Gonçalves, B, Travassos, B, Wong, DP, Coutts, AJ & Sampaio, JE 2017, 'Mental Fatigue and Spatial References Impair Soccer Players' Physical and Tactical Performances', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, pp. 1-12.
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This study examined the effects of mental fatigue and additional corridor and pitch sector lines on players' physical and tactical performances during soccer small-sided games. Twelve youth players performed four Gk+6vs6+Gk small-sided games. Prior to the game, one team performed a motor coordination task to induce mental fatigue, while the other one performed a control task. A repeated measures design allowed to compare players' performances across four conditions: (a) with mental fatigue against opponents without mental fatigue in a normal pitch (MEN), (b) with mental fatigue on a pitch with additional reference lines (#MEN); (c) without mental fatigue against mentally fatigued opponents on a normal pitch (CTR); and (d) without mental fatigue on a pitch with reference lines (#CTR). Player's physical performance was assessed by the distance covered per minute and the number of accelerations and decelerations (0.5-3.0 m/s2; > -3.0 m/s2). Positional data was used to determine individual (spatial exploration index, time synchronized in longitudinal and lateral directions) and team-related variables (length, width, speed of dispersion and contraction). Unclear effects were found for the physical activity measures in most of the conditions. There was a small decrease in time spent laterally synchronized and a moderate decrease in the contraction speed when MEN compared to the CTR. Also, there was a small decrease in the time spent longitudinally synchronized during the #MEN condition compared to MEN. The results showed that mental fatigue affects the ability to use environmental information and players' positioning, while the additional reference lines may have enhanced the use of less relevant information to guide their actions during the #MEN condition. Overall, coaches could manipulate the mental fatigue and reference lines to induce variability and adaptation in young soccer players' behavior.

Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Challenges in Developing Evidence-Based Practice in High-Performance Sport', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 717-718.
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Cranfield, CG, Henriques, ST, Martinac, B, Duckworth, P, Craik, DJ & Cornell, B 2017, 'Kalata B1 and Kalata B2 Have a Surfactant-Like Activity in Phosphatidylethanolomine-Containing Lipid Membranes', Langmuir, vol. 33, no. 26, pp. 6630-6637.
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© 2017 American Chemical Society. Cyclotides are cyclic disulfide-rich peptides that are chemically and thermally stable and possess pharmaceutical and insecticidal properties. The activities reported for cyclotides correlate with their ability to target phosphatidylethanolamine (PE)-phospholipids and disrupt cell membranes. However, the mechanism by which this disruption occurs remains unclear. In the current study we examine the effect of the prototypic cyclotides, kalata B1 (kB1) and kalata B2 (kB2), on tethered lipid bilayer membranes (tBLMs) using swept frequency electrical impedance spectroscopy. We confirmed that kB1 and kB2 bind to bilayers only if they contain PE-phospholipids. We hypothesize that the increase in membrane conduction and capacitance observed upon addition of kB1 or kB2 is unlikely to result from ion channel like pores but is consistent with the formation of lipidic toroidal pores. This hypothesis is supported by the concentration dependence of effects of kB1 and kB2 being suggestive of a critical micelle concentration event rather than a progressive increase in conduction arising from increased channel insertion. Additionally, conduction behavior is readily reversible when the peptide is rinsed from the bilayer. Our results support a mechanism by which kB1 and kB2 bind to and disrupt PE-containing membranes by decreasing the overall membrane critical packing parameter, as would a surfactant, which then opens or increases the size of existing membrane defects. The cyclotides need not participate directly in the conductive pore but might exert their effect indirectly through altering membrane packing constraints and inducing purely lipidic conductive pores.

Crowcroft, S, McCleave, E, Slattery, K & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Assessing the Measurement Sensitivity and Diagnostic Characteristics of Athlete-Monitoring Tools in National Swimmers', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. s2, pp. S295-S2100.
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Purpose:To assess measurement sensitivity and diagnostic characteristics of athlete-monitoring tools to identify performance change.Methods:Fourteen nationally competitive swimmers (11 male, 3 female; age 21.2 ± 3.2 y) recorded daily monitoring over 15 mo. The self-report group (n = 7) reported general health, energy levels, motivation, stress, recovery, soreness, and wellness. The combined group (n = 7) recorded sleep quality, perceived fatigue, total quality recovery (TQR), and heart-rate variability. The week-to-week change in mean weekly values was presented as coefficient of variance (CV%). Reliability was assessed on 3 occasions and expressed as the typical error CV%. Week-to-week change was divided by the reliability of each measure to calculate the signal-to-noise ratio. The diagnostic characteristics for both groups were assessed with receiver-operating-curve analysis, where area under the curve (AUC), Youden index, sensitivity, and specificity of measures were reported. A minimum AUC of .70 and lower confidence interval (CI) >.50 classified a “good” diagnostic tool to assess performance change.Results:Week-to-week variability was greater than reliability for soreness (3.1), general health (3.0), wellness% (2.0), motivation (1.6), sleep (2.6), TQR (1.8), fatigue (1.4), R-R interval (2.5), and LnRMSSD:RR (1.3). Only general health was a “good” diagnostic tool to assess decreased performance (AUC –.70, 95% CI, .61–.80).Conclusion:Many monitoring variables are sensitive to changes in fitness and fatigue. However, no single monitoring variable could discriminate performance change. As such the use of a multidimensional system that may be ab...

Cummins, C, McLean, B, Conlan, G & Coutts, A 2017, 'Influence of drill type and unit fitting on accelerometer derived loads in rugby league training', Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, vol. 20, pp. e117-e118.
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Currow, DC, Phillips, J & Agar, M 2017, 'Population-based models of planning for palliative care in older people', Current Opinion in Supportive & Palliative Care, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 310-314.
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Purpose of review Health service planning requires demographic, clinical, and health systems data and is unique to each health system. Planning for palliative care in older people must include patients and their carers. This review explores literature from the last 24 months. Recent findings The proportion of people living in skilled nursing facilities is increasing and many residents require quality palliative care. Simultaneously, the complexity of care for older people is also increasing. Systematic approaches to improving palliative care in these facilities have shown benefits that are cost-effective. Although advance care planning is widely promoted, a randomized controlled trial failed to show the benefits seen in nonrandomized trials. This requires a reconceptualization of current programs that seek to increase uptake. Caregivers take on complex decision-making which can be stressful. By contrast, patients are often very confident that the people who are close to them will make good decisions on their behalf. Specific subgroups considered in this review include carers (and the challenges they face), the ‘oldest old’ and people with dementia. Summary Excellent research is being done to improve the care of older people with palliative care needs. Ultimately, how can key findings be incorporated into clinical care?

Darcy, S, Green, J & Maxwell, H 2017, 'I’ve got a mobile phone too! Hard and soft assistive technology customization and supportive call centres for people with disability', Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 341-351.
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© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine the use of a mobile technology platform, software customization and technical support services by people with disability. The disability experience is framed through the participants’ use of the technology, their social participation. Method: A qualitative and interpretive research design was employed using a three-stage process of observation and semi-structured interviews of people with disability, a significant other and their service provider. Transcripts were analyzed to examine the research questions through the theoretical framework of PHAATE–Policy, Human, Activity, Assistance and Technology and Environment. Results: The analysis revealed three emergent themes: 1. Engagement and activity; 2. Training, support and customization; and 3. Enablers, barriers and attitudes. Conclusions: The findings indicate that for the majority of users, the mobile technology increased the participants’ communication and social participation. However, this was not true for all members of the pilot with variations due to disability type, support needs and availability of support services. Most participants, significant others and service providers identified improvements in confidence, security, safety and independence of those involved. Yet, the actions and attitudes of some of the significant others and service providers acted as a constraint to the adoption of the technology. Implications for Rehabilitation Customized mobile technology can operate as assistive technology providing a distinct benefit in terms of promoting disability citizenship. Mobile technology used in conjunction with a supportive call centre can lead to improvements in confidence, safety and independence for people experiencing disability. Training and support are critical in increasing independent use of mobile technology for people with disability. The enjoyment, development of ski...

Darcy, S, Lock, D & Taylor, T 2017, 'Enabling Inclusive Sport Participation: Effects of Disability and Support Needs on Constraints to Sport Participation', LEISURE SCIENCES, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 20-41.
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© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Framed by a social approach to disability and leisure constraints theory, this paper presents the results of a national study examining the constraints to sport participation for people with disability. Responses were obtained from a multi-platform questionnaire survey capturing data on constraints to participation, dimensions of disability, and level of support needs. The Exploratory Factor Analysis identified five structural together with intrapersonal and interpersonal constraint factors. While intrapersonal and interpersonal considerations were found to constrain sport participation and nonparticipation, the five structural factors had the most significant constraining impact on sport participation. The findings showed that disability type and level of support needs explain significant variations in constraints to participation and nonparticipation. When the 2-Way MANOVA included type of disability and level of support needs as contingent independent variables, the level of support needs was the most significant indicator of the likelihood of having constraints to participation or nonparticipation.

Day, MA, Lang, CP, Newton‐John, TRO, Ehde, DM & Jensen, MP 2017, 'A content review of cognitive process measures used in pain research within adult populations', European Journal of Pain, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 45-60.
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AbstractBackground and objectivePrevious research suggests that measures of cognitive process may be confounded by the inclusion of items that also assess cognitive content. The primary aims of this content review were to: (1) identify the domains of cognitive processes assessed by measures used in pain research; and (2) determine if pain‐specific cognitive process measures with adequate psychometric properties exist.Databases and data treatmentPsychInfo, CINAHL, PsycArticles, MEDLINE, and Academic Search Complete databases were searched to identify the measures of cognitive process used in pain research. Identified measures were double coded and the measure's items were rated as: (1) cognitive content; (2) cognitive process; (3) behavioural/social; and/or (4) emotional coping/responses to pain.ResultsA total of 319 scales were identified; of these, 29 were coded as providing an un‐confounded assessment of cognitive process, and 12 were pain‐specific. The cognitive process domains assessed in these measures are Absorption, Dissociation, Reappraisal, Distraction/Suppression, Acceptance, Rumination, Non‐Judgment, and Enhancement. Pain‐specific, un‐confounded measures were identified for: Dissociation, Reappraisal, Distraction/Suppression, and Acceptance. Psychometric properties of all 319 scales are reported in supplementary material.ConclusionsTo understand the importance of cognitive processes in influencing pain outcomes as well as explaining the efficacy of pain treatments, valid and pain‐specific cognitive process measures that are not confounded with non‐process domains (e.g....

De Abreu Lourenco, R, Haas, M, Hall, J & Viney, R 2017, 'Valuing Meta-Health Effects for Use in Economic Evaluations to Inform Reimbursement Decisions: A Review of the Evidence', PharmacoEconomics, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 347-362.
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© 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland. Objective: This review explores the evidence from the literature regarding how meta-health effects (effects other than health resulting from the consumption of health care) are valued for use in economic evaluations. Methods: A systematic review of the published literature (the EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, EconLit and SocINDEX databases were searched for publications in March 2016, plus manual searching) investigated the associations between study methods and the resulting values for meta-health effects estimated for use in economic evaluations. The review considered which meta-health effects were being valued and how this differed by evaluation approach, intervention investigated, source of funds and year of publication. Detailed reasons for differences observed between values for comparable meta-health effects were explored, accounting for the method of valuation. Results: The search of the literature revealed 71 studies of interest; 35% involved drug interventions, with convenience, information and process of care the three meta-health effects most often investigated. Key associations with the meta-health effects were the evaluation method, the intervention, and the source of funds. Relative values for meta-health effects ranged from 0.9% to 68% of the overall value reported in a study. For a given meta-health effect, the magnitude of the effect evaluated and how the meta-health effect was described and framed relative to overall health explained the differences in relative values. Conclusions: Evidence from the literature shows variability in how meta-health effects are being measured for use in economic evaluations. Understanding the sources of that variability is important if decision makers are to have confidence in how meta-health effects are valued.

De Abreu Lourenco, R, Kenny, P, Haas, MR & Hall, JP 2017, 'Factors affecting general practitioner charges and Medicare bulk‐billing: results of a survey of Australians — erratum', Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 206, no. 7, pp. 326-326.
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Dean, S, Foureur, M, Zaslawski, C, Newton-John, T, Yu, N & Pappas, E 2017, 'The effects of a structured mindfulness program on the development of empathy in healthcare students', NursingPlus Open, vol. 3, pp. 1-5.
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Dean, S, Peng, W, Zaslawski, C, Elliott, D, Newton-John, T, Campo, M & Pappas, E 2017, 'Mindfulness in Physical and Occupational Therapy Education and Practice: A scoping review', Physical Therapy Reviews, vol. 22, no. 5-6, pp. 221-228.
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© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Background: Mindfulness practices provide numerous benefits for individuals with a variety of health issues. Recent research has highlighted the benefits of mindfulness for health professionals. The potential benefits for physical and occupational therapists or students however, are currently unclear. Objectives: To perform a scoping review on the effects of mindfulness practices among physical (PT) and occupational therapists (OT) and students of those disciplines. Methods: Eligible published articles in English were identified through a literature search of MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, and AMED from the inception of databases to November 2015. Titles, abstracts, and full-text articles were screened for the selection of relevant papers. Articles identified as editorials, correspondences, commentaries, case reports, abstracts alone, and review papers were excluded. Results: Six studies (two qualitative studies, one quantitative study, one mixed-method study, and two experimental studies) met the inclusion criteria. Three studies focused on PT/OT students, two on clinicians and one on current clinicians who had previously failed a course. These studies highlighted the potential benefits of mindfulness for physical and occupational therapists. They should be interpreted with caution however, due to the small number of relevant studies, high heterogeneity in mindfulness interventions and methodological limitations. Conclusions: There is a paucity of research on the effects of mindfulness among physical and occupational therapists and students of those disciplines. The lack of relevant studies makes a systematic review challenging but the findings of the current studies suggest potentially promising effects.

Dehbari, N, Tavakoli, J, Singh Khatrao, S & Tang, Y 2017, 'In situ polymerized hyperbranched polymer reinforced poly(acrylic acid) hydrogels', Materials Chemistry Frontiers, vol. 1, no. 10, pp. 1995-2004.
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A novel hyperbranched polymer reinforced poly(acrylic acid) hydrogel with high water swelling abilities was synthesized by one-step in situ polymerization.

Dehbari, N, Tavakoli, J, Zhao, J & Tang, Y 2017, 'In situ formed internal water channels improving water swelling and mechanical properties of water swellable rubber composites', Journal of Applied Polymer Science, vol. 134, no. 9, pp. 1-6.
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ABSTRACTIn this study, electrospun nanofibers of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and styrene–butadiene–styrene triblock copolymer (SBS) were employed in conventional water‐swellable rubber (WSR) to design WSR composites with improved water swelling and mechanical properties. With the introduction of PVA nanofibers, considerable improvement in elasticity, strength, and water‐swelling behavior was observed. After immersion, PVA nanofibers dissolved within the composite to in situ form water channels to connect isolated super‐absorbent polymers (SAPs). Those water channels led to an increase in water uptake by the WSR composite. Furthermore, the secondary water‐swelling behaviors of the WSR composite showed a remarkable increase in swelling rate as well as in mechanical properties. The addition of SBS nanofibers had a marked impact on the mechanical properties of the WSR composite. Their roles became more pronounced after water immersion. The proposed enhancement mechanism is also discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 44548.

Dickson, TJ, Darcy, S & Benson, A 2017, 'Volunteers with Disabilities at the London 2012 Olympic And Paralympic Games: Who, Why, and Will They Do It Again?', Event Management, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 301-318.
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People with disabilities are often the recipients of volunteer services but are rarely considered as a potential volunteer resource, such as in sport events where volunteers are an essential component of major sport event operation and legacy potential. For London's 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, there was a determined effort by the Organizing Committee to recruit people with disabilities to be Games Makers (i.e., volunteers). This exploratory research investigated 786 London 2012 volunteers who self-identified as having disability or access needs. The research design involved an online questionnaire examining their motivations for volunteering, their experiences, their likelihood to continue volunteering, and their sociodemographic profile. This article contributes to the literature by examining the motivations of people with disability volunteering at a mega-sport event, as this has not been done previously. The factor analysis identified eight components: transactional; altruistic; it's all about the games; volunteering community; rewards; availability; variety; and application. The solution highlighted the duality of human capital-related transactional components where the individual wanted to improve their skills and the altruistic components of giving back and it's all about the games experience. The discussion examined these components in comparison to other mega-event volunteers to examine commonalities and contrasts.

Dickson, TJ, Misener, L & Darcy, S 2017, 'Enhancing destination competitiveness through disability sport event legacies', International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 924-946.
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PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to the event legacy discourse by exploring the nexus between event legacy literature and destination competitiveness by focusing on disability sport events or parasport and addressing an identified gap in the research literature.Design/methodology/approachThis is achieved through conducting a systematic review of disability sport events literature; performing an audit of international disability sport events; developing a typology of disability sport events; and outlining a research agenda drawing upon these previous steps. The typology is then placed in context to the destination competitiveness framework to provide direction for both host organizing committees and tourism destination managers. The research framework reflects the complexity of disability sport events with specific reference to the social impact of disability sport events for destinations.FindingsDespite calls for increased research into accessible tourism and events, the potential social legacy for communities and destinations from disability sport or parasport events remains absent from most sport, event and tourism literature. The findings and resultant typology from this study provide an interdisciplinary approach to value add to the disability sport event and destination management sectors. The combined understanding of both sectors creates an opportunity to leverage further events through marketing accessibility as a competitive advantage, seizing opportunity for international and national disability events, and the subsequent event accessible tourism and general accessible tourism that improved destination accessibility provides a host city or precinct.

DiGiacomo, M, Hatano, Y, Phillips, J, Lewis, J, Abernethy, AP & Currow, DC 2017, 'Caregiver characteristics and bereavement needs: Findings from a population study', Palliative Medicine, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 465-474.
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Background: Globally, most care for people with life-limiting illnesses is provided by informal caregivers. Identifying characteristics of caregivers that may have unmet needs and negative outcomes can help provide better support to facilitate adjustment. Aim: We compared characteristics, expressed unmet needs and outcomes for spousal caregivers, with other caregivers at the end of life, by gender and age. Design: The South Australian Health Omnibus is an annual, random, face-to-face, cross-sectional survey wherein respondents are asked about end-of-life care. Setting/participants: Participants were aged over 15 years, resided in households in South Australia and had someone close to them die from a terminal illness in the last 5 years. Results: Of the 1540 respondents who provided hands-on care for someone close at the end of life, 155 were widows/widowers. Bereaved spousal caregivers were more likely to be older, female, better educated, have lower incomes, less full-time work, English as second language, sought help with grief and provided more day-to-day care for longer periods. Spousal caregivers were less likely to be willing to take on caregiving again, less able to ‘move on’ with life and needed greater emotional support and information about illness and services. The only difference between widows and widowers was older age of spouse in women. Younger spousal caregivers perceived greater unmet emotional needs and were significantly less likely to be able to ‘move on’. Conclusion: Spousal caregivers are different from other caregivers, with more intense needs that are not fully met. These have ...

Donnelly, S, Huston, WM, Johnson, M, Tiberti, N, Saunders, B, O’Brien, B, Burke, C, Labbate, M & Combes, V 2017, 'Targeting the master regulator mTOR: a new approach to prevent the neurological of consequences of parasitic infections?', Parasites & Vectors, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1-6.
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© 2017 The Author(s). A systematic analysis of 240 causes of death in 2013 revealed that parasitic diseases were responsible for more than one million deaths. The vast majority of these fatalities resulted from protozoan infections presenting with neurological sequelae. In the absence of a vaccine, development of effective therapies is essential to improving global public health. In 2015, an intriguing strategy to prevent cerebral malaria was proposed by Gordon et al. 2015 mBio, 6:e00625. Their study suggested that inhibition of the mammalian target of rapamycin prevented experimental cerebral malaria by blocking the damage to the blood brain barrier and stopping the accumulation of parasitized red blood cells and T cells in the brain. Here, we hypothesize that the same therapeutic strategy could be adopted for other protozoan infections with a brain tropism, to prevent cerebral parasitosis by limiting pathogen replication and preventing immune mediated destruction of brain tissue.

Durepos, PM, Tamara, S, Kaasalainen, S, Ploeg, J, Parker, D & Thompson, G 2017, 'CHARACTERISTICS OF RESIDENTS IN NEED AND FAMILY PERCEPTIONS OF FAMILY CARE CONFERENCES IN LTC', Innovation in Aging, vol. 1, no. suppl_1, pp. 445-445.
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Ebenezer, JA, Christensen, JM, Oliver, BG, Oliver, RA, Tijn, G, Ho, J, Habib, AR, Rimmer, J, Sacks, R & Harvey, RJ 2017, 'Periostin as a marker of mucosal remodelling in chronic rhinosinusitis', Rhinology journal, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 234-241.
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© 2017, International Rhinologic Society. All rights reserved. Background: Although extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins are associated with irreversible lower airway changes, the relationship with upper airway remodelling which occurs during chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is poorly understood. This study assessed the expression of ECM proteins periostin, fibulin-1, fibronectin and collagenIV in nasal mucosa of patients with and without histologic features of remodelling. Methods: A cross-sectional study of sinonasal mucosal biopsies taken from patients, undergoing surgery for CRS was performed, where patients were grouped according to remodelling, defined by basement membrane thickening (BMT>7.5µm) and subepithelial fibrosis. An overall view and three random fields of immunostained tissue sections that included epithelium, basement membrane and submucosa, were imaged using Zeiss Zen software. The area and intensity of positive staining were scored by two blinded observers, using a 12-point ordinal scale of weak to strong. Results: 65 patients (47.6 ± 13.4years, 44.6% female) were assessed. Patients were grouped as controls 26.2%, BMT/no fibrosis 38.5% or BMT and fibrosis 33.8%. Stronger grade of periostin expression was associated with remodelling changes and tissue eosinophilia>10/HPF. Fibulin-1, fibronectin and collagenIV did not differ. Conclusion: Periostin expression was associated with the presence of BMT, fibrosis and tissue eosinophilia; and may identify patients undergoing remodelling changes.

Faiz, A, Donovan, C, Nieuwenhuis, MA, van den Berge, M, Postma, DS, Yao, S, Park, CY, Hirsch, R, Fredberg, JJ, Tjin, G, Halayko, AJ, Rempel, KL, Ward, JPT, Lee, T, Bossé, Y, Nickle, DC, Obeidat, M, Vonk, JM, Black, JL, Oliver, BG, Krishnan, R, McParland, B, Bourke, JE & Burgess, JK 2017, 'Latrophilin receptors: novel bronchodilator targets in asthma', Thorax, vol. 72, no. 1, pp. 74-82.
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© 2017 Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. Background Asthma affects 300 million people worldwide. In asthma, the major cause of morbidity and mortality is acute airway narrowing, due to airway smooth muscle (ASM) hypercontraction, associated with airway remodelling. However, little is known about the transcriptional differences between healthy and asthmatic ASM cells. Objectives To investigate the transcriptional differences between asthmatic and healthy airway smooth muscle cells (ASMC) in culture and investigate the identified targets using in vitro and ex vivo techniques. Methods Human asthmatic and healthy ASMC grown in culture were run on Affymetrix-Hugene-1.0-ST microarrays. Identified candidates were confirmed by PCR, and immunohistochemistry. Functional analysis was conducted using in vitro ASMC proliferation, attachment and contraction assays and ex vivo contraction of mouse airways. Results We suggest a novel role for latrophilin (LPHN) receptors, finding increased expression on ASMC from asthmatics, compared with non-asthmatics in vivo and in vitro, suggesting a role in mediating airway function. A single nucleotide polymorphism in LPHN1 was associated with asthma and with increased LPHN1 expression in lung tissue. When activated, LPHNs regulated ASMC adhesion and proliferation in vitro, and promoted contraction of mouse airways and ASMC. Conclusions Given the need for novel inhibitors of airway remodelling and bronchodilators in asthma, the LPHN family may represent promising novel targets for future dual therapeutic intervention.

Falque, R, Vidal-Calleja, T & Miro, J 2017, 'Defect Detection and Segmentation Framework for Remote Field Eddy Current Sensor Data', Sensors, vol. 17, no. 10, pp. 2276-2276.
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© 2017 by the authors; Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Remote-Field Eddy-Current (RFEC) technology is often used as a Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) method to prevent water pipe failures. By analyzing the RFEC data, it is possible to quantify the corrosion present in pipes. Quantifying the corrosion involves detecting defects and extracting their depth and shape. For large sections of pipelines, this can be extremely time-consuming if performed manually. Automated approaches are therefore well motivated. In this article, we propose an automated framework to locate and segment defects in individual pipe segments, starting from raw RFEC measurements taken over large pipelines. The framework relies on a novel feature to robustly detect these defects and a segmentation algorithm applied to the deconvolved RFEC signal. The framework is evaluated using both simulated and real datasets, demonstrating its ability to efficiently segment the shape of corrosion defects.

Ferrage, L, Bertrand, G, Lenormand, P, Grossin, D & Ben-Nissan, B 2017, 'A review of the additive manufacturing (3DP) of bioceramics: alumina, zirconia (PSZ) and hydroxyapatite', Journal of the Australian Ceramic Society, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 11-20.
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© 2016 Australian Ceramic Society. The additive manufacturing of bioceramic parts has been investigated since the 1980s. This paper offers an overview of the present achievements in the production of alumina, zirconia and hydroxyapatite parts by means of selective laser sintering/melting of a powder bed or stereolithography. A focus is placed on these specific materials because of their widespread use in the biomedical field. It demonstrates that even though the manufacturing of parts with these processes is possible from pure bioceramics, the use of a binder (or another chemical adjuvant) is required in order to achieve good mechanical properties. Still, improvements in the raw material preparation and in the comprehension of the physical phenomena occurring during the processing remain necessary to be able to prevent the formation of cracks or to be able to control the porosity of the parts.

Figtree, GA, Bubb, KJ, Tang, O, Kizana, E & Gentile, C 2017, 'Vascularized Cardiac Spheroids as Novel 3D in vitro Models to Study Cardiac Fibrosis', Cells Tissues Organs, vol. 204, no. 3-4, pp. 191-198.
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Spheroid cultures are among the most explored cellular biomaterials used in cardiovascular research, due to their improved integration of biochemical and physiological features of the heart in a defined architectural three-dimensional microenvironment when compared to monolayer cultures. To further explore the potential use of spheroid cultures for research, we engineered a novel in vitro model of the heart with vascularized cardiac spheroids (VCSs), by coculturing cardiac myocytes, endothelial cells, and fibroblasts isolated from dissociated rat neonatal hearts (aged 1-3 days) in hanging drop cultures. To evaluate the validity of VCSs in recapitulating pathophysiological processes typical of the in vivo heart, such as cardiac fibrosis, we then treated VCSs with transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGFβ1), a known profibrotic agent. Our mRNA analysis demonstrated that TGFβ1-treated VCSs present elevated levels of expression of connective tissue growth factor, fibronectin, and TGFβ1 when compared to control cultures. We demonstrated a dramatic increase in collagen deposition following TGFβ1 treatment in VCSs in the PicroSirius Red-stained sections. Doxorubicin, a renowned cardiotoxic and profibrotic agent, triggered apoptosis and disrupted vascular networks in VCSs. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that VCSs are a valid model for the study of the mechanisms involved in cardiac fibrosis, with the potential to be used to investigate novel mechanisms and therapeutics for treating and preventing cardiac fibrosis in vitro.

Fransen, J, Lovell, TWJ, Bennett, KJM, Deprez, D, Deconinck, FJA, Lenoir, M & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'The Influence of Restricted Visual Feedback on Dribbling Performance in Youth Soccer Players', Motor Control, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 158-167.
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The aim of the current study was to examine the influence of restricted visual feedback using stroboscopic eyewear on the dribbling performance of youth soccer players. Three dribble test conditions were used in a within-subjects design to measure the effect of restricted visual feedback on soccer dribbling performance in 189 youth soccer players (age: 10–18 y) classified as fast, average or slow dribblers. The results showed that limiting visual feedback increased dribble test times across all abilities. Furthermore, the largest performance decrement between stroboscopic and full vision conditions was in fast dribblers, showing that fast dribblers were most affected by reduced visual information. This may be due to a greater dependency on visual feedback at increased speeds, which may limit the ability to maintain continuous control of the ball. These findings may have important implications for the development of soccer dribbling ability.

Gerace, D, Martiniello-Wilks, R, Nassif, NT, Lal, S, Steptoe, R & Simpson, AM 2017, 'CRISPR-targeted genome editing of mesenchymal stem cell-derived therapies for type 1 diabetes: a path to clinical success?', Stem Cell Research & Therapy, vol. 8, no. 1.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Due to their ease of isolation, differentiation capabilities, and immunomodulatory properties, the therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has been assessed in numerous pre-clinical and clinical settings. Currently, whole pancreas or islet transplantation is the only cure for people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and, due to the autoimmune nature of the disease, MSCs have been utilised either natively or transdifferentiated into insulin-producing cells (IPCs) as an alternative treatment. However, the initial success in pre-clinical animal models has not translated into successful clinical outcomes. Thus, this review will summarise the current state of MSC-derived therapies for the treatment of T1D in both the pre-clinical and clinical setting, in particular their use as an immunomodulatory therapy and targets for the generation of IPCs via gene modification. In this review, we highlight the limitations of current clinical trials of MSCs for the treatment of T1D, and suggest the novel clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) gene-editing technology and improved clinical trial design as strategies to translate pre-clinical success to the clinical setting.

Gerami, A, Armstrong, RT, Johnston, B, Warkiani, ME, Mosavat, N & Mostaghimi, P 2017, 'Coal-on-a-Chip: Visualizing Flow in Coal Fractures', Energy & Fuels, vol. 31, no. 10, pp. 10393-10403.
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© 2017 American Chemical Society. Geomaterial microfluidics are the next generation of tools necessary for studying fluid flows related to subsurface engineering technologies. Traditional microfluidic devices do not capture surface wettability and roughness parameters that can have a significant influence on porous media flows. This is particularly important for coal seam gas reservoirs in which methane gas is transported through a well-developed system of natural fractures that display unique wettability and roughness characteristics. A coal geomaterial microfluidic device can be generated by etching a fracture pattern on a coal surface by using three-dimensional laser micromachining; however, it is unclear if the resulting surface properties are representative of real coal. In an effort to generate a realistic coal microfluidic device, we characterize coal surface roughness properties from real coal cleats. We then compare these results to the roughness of the patterns, generated from laser etching. Roughness measurements in real coal fractures show that cleats and microfractures are mostly oriented parallel to the coal beddings rather than perpendicular to the bedding, which is important when selecting coal for fabrication of a microfluidic device since we find that the natural microfractures influence the resulting roughness of etched fractures. We also compare resulting coal/brine/gas contact angles under static and dynamics conditions. The contact angle for coal is highly heterogeneous. Surface roughness and pore pressure may influence the contact angle. With the aid of the coal geomaterial device, the effect of these parameters on coal wettability can be explored and a range of possible coal contact angles can be visualized and represented. The geomaterial fabrication, as outlined herein, provides a tool to capture more realistic coal surface properties in microfluidics experiments.

Ghadiri, M, Young, PM, Jarolimek, W, Grau, GER, Oliver, BGG & Traini, D 2017, 'The effect of non-specific tight junction modulators on the transepithelial transport of poorly permeable drugs across airway epithelial cells', Journal of Drug Targeting, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 342-349.
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© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The epithelial barrier in the respiratory system is a major obstacle for drug delivery to the systemic circulation in the lung. Epithelial barrier hinders the transport of large macromolecules or polar drugs. Essential components of this epithelial fence are physical intercellular structures termed tight junctions. Therefore, modulating tight junctions can enhance paracellular transport across epithelial barrier. In this study, the effect of some of non-specific tight junction modulators (TJMs); (Sodium (Na) decanoate, oleic acid and ethyleneglycol-bis-(β-aminoethyl ether)-N, N′-tetraacetic acid (EGTA)) with established effect on intestinal tight junctions was evaluated for its effects on bronchial epithelial cells (Calu-3 cells). It was demonstrated that the effect of TJMs especially Na decanoate resulted in a reversible opening of tight junctions evidenced by the decrease in the transepithelial resistance. It was also demonstrated that this reduction of TEER upon exposing the epithelial cells to the TJMs resulted in a significant increase in Flu-Na (paracellular marker) and PXS25 (anti-fibrotic compound) transepithelial transport through this barrier. In conclusion, among the investigated non-specific TJMs, Na decanoate fulfilled the requirements of an effective, non-toxic and reversible tight junction modulator for Calu-3 lung epithelial cells.

Ghaffari Jadidi, M, Miro, JV & Dissanayake, G 2017, 'Warped Gaussian Processes Occupancy Mapping With Uncertain Inputs', IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 680-687.
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© 2017 IEEE. In this paper, we study extensions to the Gaussian processes (GPs) continuous occupancy mapping problem. There are two classes of occupancy mapping problems that we particularly investigate. The first problem is related to mapping under pose uncertainty and how to propagate pose estimation uncertainty into the map inference. We develop expected kernel and expected submap notions to deal with uncertain inputs. In the second problem, we account for the complication of the robot's perception noise using warped Gaussian processes (WGPs). This approach allows for non-Gaussian noise in the observation space and captures the possible nonlinearity in that space better than standard GPs. The developed techniques can be applied separately or concurrently to a standard GP occupancy mapping problem. According to our experimental results, although taking into account pose uncertainty leads, as expected, to more uncertain maps, by modeling the nonlinearities present in the observation space WGPs improve the map quality.

Gheisari, S, Charlton, A, Catchpoole, DR & Kennedy, PJ 2017, 'Computers can classify neuroblastic tumours from histopathological images using machine learning', Pathology, vol. 49, pp. S72-S73.
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Ghosh, S, Li, J, Cao, L & Ramamohanarao, K 2017, 'Septic shock prediction for ICU patients via coupled HMM walking on sequential contrast patterns', Journal of Biomedical Informatics, vol. 66, pp. 19-31.
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© 2016 Background and objective Critical care patient events like sepsis or septic shock in intensive care units (ICUs) are dangerous complications which can cause multiple organ failures and eventual death. Preventive prediction of such events will allow clinicians to stage effective interventions for averting these critical complications. Methods It is widely understood that physiological conditions of patients on variables such as blood pressure and heart rate are suggestive to gradual changes over a certain period of time, prior to the occurrence of a septic shock. This work investigates the performance of a novel machine learning approach for the early prediction of septic shock. The approach combines highly informative sequential patterns extracted from multiple physiological variables and captures the interactions among these patterns via coupled hidden Markov models (CHMM). In particular, the patterns are extracted from three non-invasive waveform measurements: the mean arterial pressure levels, the heart rates and respiratory rates of septic shock patients from a large clinical ICU dataset called MIMIC-II. Evaluation and results For baseline estimations, SVM and HMM models on the continuous time series data for the given patients, using MAP (mean arterial pressure), HR (heart rate), and RR (respiratory rate) are employed. Single channel patterns based HMM (SCP-HMM) and multi-channel patterns based coupled HMM (MCP-HMM) are compared against baseline models using 5-fold cross validation accuracies over multiple rounds. Particularly, the results of MCP-HMM are statistically significant having a p-value of 0.0014, in comparison to baseline models. Our experiments demonstrate a strong competitive accuracy in the prediction of septic shock, especially when the interactions between the multiple variables are coupled by the learning model. Conclusions It can be concluded that the novelty of the approach, stems from the integration of sequence-based phy...

Golzan, SM, Goozee, K, Georgevsky, D, Avolio, A, Chatterjee, P, Shen, K, Gupta, V, Chung, R, Savage, G, Orr, CF, Martins, RN & Graham, SL 2017, 'Retinal vascular and structural changes are associated with amyloid burden in the elderly: ophthalmic biomarkers of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease', Alzheimer's Research & Therapy, vol. 9, no. 1.
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Goodswen, SJ, Kennedy, PJ & Ellis, JT 2017, 'On the application of reverse vaccinology to parasitic diseases: a perspective on feature selection and ranking of vaccine candidates', International Journal for Parasitology, vol. 47, no. 12, pp. 779-790.
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Reverse vaccinology has the potential to rapidly advance vaccine development against parasites, but it is unclear which features studied in silico will advance vaccine development. Here we consider Neospora caninum which is a globally distributed protozoan parasite causing significant economic and reproductive loss to cattle industries worldwide. The aim of this study was to use a reverse vaccinology approach to compile a worthy vaccine candidate list for N. caninum, including proteins containing pathogen-associated molecular patterns to act as vaccine carriers. The in silico approach essentially involved collecting a wide range of gene and protein features from public databases or computationally predicting those for every known Neospora protein. This data collection was then analysed using an automated high-throughput process to identify candidates. The final vaccine list compiled was judged to be the optimum within the constraints of available data, current knowledge, and existing bioinformatics programs. We consider and provide some suggestions and experience on how ranking of vaccine candidate lists can be performed. This study is therefore important in that it provides a valuable resource for establishing new directions in vaccine research against neosporosis and other parasitic diseases of economic and medical importance.

Gorrie, C, Nguyen, T, Mao, Y & Sutherland, T 2017, 'Neural progenitor cells but not astrocytes respond distally to thoracic spinal cord injury in rat models', Neural Regeneration Research, vol. 12, no. 11, pp. 1885-1885.
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Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a detrimental condition that causes loss of sensory and motor function in an individual. Many complex secondary injury cascades occur after SCI and they offer great potential for therapeutic targeting. In this study, we investigated the response of endogenous neural progenitor cells, astrocytes, and microglia to a localized thoracic SCI throughout the neuroaxis. Twenty-five adult female Sprague-Dawley rats underwent mild-contusion thoracic SCI (n = 9), sham surgery (n = 8), or no surgery (n = 8). Spinal cord and brain tissues were fixed and cut at six regions of the neuroaxis. Immunohistochemistry showed increased reactivity of neural progenitor cell marker nestin in the central canal at all levels of the spinal cord. Increased reactivity of astrocyte-specific marker glial fibrillary acidic protein was found only at the lesion epicenter. The number of activated microglia was significantly increased at the lesion site, and activated microglia extended to the lumbar enlargement. Phagocytic microglia and macrophages were significantly increased only at the lesion site. There were no changes in nestin, glial fibrillary acidic protein, microglia and macrophage response in the third ventricle of rats subjected to mild-contusion thoracic SCI compared to the sham surgery or no surgery. These findings indicate that neural progenitor cells, astrocytes and microglia respond differently to a localized SCI, presumably due to differences in inflammatory signaling. These different cellular responses may have implications in the way that neural progenitor cells can be manipulated for neuroregeneration after SCI. This needs to be further investigated.

Gourlay, ML, Ritter, VS, Fine, JP, Overman, RA, Schousboe, JT, Cawthon, PM, Orwoll, ES, Nguyen, TV, Lane, NE, Cummings, SR, Kado, DM, Lapidus, JA, Diem, SJ & Ensrud, KE 2017, 'Comparison of fracture risk assessment tools in older men without prior hip or spine fracture: the MrOS study', Archives of Osteoporosis, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1-11.
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© 2017, International Osteoporosis Foundation and National Osteoporosis Foundation. Abstract: Summary: Femoral neck bone mineral density (BMD), age plus femoral neck BMD T score, and three externally generated fracture risk tools had similar accuracy to identify older men who developed osteoporotic fractures. Risk tools with femoral neck BMD performed better than those without BMD. The externally developed risk tools were poorly calibrated. Introduction: We compared the performance of fracture risk assessment tools in older men, accounting for competing risks including mortality. Methods: A comparative ROC curve analysis assessed the ability of the QFracture, FRAX® and Garvan fracture risk tools, and femoral neck bone mineral density (BMD) T score with or without age to identify incident fracture in community-dwelling men aged 65 years or older (N = 4994) without hip or clinical vertebral fracture or antifracture treatment at baseline. Results: Among risk tools calculated with BMD, the discriminative ability to identify men with incident hip fracture was similar for FRAX (AUC 0.77, 95% CI 0.73, 0.81), the Garvan tool (AUC 0.78, 95% CI 0.74, 0.82), age plus femoral neck BMD T score (AUC 0.79, 95% CI 0.75, 0.83), and femoral neck BMD T score alone (AUC 0.76, 95% CI 0.72, 0.81). Among risk tools calculated without BMD, the discriminative ability to identify hip fracture was similar for QFracture (AUC 0.69, 95% CI 0.66, 0.73), FRAX (AUC 0.70, 95% CI 0.66, 0.73), and the Garvan tool (AUC 0.71, 95% CI 0.67, 0.74). Correlated ROC curve analyses revealed better diagnostic accuracy for risk scores calculated with BMD compared with QFracture (P < 0.0001). Calibration was good for the internally generated BMD T score predictor with or without age and poor for the externally developed risk tools. Conclusion: In untreated older men without fragility fractures at baseline, an age plus femoral neck BMD T score classifier identified men with incident hip fracture as ac...

Gourlay, ML, Ritter, VS, Fine, JP, Overman, RA, Schousboe, JT, Cawthon, PM, Orwoll, ES, Nguyen, TV, Lane, NE, Cummings, SR, Kado, DM, Lapidus, JA, Diem, SJ & Ensrud, KE 2017, 'Correction to: Comparison of fracture risk assessment tools in older men without prior hip or spine fracture: the MrOS study', Archives of Osteoporosis, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 99-99.
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Owing to an oversight by the authors, the acknowledgments were incomplete.

Green, DW, Ben-Nissan, B, Yoon, KS, Milthorpe, B & Jung, H-S 2017, 'Natural and Synthetic Coral Biomineralization for Human Bone Revitalization', Trends in Biotechnology, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 43-54.
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Coral skeletons can regenerate replacement human bone in nonload-bearing excavated skeletal locations. A combination of multiscale, interconnected pores and channels and highly bioactive surface chemistry has established corals as an important alternative to using healthy host bone replacements. Here, we highlight how coral skeletal systems are being remolded into new calcified structures or synthetic corals by biomimetic processes, as places for the organized permeation of bone tissue cells and blood vessels. Progressive technologies in coral aquaculture and self-organization inorganic chemistry are helping to modify natural corals and create synthetic coral architectures able to accelerate bone regeneration with proper host integration at more skeletal locations, adapted to recent surgical techniques and used to treat intrinsic skeletal deformities and metabolic conditions.

Ha, DT, Dang, TQ, Tran, NV, Pham, TNT, Nguyen, ND & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Correction: Corrigendum: Development and validation of a prognostic model for predicting 30-day mortality risk in medical patients in emergency department (ED)', Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-2.
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Scientific Reports 7: Article number: 46474; published online: 12 April 2017; updated: 22 December 2017. This Article contains errors in Figure 3 where the authors calculated the probability of survival instead of the probability of mortality. The correct Figure 3 appears below as Figure 1.

Ha, DT, Dang, TQ, Tran, NV, Pham, TNT, Nguyen, ND & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Development and validation of a prognostic model for predicting 30-day mortality risk in medical patients in emergency department (ED)', Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 1.
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AbstractThe primary aim of this prospective study is to develop and validate a new prognostic model for predicting the risk of mortality in Emergency Department (ED) patients. The study involved 1765 patients in the development cohort and 1728 in the validation cohort. The main outcome was mortality up to 30 days after admission. Potential risk factors included clinical characteristics, vital signs, and routine haematological and biochemistry tests. The Bayesian Model Averaging method within the Cox’s regression model was used to identify independent risk factors for mortality. In the development cohort, the incidence of 30-day mortality was 9.8%, and the following factors were associated with a greater risk of mortality: male gender, increased respiratory rate and serum urea, decreased peripheral oxygen saturation and serum albumin, lower Glasgow Coma Score, and admission to intensive care unit. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the model with the listed factors was 0.871 (95% CI, 0.844–0.898) in the development cohort and 0.783 (95% CI, 0.743–0.823) in the validation cohort. Calibration analysis found a close agreement between predicted and observed mortality risk. We conclude that the risk of mortality among ED patients could be accurately predicted by using common clinical signs and biochemical tests.

Haddadi, N, Lin, Y, Simpson, A, Nassif, N & McGowan, E 2017, '“Dicing and Splicing” Sphingosine Kinase and Relevance to Cancer', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 18, no. 9, pp. 1891-1891.
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Sphingosine kinase (SphK) is a lipid enzyme that maintains cellular lipid homeostasis. Two SphK isozymes, SphK1 and SphK2, are expressed from different chromosomes and several variant isoforms are expressed from each of the isozymes, allowing for the multi-faceted biological diversity of SphK activity. Historically, SphK1 is mainly associated with oncogenicity, however in reality, both SphK1 and SphK2 isozymes possess oncogenic properties and are recognized therapeutic targets. The absence of mutations of SphK in various cancer types has led to the theory that cancer cells develop a dependency on SphK signaling (hyper-SphK signaling) or “non-oncogenic addiction”. Here we discuss additional theories of SphK cellular mislocation and aberrant “dicing and splicing” as contributors to cancer cell biology and as key determinants of the success or failure of SphK/S1P (sphingosine 1 phosphate) based therapeutics.

Haeusler, GM, Thursky, KA, Mechinaud, F, Babl, FE, De Abreu Lourenco, R, Slavin, MA & Phillips, R 2017, 'Predicting Infectious ComplicatioNs in Children with Cancer: an external validation study', British Journal of Cancer, vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 171-178.
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© 2017 Cancer Research UK. All rights reserved. Background:The aim of this study was to validate the 'Predicting Infectious ComplicatioNs in Children with Cancer' (PICNICC) clinical decision rule (CDR) that predicts microbiologically documented infection (MDI) in children with cancer and fever and neutropenia (FN). We also investigated costs associated with current FN management strategies in Australia.Methods:Demographic, episode, outcome and cost data were retrospectively collected on 650 episodes of FN. We assessed the discrimination, calibration, sensitivity and specificity of the PICNICC CDR in our cohort compared with the derivation data set.Results:Using the original variable coefficients, the CDR performed poorly. After recalibration the PICNICC CDR had an area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUC-ROC) curve of 0.638 (95% CI 0.590-0.685) and calibration slope of 0.24. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the PICNICC CDR at presentation was 78.4%, 39.8%, 28.6% and 85.7%, respectively. For bacteraemia, the sensitivity improved to 85.2% and AUC-ROC to 0.71. Application at day 2, taking into consideration the proportion of MDI known (43%), further improved the sensitivity to 87.7%. Length of stay is the main contributor to cost of FN treatment, with an average cost per day of AUD 2183 in the low-risk group.Conclusions:For prediction of any MDI, the PICNICC rule did not perform as well at presentation in our cohort as compared with the derivation study. However, for bacteraemia, the predictive ability was similar to that of the derivation study, highlighting the importance of recalibration using local data. Performance also improved after an overnight period of observation. Implementation of a low-risk pathway, using the PICNICC CDR after a short period of inpatient observation, is likely to be safe and has the potential to reduce health-care expenditure.

Hasan, MAM, Li, J, Ahmad, S & Molla, MKI 2017, 'predCar-site: Carbonylation sites prediction in proteins using support vector machine with resolving data imbalanced issue', Analytical Biochemistry, vol. 525, pp. 107-113.
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The carbonylation is found as an irreversible post-translational modification and considered a biomarker of oxidative stress. It plays major role not only in orchestrating various biological processes but also associated with some diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease. However, since the experimental technologies are costly and time-consuming to detect the carbonylation sites in proteins, an accurate computational method for predicting carbonylation sites is an urgent issue which can be useful for drug development. In this study, a novel computational tool termed predCar-Site has been developed to predict protein carbonylation sites by (1) incorporating the sequence-coupled information into the general pseudo amino acid composition, (2) balancing the effect of skewed training dataset by Different Error Costs method, and (3) constructing a predictor using support vector machine as classifier. This predCar-Site predictor achieves an average AUC (area under curve) score of 0.9959, 0.9999, 1, and 0.9997 in predicting the carbonylation sites of K, P, R, and T, respectively. All of the experimental results along with AUC are found from the average of 5 complete runs of the 10-fold cross-validation and those results indicate significantly better performance than existing predictors. A user-friendly web server of predCar-Site is available at http://research.ru.ac.bd/predCar-Site/.

Hatoum, D, Haddadi, N, Lin, Y, Nassif, NT & McGowan, EM 2017, 'Mammalian sphingosine kinase (SphK) isoenzymes and isoform expression: challenges for SphK as an oncotarget', Oncotarget, vol. 8, no. 22, pp. 36898-36929.
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The various sphingosine kinase (SphK) isoenzymes (isozymes) and isoforms, key players in normal cellular physiology, are strongly implicated in cancer and other diseases. Mutations in SphKs, that may justify abnormal physiological function, have not been recorded. Nonetheless, there is a large and growing body of evidence demonstrating the contribution of gain or loss of function and the imbalance in the SphK/S1P rheostat to a plethora of pathological conditions including cancer, diabetes and inflammatory diseases. SphK is expressed as two isozymes SphK1 and SphK2, transcribed from genes located on different chromosomes and both isozymes catalyze the phosphorylation of sphingosine to S1P. Expression of each SphK isozyme produces alternately spliced isoforms. In recent years the importance of the contribution of SpK1 expression to treatment resistance in cancer has been highlighted and, additionally, differences in treatment outcome appear to also be dependent upon SphK isoform expression. This review focuses on an exciting emerging area of research involving SphKs functions, expression and subcellular localization, highlighting the complexity of targeting SphK in cancer and also comorbid diseases. This review also covers the SphK isoenzymes and isoforms from a historical perspective, from their first discovery in murine species and then in humans, their role(s) in normal cellular function and in disease processes, to advancement of SphK as an oncotarget.

Hatoum, D, Yagoub, D, Ahadi, A, Nassif, NT & McGowan, EM 2017, 'Annexin/S100A Protein Family Regulation through p14ARF-p53 Activation: A Role in Cell Survival and Predicting Treatment Outcomes in Breast Cancer', PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. e0169925-e0169925.
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© 2017 Hatoum et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The annexin family and S100A associated proteins are important regulators of diverse calcium- dependent cellular processes including cell division, growth regulation and apoptosis. Dysfunction of individual annexin and S100A proteins is associated with cancer progression, metastasis and cancer drug resistance. This manuscript describes the novel finding of differential regulation of the annexin and S100A family of proteins by activation of p53 in breast cancer cells. Additionally, the observed differential regulation is found to be beneficial to the survival of breast cancer cells and to influence treatment efficacy. We have used unbiased, quantitative proteomics to determine the proteomic changes occurring post p14ARF-p53 activation in estrogen receptor (ER) breast cancer cells. In this report we identified differential regulation of the annexin/S100A family, through unique peptide recognition at the N-terminal regions, demonstrating p14ARF-p53 is a central orchestrator of the annexin/S100A family of calcium regulators in favor of pro-survival functions in the breast cancer cell. This regulation was found to be cell-type specific. Retrospective human breast cancer studies have demonstrated that tumors with functional wild type p53 (p53wt) respond poorly to some chemotherapy agents compared to tumors with a non-functional p53. Given that modulation of calcium signaling has been demonstrated to change sensitivity of chemotherapeutic agents to apoptotic signals, in principle, we explored the paradigm of how p53 modulation of calcium regulators in ER+ breast cancer patients impacts and influences therapeutic outcomes.

Hayes, JE, Hart, B & Phillips, J 2017, 'Specialist palliative care nurses' management of the needs of patients with depression', International Journal of Palliative Nursing, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 298-305.
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Background: Depression is an important condition to consider if we are to optimise the care outcomes for patients with palliative care needs. Depression has a high incidence in palliative patients, with up to 15% diagnosed with major depression and 37% expressing some form of depressive symptoms ( O'Connor et al, 2010 ). The challenge is to ensure that palliative care patients with depression are identified in a timely manner and that their depression is effectively managed. Aim: To examine how Australian specialist inpatient palliative care nurses perceive, assess and respond to depression in a patient case study. Method: This descriptive pilot study is a replication of a United States study by Little et al (2005) , exploring contemporary Australian specialist palliative care nurses' screening, assessment and management of depression in people with a progressive life-limiting illness. A survey titled ‘Specialist palliative care nurses managing patients with complex care needs’ questioned the nursing assessment, knowledge and clinical care priorities related to a case vignette of a patient demonstrating signs of depression. Results: A total of 33 nurses completed this survey. Less than half (39.4%) of the participants identified depression as a major issue arising from the case vignette. Depression screening tools were not widely known. Functionality assessments measuring activities of daily living were the most recognised and widely used tools by participants. Conclusion: This small sample pilot study demonstrated that specialist palliative care nurses are still not confident in their screening and responding to a patient with depression. The available evidenced ...

Hernandez-Fernaud, JR, Ruengeler, E, Casazza, A, Neilson, LJ, Pulleine, E, Santi, A, Ismail, S, Lilla, S, Dhayade, S, MacPherson, IR, McNeish, I, Ennis, D, Ali, H, Kugeratski, FG, Al Khamici, H, van den Biggelaar, M, van den Berghe, PVE, Cloix, C, McDonald, L, Millan, D, Hoyle, A, Kuchnio, A, Carmeliet, P, Valenzuela, SM, Blyth, K, Yin, H, Mazzone, M, Norman, JC & Zanivan, S 2017, 'Secreted CLIC3 drives cancer progression through its glutathione-dependent oxidoreductase activity', Nature Communications, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-17.
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AbstractThe secretome of cancer and stromal cells generates a microenvironment that contributes to tumour cell invasion and angiogenesis. Here we compare the secretome of human mammary normal and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). We discover that the chloride intracellular channel protein 3 (CLIC3) is an abundant component of the CAF secretome. Secreted CLIC3 promotes invasive behaviour of endothelial cells to drive angiogenesis and increases invasiveness of cancer cells both in vivo and in 3D cell culture models, and this requires active transglutaminase-2 (TGM2). CLIC3 acts as a glutathione-dependent oxidoreductase that reduces TGM2 and regulates TGM2 binding to its cofactors. Finally, CLIC3 is also secreted by cancer cells, is abundant in the stromal and tumour compartments of aggressive ovarian cancers and its levels correlate with poor clinical outcome. This work reveals a previously undescribed invasive mechanism whereby the secretion of a glutathione-dependent oxidoreductase drives angiogenesis and cancer progression by promoting TGM2-dependent invasion.

Ho-Le, TP, Center, JR, Eisman, JA, Nguyen, HT & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Prediction of Bone Mineral Density and Fragility Fracture by Genetic Profiling', Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 285-293.
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ABSTRACT   Although the susceptibility to fracture is partly determined by genetic factors, the contribution of newly discovered genetic variants to fracture prediction is still unclear. This study sought to define the predictive value of a genetic profiling for fracture prediction. Sixty-two bone mineral density (BMD)-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in 557 men and 902 women who had participated in the Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study. The incidence of fragility fracture was ascertained from X-ray reports between 1990 and 2015. Femoral neck BMD was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. A weighted polygenic risk score (genetic risk score [GRS]) was created as a function of the number of risk alleles and their BMD-associated regression coefficients for each SNP. The association between GRS and fracture risk was assessed by the Cox proportional hazards model. Individuals with greater GRS had lower femoral neck BMD (p &lt; 0.01), but the variation in GRS accounted for less than 2% of total variance in BMD. Each unit increase in GRS was associated with a hazard ratio of 1.20 (95% CI, 1.04 to 1.38) for fracture, and this association was independent of age, prior fracture, fall, and in a subset of 33 SNPs, independent of femoral neck BMD. The significant association between GRS and fracture was observed for the vertebral and wrist fractures, but not for hip fracture. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) for the model with GRS and clinical risk factors was 0.71 (95% CI, 0.68 to 0.74). With GRS, the correct reclassification of fracture versus nonfracture ranged from 12% for hip fracture to 23% for wrist fracture. A genetic profiling of BMD- associated genetic variants could improve the accuracy of fracture prediction over and above that of clinical risk factors ...

Ho-Pham, LT & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'The Vietnam Osteoporosis Study: Rationale and design', Osteoporosis and Sarcopenia, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 90-97.
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Objectives:Osteoporosis and fracture impose a significant health care burden on the contemporary populations in developing countries. The Vietnam Osteoporosis Study (VOS) sought to assess the burden of osteoporosis and its comorbidities in men and women. Methods:The study was designed as a population-based family investigation in which families were randomly recruited from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Individuals were assessed for bone health, including bone mineral density (BMD) and body composition and trabecular and cortical bone properties by pQCT (peripheral quantitative computed tomography). Fasting blood samples were obtained for the analysis of plasma glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin, and bone turnover markers. Genomic DNA extraction from whole blood samples for further genetic and genomic analyses. Results:We have recruited more than 4157 individuals from 817 families. The average age of participants was 51, with approximately 45% of the individuals aged 50 years and older. Approximately 3% of participants were obese (body mass index ≥ 30 kg/m2), and 21% were overweight. Notably, 11% of participants aged 40 years and older were diabetic. Among those aged 50 years and older, approximately 14% of women and 5% of men had osteoporosis (i.e., femoral neck BMD T-scores ≤ -2.5). There were modest correlations between volumetric BMD and areal BMD. Conclusions:VOS is a major bone research project in Vietnam aimed at comprehensively documenting the burden osteoporosis, its co-occurrence of chronic diseases, and their underlying etiologies. The Study will make important contributions to the literature of bone health worldwide.

Ho-Pham, LT, Lai, TQ, Nguyen, UDT, Bui, QV & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Delineating the Relationship Between Leptin, Fat Mass, and Bone Mineral Density: A Mediation Analysis', Calcified Tissue International, vol. 100, no. 1, pp. 13-19.
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© 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York. To test the hypothesis that the relationship between fat mass (FM) and bone mineral density (BMD) is mediated by leptin. The study involved 611 individuals aged 20–89 years who were randomly sampled from Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam). BMD at the femoral neck (FN), lumbar spine (LS), and whole body (WB) was measured by DXA. Lean mass and FM were derived from the WB DXA scan. Leptin was measured by ELISA (DRG Diagnostics, Germany). The regression method was used to partition the variance of leptin and FM on BMD. The mediated effect of leptin was analyzed by the mediation analysis model. In the multiple linear regression, leptin, FM, and age collectively accounted for ~34 % variation in FNBMD in men and women. However, only 0.5 % of this explained variance was due to leptin. Of the total effect of FM on FNBMD, the mediated effect of leptin accounted for 6.1 % (P = 0.38) in men and 7.1 % (P = 0.99) in women. The same trend was observed for LS and WBBMD. These data suggest that greater FM is associated with greater BMD, but the association is not mediated by leptin, and that leptin has a non-significant influence on bone mass.

Ho-Pham, LT, Nguyen, UDT, Tran, TX & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Discordance in the diagnosis of diabetes: Comparison between HbA1c and fasting plasma glucose', PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 8, pp. e0182192-e0182192.
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© 2017 Ho-Pham et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Objective HbA1c has been introduced as a complementary diagnostic test for diabetes, but its impact on disease prevalence is unknown. This study evaluated the concordance between HbA1c and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) in the diagnosis of diabetes in the general population. Materials and methods The study was designed as a population based investigation, with participants being sampled from the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Blood samples were collected after overnight fasting and analyzed within 4 hours after collection. HbA1c was measured with high pressure liquid chromatography (Arkray Adams, Japan). FPG was measured by the hexokinase method (Advia Autoanalyzer; Bayer Diagnostics, Germany). Diabetes was defined as HbA1c 6.5% or FPG 7.0 mmol/L. Prediabetes was classified as HbA1c between 5.7% and 6.4%. Results The study included 3523 individuals (2356 women) aged 30 years and above. Based on the HbA1c test, the prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes was 9.7% (95%CI, 8.7–10.7%; n = 342) and 34.6% (33.0–36.2; n = 1219), respectively. Based on the FPG test, the prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes was 6.3% (95%CI, 5.5–7.2%; n = 223) and 12.1% (11.1–13.2; n = 427). Among the 427 individuals identified by FPG as 'pre-diabetes', 28.6% were classified as diabetes by HbA1c test. The weighted kappa statistic of concordance between HbA1c and FPG was 0.55, with most of the discordance being in the prediabetes group. Conclusion These data indicate that there is a significant discordance in the diagnosis of diabetes between FPG and HbA1c measurements, and the discordance could have significant impact on clinical practice. FPG appears to underestimate the burden of undiagnosed diabetes.

Hosie, A, Agar, M, Lobb, E, Davidson, PM & Phillips, J 2017, 'Improving delirium recognition and assessment for people receiving inpatient palliative care: a mixed methods meta-synthesis', International Journal of Nursing Studies, vol. 75, pp. 123-129.
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Hossain, KR, Holt, SA, Le Brun, AP, Al Khamici, H & Valenzuela, SM 2017, 'X-ray and Neutron Reflectivity Study Shows That CLIC1 Undergoes Cholesterol-Dependent Structural Reorganization in Lipid Monolayers', Langmuir, vol. 33, no. 43, pp. 12497-12509.
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© 2017 American Chemical Society. CLIC1 belongs to the ubiquitous family of chloride intracellular ion channel proteins that are evolutionarily conserved across species. The CLICs are unusual in that they exist mainly as soluble proteins but possess the intriguing property of spontaneous conversion from the soluble to an integral membrane-bound form. This conversion is regulated by the membrane lipid composition, especially by cholesterol, together with external factors such as oxidation and pH. However, the precise physiological mechanism regulating CLIC1 membrane insertion is currently unknown. In this study, X-ray and neutron reflectivity experiments were performed to study the interaction of CLIC1 with different phospholipid monolayers prepared using POPC, POPE, or POPS with and without cholesterol in order to better understand the regulatory role of cholesterol in CLIC1 membrane insertion. Our findings demonstrate for the first time two different structural orientations of CLIC1 within phospholipid monolayers, dependent upon the absence or presence of cholesterol. In phospholipid monolayers devoid of cholesterol, CLIC1 was unable to insert into the lipid acyl chain region. However, in the presence of cholesterol, CLIC1 showed significant insertion within the phospholipid acyl chains occupying an area per protein molecule of 6-7 nm2 with a total CLIC1 thickness ranging from ∼50 to 56 Å across the entire monolayer. Our data strongly suggests that cholesterol not only facilitates the initial docking or binding of CLIC1 to the membrane but also promotes deeper penetration of CLIC1 into the hydrophobic tails of the lipid monolayer.

Hu, S-S, Chen, P, Wang, B & Li, J 2017, 'Protein binding hot spots prediction from sequence only by a new ensemble learning method', Amino Acids, vol. 49, no. 10, pp. 1773-1785.
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Hot spots are interfacial core areas of binding proteins, which have been applied as targets in drug design. Experimental methods are costly in both time and expense to locate hot spot areas. Recently, in-silicon computational methods have been widely used for hot spot prediction through sequence or structure characterization. As the structural information of proteins is not always solved, and thus hot spot identification from amino acid sequences only is more useful for real-life applications. This work proposes a new sequence-based model that combines physicochemical features with the relative accessible surface area of amino acid sequences for hot spot prediction. The model consists of 83 classifiers involving the IBk (Instance-based k means) algorithm, where instances are encoded by important properties extracted from a total of 544 properties in the AAindex1 (Amino Acid Index) database. Then top-performance classifiers are selected to form an ensemble by a majority voting technique. The ensemble classifier outperforms the state-of-the-art computational methods, yielding an F1 score of 0.80 on the benchmark binding interface database (BID) test set.http://www2.ahu.edu.cn/pchen/web/HotspotEC.htm .

Jefford, M, Emery, J, Grunfeld, E, Martin, A, Rodger, P, Murray, AM, De Abreu Lourenco, R, Heriot, A, Phipps-Nelson, J, Guccione, L, King, D, Lisy, K, Tebbutt, N, Burgess, A, Faragher, I, Woods, R & Schofield, P 2017, 'SCORE: Shared care of Colorectal cancer survivors: protocol for a randomised controlled trial', Trials, vol. 18, no. 1.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the most common cancer affecting both men and women. Survivors of CRC often experience various physical and psychological effects arising from CRC and its treatment. These effects may last for many years and adversely affect QoL, and they may not be adequately addressed by standard specialist-based follow-up. Optimal management of these effects should harness the expertise of both primary care and specialist care. Shared models of care (involving both the patient's primary care physician [PCP] and specialist) have the potential to better support survivors and enhance health system efficiency. Methods/design: SCORE (Shared care of Colorectal cancer survivors) is a multisite randomised controlled trial designed to optimise and operationalise a shared care model for survivors of CRC, to evaluate the acceptability of the intervention and study processes, and to collect preliminary data regarding the effects of shared care compared with usual care on a range of patient-reported outcomes. The primary outcome is QoL measured using the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer QLQ-C30 questionnaire. Secondary outcomes are satisfaction with care, unmet needs, continuity of care and health resource use. The shared care model involves replacement of two routine specialist follow-up visits with PCP visits, as well as the provision of a tailored survivorship care plan and a survivorship booklet and DVD for CRC survivors. All consenting patients will be randomised 1:1 to either shared care or usual care and will complete questionnaires at three time points over a 12-month period (baseline and at 6 and 12 months). Health care resource use data will also be collected and used to evaluate costs. Discussion: The evaluation and implementation of models of care that are responsive to the holistic needs of cancer survivors while reducing the burden on acute care settings is an international priori...

Jeffries, AC, Wallace, L & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Quantifying Training Loads in Contemporary Dance', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 796-802.
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Purpose:To describe the training demands of contemporary dance and determine the validity of using the session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) to monitor exercise intensity and training load in this activity. In addition, the authors examined the contribution of training (ie, accelerometry and heart rate) and non-training-related factors (ie, sleep and wellness) to perceived exertion during dance training.Methods:Training load and ActiGraphy for 16 elite amateur contemporary dancers were collected during a 49-d period, using heart-rate monitors, accelerometry, and sRPE. Within-individual correlation analysis was used to determine relationships between sRPE and several other measures of training intensity and load. Stepwise multiple regressions were used to determine a predictive equation to estimate sRPE during dance training.Results:Average weekly training load was 4283 ± 2442 arbitrary units (AU), monotony 2.13 ± 0.92 AU, strain 10677 ± 9438 AU, and average weekly vector magnitude load 1809,707 ± 1015,402 AU. There were large to very large within-individual correlations between training-load sRPE and various other internal and external measures of intensity and load. The stepwise multiple-regression analysis also revealed that 49.7% of the adjusted variance in training-load sRPE was explained by peak heart rate, metabolic equivalents, soreness, motivation, and sleep quality (y = –4.637 + 13.817%HRpeak + 0.316 METS + 0.100 soreness + 0.116 motivation – 0.204 sleep quality).Conclusion:The current findings demonstrate the validity of the sRPE method for quantifying training load in dance, that danc...

Jiang, L, Gentile, C, Lauto, A, Cui, C, Song, Y, Romeo, T, Silva, SM, Tang, O, Sharma, P, Figtree, G, Gooding, JJ & Mawad, D 2017, 'Versatile Fabrication Approach of Conductive Hydrogels via Copolymerization with Vinyl Monomers', ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, vol. 9, no. 50, pp. 44124-44133.
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Functionalized poly(ethylene dioxythiophene) (f-PEDOT) was copolymerized with two vinyl monomers of different hydrophilicity, acrylic acid and hydroxyethyl methacrylate, to produce electroconductive hydrogels with a range of physical and electronic properties. These hydrogels not only possessed tailored physical properties, such as swelling ratios and mechanical properties, but also displayed electroactivity dependent on the chemical composition of the network. Raman spectroscopy indicated that the functional PEDOT in the hydrogels is in an oxidized form, most likely accounting for the good electrochemical response of the hydrogels observed in physiological buffer. In vitro cell studies showed that cardiac cells respond differently when seeded on hydrogel substrates with different compositions. This study presents a facile approach for the fabrication of electroconductive hydrogels with a range of properties, paving the way for scaffolds that can meet the requirements of different electroresponsive tissues.

Jones, PM & George, AM 2017, 'How Intrinsic Dynamics Mediates the Allosteric Mechanism in the ABC Transporter Nucleotide Binding Domain Dimer', Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 1712-1722.
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A protein's architecture facilitates specific motions-intrinsic dynamic modes-that are employed to effect function. Here we used molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the dynamics of the MJ0796 ABC transporter nucleotide-binding domain (NBD). ABC transporter NBDs form a rotationally symmetric dimer whereby two equivalent active sites are formed at their interface; in complex with a dimer of transmembrane domains they hydrolyze ATP to energize translocation of substrates across cellular membranes. Our data suggest the ABC NBD's ensemble of functional states can be understood predominately in terms of conformational changes between its major subdomains, occurring along two orthogonal dynamic modes. The data show that ligands and oligomeric interactions modulate the equilibrium conformation of the NBD with respect to these motions, suggesting that allostery is achieved by affecting the energetic profile along these two modes. The observed dynamics and allostery integrate consonantly and logically within a mechanistic framework for the ABC NBD dimer, which is supported by a large body of experimental and theoretical data, providing a higher resolution view of the enzyme's dynamic cycle. Our study shows how valuable mechanistic inferences can be derived from accessible short-time scale MD simulations of an enzyme's substructures.

Kaasalainen, S, Sussman, T, Bui, M, Akhtar-Danesh, N, Laporte, RD, McCleary, L, Wickson Griffiths, A, Brazil, K, Parker, D, Dal Bello-Haas, V, Papaioannou, A & O’Leary, J 2017, 'What are the differences among occupational groups related to their palliative care-specific educational needs and intensity of interprofessional collaboration in long-term care homes?', BMC Palliative Care, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 1-8.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the differences across occupational groups related to their end-of-life care-specific educational needs and reported intensity of interprofessional collaboration in long-term care (LTC) homes. Methods: A cross-sectional survey, based on two questionnaires, was administered at four LTC homes in Ontario, Canada using a modified Dilman’s approach. The first questionnaire, End of Life Professional Caregiver Survey, included three domains: patients and family-centered communication, cultural and ethical values, effective care delivery. The Intensity of Interprofessional Collaboration Scale included two subscales: care sharing activities, and interprofessional coordination. In total, 697 LTC staff were given surveys, including personal support workers, support staff (housekeeping, kitchen, recreation, laundry, dietician aids, office staff), and registered staff (licensed nurses, physiotherapists, social workers, pharmacists, physicians). Results: A total of 317 participants completed the survey (126 personal support workers, 109 support staff, 82 registered staff) for a response rate of 45%. Significant differences emerged among occupational groups across all scales and subscales. Specifically, support staff rated their comfort of working with dying patients significantly lower than both nurses and PSWs. Support staff also reported significantly lower ratings of care sharing activities and interprofessional coordination compared to both registered staff and personal support workers. Conclusions: These study findings suggest there are differing educational needs and sense of interprofessional collaboration among LTC staff, specific to discipline group. Both the personal support workers and support staff groups appeared to have higher needs for education; support staff also reported higher needs related to integration on the interdisciplinary team. Efforts to build capacity within suppor...

Kabakova, IV, Xiang, Y, Paterson, C & Török, P 2017, 'Fiber-integrated Brillouin microspectroscopy: Towards Brillouin endoscopy', Journal of Innovative Optical Health Sciences, vol. 10, no. 06, pp. 1742002-1742002.
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Brillouin imaging (BI) for micromechanical characterization of tissues and biomaterials is a fast-developing field of research with a strong potential for medical diagnosis of disease-modified tissues and cells. Although the principles of BI imply its compatibility with in vivo and in situ measurements, the integration of BI with a flexible catheter, capable of reaching the region of interest within the body, is yet to be reported. Here, for the first time, we experimentally investigate integration of the Brillouin spectroscope with standard optical fiber components to achieve a Brillouin endoscope. The performance of single-fiber and dual-fiber endoscopes are demonstrated and analyzed. We show that a major challenge in construction of Brillouin endoscopes is the strong backward Brillouin scattering in the optical fiber and we present a dual-fiber geometry as a possible solution. Measurements of Brillouin spectra in test liquids (water, ethanol and glycerol) are demonstrated using the dual-fiber endoscope and its performance is analyzed numerically with the help of a beam propagation model.

Kamal, MA, Shakil, S, Nawaz, MS, Yu, Q-S, Tweedie, D, Tan, Y, Qu, X & Greig, NH 2017, 'Inhibition of Butyrylcholinesterase with Fluorobenzylcymserine, An Experimental Alzheimer's Drug Candidate: Validation of Enzoinformatics Results by Classical and Innovative Enzyme Kinetic Analyses', CNS & Neurological Disorders - Drug Targets, vol. 16, no. 7, pp. 820-827.
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© 2017 Bentham Science Publishers. Background: Selective butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE)-inhibition, increases acetylcholine (ACh) levels. In rodents, this inhibition is known to boost cognition. Also, this occurs without the typical unwanted adverse effects of acetylcholinesterase-inhibitors or AChE-Is. The novel compound, fluorobenzylcymserine (FBC), is derived from our effort to design a selective BuChE-inhibitor. Also, we wanted to check whether butyrylcholinesterase-inhibitors (BuChE-Is) possessed an edge over AChE-Is in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in terms of efficacy and/or tolerance. Method: FBC was synthesized as reported earlier while enzymatic activity of BuChE was calculated by Ellman-technique. Molecular docking was performed using Autodock4.2. We applied classical as well as innovative analyses of enzyme-kinetics for exploring “FBC:human BuChE-interaction”. The mode of inhibition and kinetic parameters were also determined. Results: Docking results displayed two strong interacting sites for FBC. One of these binding sites was previously identified as a deep narrow groove having polar aromatic residues while a second site was identified during this study which displayed better interaction and was lined with aliphatic and sulphur containing residues. At low concentrations of BuChE, the IC50 was found to be very low i.e. 4.79 and 6.10 nM for 12 and 36 μg, respectively, whereas it increased exponentially by increasing the units of BuChE. Conclusion: These analyses indicate that FBC is an interesting AD drug candidate that could provide a potent and partial mixed type of inhibition of human BuChE.

Karacan, I, Macha, IJ, Choi, G, Cazalbou, S & Ben-Nissan, B 2017, 'Antibiotic Containing Poly Lactic Acid/Hydroxyapatite Biocomposite Coatings for Dental Implant Applications', Key Engineering Materials, vol. 758, pp. 120-125.
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The biodegradable and biocompatible antibiotic containing thin film composites are very appropriate biomaterials as coating materials for dental implants because of their adjustable drug loading and release rates for the prevention of implant related infections. Coralline hydroxyapatite (HAp) was loaded with gentamicin antibiotics and combined with a biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) to form thin film composites. PLA-HAp, PLA-Gentamicin (GM) and PLA-HAp-GM composites were produced, and their dissolution studies were carried out in phosphate buffered saline under SINK conditions. It was observed that the coatings could be efficiently applied to titanium dental implants and the drug release rates can be efficiently controlled.

Keam, SP, Sobala, A, ten Have, S & Hutvagner, G 2017, 'tRNA-Derived RNA Fragments Associate with Human Multisynthetase Complex (MSC) and Modulate Ribosomal Protein Translation', Journal of Proteome Research, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 413-420.
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© 2016 American Chemical Society. The functionality of small RNAs from abundant species of 'housekeeping' noncoding RNAs (e.g., rRNA, tRNA, snRNA, snoRNA, etc.) remains a highly studied topic. The current state of research on short RNAs derived from transfer RNA (tRNA), called tRNA-derived fragments (tRFs), has been restricted largely to expression studies and limited functional studies. 5′ tRFs are known translational inhibitors in mammalian cells, yet little is known about their functionality. Here we report on the first experimental evidence of the tRF protein interactome, identifying the mammalian multisynthetase complex as the primary interactor of the 5′ tRF Gln19. We also present proteome-wide SILAC evidence that 5′ tRFs increase ribosomal and poly(A)-binding protein translation.

Kempton, T, Sirotic, AC & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'A Comparison of Physical and Technical Performance Profiles Between Successful and Less-Successful Professional Rugby League Teams', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 520-526.
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Purpose:To examine differences in physical and technical performance profiles using a large sample of match observations drawn from successful and less-successful professional rugby league teams.Methods:Match activity profiles were collected using global positioning satellite (GPS) technology from 29 players from a successful rugby league team during 24 games and 25 players from a less-successful team during 18 games throughout 2 separate competition seasons. Technical performance data were obtained from a commercial statistics provider. A progressive magnitude-based statistical approach was used to compare differences in physical and technical performance variables between the reference teams.Results:There were no clear differences in playing time, absolute and relative total distances, or low-speed running distances between successful and less-successful teams. The successful team possibly to very likely had lower higher-speed running demands and likely had fewer physical collisions than the less-successful team, although they likely to most likely demonstrated more accelerations and decelerations and likely had higher average metabolic power. The successful team very likely gained more territory in attack, very likely had more possessions, and likely committed fewer errors. In contrast, the less-successful team was likely required to attempt more tackles, most likely missed more tackles, and very likely had a lower effective tackle percentage.Conclusions:In the current study, successful match performance was not contingent on higher match running outputs or more physical collisions; rather, proficiency in technical performance components better...

Kota, A, Deshpande, DA, Haghi, M, Oliver, B & Sharma, P 2017, 'Autophagy and airway fibrosis: Is there a link?', F1000Research, vol. 6, no. 409, pp. 409-409.
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In the past decade, an emerging process named “autophagy” has generated intense interest in many chronic lung diseases. Tissue remodeling and fibrosis is a common feature of many airway diseases, and current therapies do not prevent or reverse these structural changes. Autophagy has evolved as a conserved process for bulk degradation and recycling of cytoplasmic components to maintain basal cellular homeostasis and healthy organelle populations in the cell. Furthermore, autophagy serves as a cell survival mechanism and can also be induced by chemical and physical stress to the cell. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that autophagy plays an essential role in vital cellular processes, including tissue remodeling. This review will discuss some of the recent advancements made in understanding the role of this fundamental process in airway fibrosis with emphasis on airway remodeling, and how autophagy can be exploited as a target for airway remodeling in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Kulasinghe, A, Perry, C, Kenny, L, Warkiani, ME, Nelson, C & Punyadeera, C 2017, 'PD-L1 expressing circulating tumour cells in head and neck cancers', BMC Cancer, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1-6.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: Blockade of the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint pathway is emerging as a promising immunotherapeutic approach for the management and treatment of head and neck cancer patients who do not respond to 1st/2nd line therapy. However, as checkpoint inhibitors are cost intensive, identifying patients who would most likely benefit from anti PD-L1 therapy is required. Developing a non-invasive technique would be of major benefit to the patient and to the health care system. Case presentation: We report the case of a 56 year old man affected by a supraglottic squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). A CT scan showed a 20 mm right jugulodigastric node and suspicious lung lesions. The lung lesion was biopsied and confirmed to be consistent with SCC. The patient was offered palliative chemotherapy. At the time of presentation, a blood sample was taken for circulating tumour cell (CTC) analysis. The dissemination of cancer was confirmed by the detection of CTCs in the peripheral blood of the patient, measured by the CellSearch System (Janssen Diagnostics). Using marker-independent, low-shear spiral microfluidic technology combined with immunocytochemistry, CTC clusters were found in this patient at the same time point, expressing PD-L1. Conclusion: This report highlights the potential use of CTCs to identify patients which might respond to anti PD-L1 therapy.

Kulasinghe, A, Tran, THP, Blick, T, O’Byrne, K, Thompson, EW, Warkiani, ME, Nelson, C, Kenny, L & Punyadeera, C 2017, 'Enrichment of circulating head and neck tumour cells using spiral microfluidic technology', Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-10.
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AbstractWhilst locoregional control of head and neck cancers (HNCs) has improved over the last four decades, long-term survival has remained largely unchanged. A possible reason for this is that the rate of distant metastasis has not changed. Such disseminated disease is reflected in measurable levels of cancer cells in the blood of HNC patients, referred to as circulating tumour cells (CTCs). Numerous marker-independent techniques have been developed for CTC isolation and detection. Recently, microfluidics-based platforms have come to the fore to avoid molecular bias. In this pilot, proof of concept study, we evaluated the use of the spiral microfluidic chip for CTC enrichment and subsequent detection in HNC patients. CTCs were detected in 13/24 (54%) HNC patients, representing both early to late stages of disease. Importantly, in 7/13 CTC-positive patients, CTC clusters were observed. This is the first study to use spiral microfluidics technology for CTC enrichment in HNC.

Kwon, T, Prentice, H, Oliveira, JD, Madziva, N, Warkiani, ME, Hamel, J-FP & Han, J 2017, 'Microfluidic Cell Retention Device for Perfusion of Mammalian Suspension Culture', Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-11.
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AbstractContinuous production of biologics, a growing trend in the biopharmaceutical industry, requires a reliable and efficient cell retention device that also maintains cell viability. Current filtration methods, such as tangential flow filtration using hollow-fiber membranes, suffer from membrane fouling, leading to significant reliability and productivity issues such as low cell viability, product retention, and an increased contamination risk associated with filter replacement. We introduce a novel cell retention device based on inertial sorting for perfusion culture of suspended mammalian cells. The device was characterized in terms of cell retention capacity, biocompatibility, scalability, and long-term reliability. This technology was demonstrated using a high concentration (>20 million cells/mL) perfusion culture of an IgG1-producing Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line for 18–25 days. The device demonstrated reliable and clog-free cell retention, high IgG1 recovery (>99%) and cell viability (>97%). Lab-scale perfusion cultures (350 mL) were used to demonstrate the technology, which can be scaled-out with parallel devices to enable larger scale operation. The new cell retention device is thus ideal for rapid perfusion process development in a biomanufacturing workflow.

Lal, S, Hall, RM & Tipper, JL 2017, 'Concentration and size distribution data of silicon nitride nanoparticles measured using nanoparticle tracking analysis', Data in Brief, vol. 15, pp. 821-823.
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© 2017 This article refers to the paper “A novel method for isolation and recovery of ceramic nanoparticles and metal wear debris from serum lubricants at ultra-low wear rates” (Lal et al., 2016) [1] and describes the concentration and size distribution data of silicon nitride nanoparticles measured using nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA). A NanoSight LM10 instrument was used to capture the video data of silicon nitride nanoparticles moving under Brownian motion in the water. The video data was then analyzed using the NanoSight NTA software. This article also describes a methodology for calculating the percentage recovery of a nanoparticle isolation process.

Le Meur, Y, Buchheit, M, Aubry, A, Coutts, AJ & Hausswirth, C 2017, 'Assessing Overreaching With Heart-Rate Recovery: What Is the Minimal Exercise Intensity Required?', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 569-573.
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Purpose:Faster heart-rate recovery (HRR) after high to maximal exercise (≥90% of maximal heart rate) has been reported in athletes suspected of functional overreaching (f-OR). This study investigated whether this response would also occur at lower exercise intensity.Methods:Responses of HRR and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were compared during an incremental intermittent running protocol to exhaustion in 20 experienced male triathletes (8 control subjects and 13 overload subjects led to f-OR) before and immediately after an overload training period and after a 1-wk taper.Results:Both groups demonstrated an increase in HRR values immediately after the training period, but this change was very likely to almost certainly larger in the f-OR group at all running intensities (large to very large differences, eg, +16 ± 7 vs +3 ± 5 beats/min, in the f-OR and control groups at 11 km/h, respectively). The highest between-groups differences in changes in HRR were reported at 11 km/h (13 ± 4 beats/min) and 12 km/h (10 ± 6 beats/min). A concomitant increase in RPE at all intensities was reported only in the f-OR group (large to extremely large differences, +2.1 ± 1.5 to +0.7 ± 1.5 arbitrary units).Conclusion:These findings confirm that faster HRR does not systematically predict better physical performance. However, when interpreted in the context of the athletes’ fatigue state and training phase, HRR after submaximal exercise may be more discriminant than HRR measures taken after maximal exercise for monitoring f-OR. These findings may be applied in practice by regularly assessing HRR after submaximal exercise (ie, warm-up) for monitoring endurance athlet...

Le, M, Gabrys, B & Nauck, D 2017, 'A hybrid model for business process event and outcome prediction', Expert Systems, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 1-11.
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AbstractLarge service companies run complex customer service processes to provide communication services to their customers. The flawless execution of these processes is essential because customer service is an important differentiator. They must also be able to predict if processes will complete successfully or run into exceptions in order to intervene at the right time, preempt problems and maintain customer service. Business process data are sequential in nature and can be very diverse. Thus, there is a need for an efficient sequential forecasting methodology that can cope with this diversity. This paper proposes two approaches, a sequential k nearest neighbour and an extension of Markov models both with an added component based on sequence alignment. The proposed approaches exploit temporal categorical features of the data to predict the process next steps using higher order Markov models and the process outcomes using sequence alignment technique. The diversity aspect of the data is also added by considering subsets of similar process sequences based on k nearest neighbours. We have shown, via a set of experiments, that our sequential k nearest neighbour offers better results when compared with the original ones; our extension Markov model outperforms random guess, Markov models and hidden Markov models.

Le, NT & Hoang, DB 2017, 'Capability Maturity Model and Metrics Framework for Cyber Cloud Security', Scalable Computing: Practice and Experience, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 277-290.
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Lees, T, Nassif, N, Simpson, A, Shad-Kaneez, F, Martiniello-Wilks, R, Lin, Y, Jones, A, Qu, X & Lal, S 2017, 'Recent advances in molecular biomarkers for diabetes mellitus: a systematic review', Biomarkers, vol. 22, no. 7, pp. 1-13.
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CONTEXT: Diabetes is a growing global metabolic epidemic. Current research is focussing on exploring how the biological processes and clinical outcomes of diabetes are related and developing novel biomarkers to measure these relationships, as this can subsequently improve diagnostic, therapeutic and management capacity. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to identify the most recent advances in molecular biomarkers of diabetes and directions that warrant further research. METHODS: Using a systematic search strategy, the MEDLINE, CINAHL and OVID MEDLINE databases were canvassed for articles that investigated molecular biomarkers for diabetes. Initial selections were made based on article title, whilst final inclusion was informed by a critical appraisal of the full text of each article. RESULTS: The systematic search returned 246 records, of which 113 were unique. Following screening, 29 records were included in the final review. Three main research strategies (the development of novel technologies, broad biomarker panels, and targeted approaches) identified a number of potential biomarkers for diabetes including miR-126, C-reactive protein, 2-aminoadipic acid and betatrophin. CONCLUSION: The most promising research avenue identified is the detection and quantification of micro RNA. Further, the utilisation of functionalised electrodes as a means to detect biomarker compounds also warrants attention.

Liang, J, Su, S, Zhang, X, Li, L & Luo, Y 2017, 'A NONINVASIVE METHOD TO EVALUATE THE DEGREE OF UPPER AIRWAY STENOSIS', Biomedical Engineering: Applications, Basis and Communications, vol. 29, no. 05, pp. 1750035-1750035.
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Purpose: This paper presented a new approach to noninvasively evaluate the upper airway stenosis for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) patients. Methods: In the proposed method, thoracic and abdominal movements were selected to calculate the respiratory movement (RM) and to indicate the change of lung volume. Due to the cumulative effect of thermal sensor, the oronasal-thermistor signal (T_flow) is applied to estimate the air mass change in lung. Based on the mathematical relationship, the “RM–T_flow curves”, drawn by RM and T_flow, together with the correlation coefficients ([Formula: see text] were used to analyze the upper airway stenosis. Results: This method was verified through portable monitoring (PM) based experiments, and numerical analysis of the polysomnography (PSG) data from 20 OSAS patients and 15 non-OSAS controls. Our results indicate the [Formula: see text] values decrease with the narrowing of the upper airway. At each sleep stage, the [Formula: see text] mean values of OSAS subjects are significantly ([Formula: see text]) smaller than those of the controls. These facts demonstrate that the [Formula: see text] value can be used to quantify the upper airway stenosis and the analysis of “RM–T_flow curves” is an efficient way to assess upper airway condition associated with the breathing phase. Conclusions: As this method can be used in spontaneous sleep and home sleep testing, we believe it will benefit the popularity of the diagnosis and evaluation of OSAS.

Ling, SH, San, PP, Lam, HK & Nguyen, HT 2017, 'Hypoglycemia detection: multiple regression-based combinational neural logic approach', Soft Computing, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 543-553.
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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Hypoglycemia is a common and serious side effect of type 1 diabetes. We measure physiological parameters continuously to provide detection of hypoglycemic episodes in type 1 diabetes mellitus patients using a multiple regression-based combinational neural logic approach. In this work, a neural logic network with multiple regression is applied to the development of non-invasive hypoglycemia monitoring system. It is an alarm system which measures the physiological parameters of electrocardiogram signal (heart rate and corrected QT interval) and determine the onset of hypoglycemia by the use of proposed hybrid neural logic approach. In this clinical application, a combinational neural logic network with multiple regression is systematically designed to hypoglycemia detection based on the characteristic of this application. To optimize the parameter of the hybrid combinational neural logic system, hybrid particle swarm optimization with wavelet mutation is applied to tuned the parameters of the system. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, hypoglycemia monitoring system which will be practically analyzed using real data sets collected from 15 children ((Formula presented.) years) with type 1 diabetes at the Department of Health, Government of Western Australia. With the use of proposed method, the best testing sensitivity of 79.07 % and specificity of 53.64 % were obtained.

Liu, G, Cooley, MA, Nair, PM, Donovan, C, Hsu, AC, Jarnicki, AG, Haw, TJ, Hansbro, NG, Ge, Q, Brown, AC, Tay, H, Foster, PS, Wark, PA, Horvat, JC, Bourke, JE, Grainge, CL, Argraves, WS, Oliver, BG, Knight, DA, Burgess, JK & Hansbro, PM 2017, 'Airway remodelling and inflammation in asthma are dependent on the extracellular matrix protein fibulin-1c', The Journal of Pathology, vol. 243, no. 4, pp. 510-523.
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Copyright © 2017 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. It is characterized by allergic airway inflammation, airway remodelling, and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR). Asthma patients, in particular those with chronic or severe asthma, have airway remodelling that is associated with the accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, such as collagens. Fibulin-1 (Fbln1) is an important ECM protein that stabilizes collagen and other ECM proteins. The level of Fbln1c, one of the four Fbln1 variants, which predominates in both humans and mice, is increased in the serum and airways fluids in asthma but its function is unclear. We show that the level of Fbln1c was increased in the lungs of mice with house dust mite (HDM)-induced chronic allergic airway disease (AAD). Genetic deletion of Fbln1c and therapeutic inhibition of Fbln1c in mice with chronic AAD reduced airway collagen deposition, and protected against AHR. Fbln1c-deficient (Fbln1c–/–) mice had reduced mucin (MUC) 5 AC levels, but not MUC5B levels, in the airways as compared with wild-type (WT) mice. Fbln1c interacted with fibronectin and periostin that was linked to collagen deposition around the small airways. Fbln1c–/– mice with AAD also had reduced numbers of α-smooth muscle actin-positive cells around the airways and reduced airway contractility as compared with WT mice. After HDM challenge, these mice also had fewer airway inflammatory cells, reduced interleukin (IL)-5, IL-13, IL-33, tumour necrosis factor (TNF) and CXCL1 levels in the lungs, and reduced IL-5, IL-33 and TNF levels in lung-draining lymph nodes. Therapeutic targeting of Fbln1c reduced the numbers of GATA3-positive Th2 cells in the lymph nodes and lungs after chronic HDM challenge. Treatment also reduced the secretion of IL-5 and IL-13 from co-cultured dendritic cells and T cells restimulated with HDM extract. Human epith...

Liu, Y, Peng, H, Wong, L & Li, J 2017, 'High-speed and high-ratio referential genome compression', Bioinformatics, vol. 33, no. 21, pp. 3364-3372.
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Abstract Motivation The rapidly increasing number of genomes generated by high-throughput sequencing platforms and assembly algorithms is accompanied by problems in data storage, compression and communication. Traditional compression algorithms are unable to meet the demand of high compression ratio due to the intrinsic challenging features of DNA sequences such as small alphabet size, frequent repeats and palindromes. Reference-based lossless compression, by which only the differences between two similar genomes are stored, is a promising approach with high compression ratio. Results We present a high-performance referential genome compression algorithm named HiRGC. It is based on a 2-bit encoding scheme and an advanced greedy-matching search on a hash table. We compare the performance of HiRGC with four state-of-the-art compression methods on a benchmark dataset of eight human genomes. HiRGC takes &lt;30 min to compress about 21 gigabytes of each set of the seven target genomes into 96–260 megabytes, achieving compression ratios of 217 to 82 times. This performance is at least 1.9 times better than the best competing algorithm on its best case. Our compression speed is also at least 2.9 times faster. HiRGC is stable and robust to deal with different reference genomes. In contrast, the competing methods’ performance varies widely on different reference genomes. More experiments on 100 human genomes from the 1000 Genome Project and on genomes of several other species again demonstrate that HiRGC’s performance is consistently excellent. Availability and implementation The C +...

Luckett, T, Chenoweth, L, Phillips, J, Brooks, D, Cook, J, Mitchell, G, Pond, D, Davidson, PM, Beattie, E, Luscombe, G, Goodall, S, Fischer, T & Agar, M 2017, 'A facilitated approach to family case conferencing for people with advanced dementia living in nursing homes: perceptions of palliative care planning coordinators and other health professionals in the IDEAL study', International Psychogeriatrics, vol. 29, no. 10, pp. 1713-1722.
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ABSTRACTBackground:Palliative care for nursing home residents with advanced dementia is often sub-optimal due to poor communication and limited care planning. In a cluster randomized controlled trial, registered nurses (RNs) from 10 nursing homes were trained and funded to work as Palliative Care Planning Coordinators (PCPCs) to organize family case conferences and mentor staff. This qualitative sub-study aimed to explore PCPC and health professional perceptions of the benefits of facilitated case conferencing and identify factors influencing implementation.Method:Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the RNs in the PCPC role, other members of nursing home staff, and physicians who participated in case conferences. Analysis was conducted by two researchers using a thematic framework approach.Results:Interviews were conducted with 11 PCPCs, 18 other nurses, eight allied health workers, and three physicians. Perceived benefits of facilitated case conferencing included better communication between staff and families, greater multi-disciplinary involvement in case conferences and care planning, and improved staff attitudes and capabilities for dementia palliative care. Key factors influencing implementation included: staffing levels and time; support from management, staff and physicians; and positive family feedback.Conclusion:The facilitated approach explored in this study addressed known barriers to case conferencing. However, current business models in the sector make it difficult for case conferencing to receive the required levels of nursing qualification, training, and time. A collaborative nursing home culture and ongoing relationships with health professionals are also prerequisites for ...

Luckett, T, Phillips, J, Johnson, M, Garcia, M, Bhattarai, P, Carrieri-Kohlman, V, Hutchinson, A, Disler, RT, Currow, D, Agar, M, Ivynian, S, Chye, R, Newton, PJ & Davidson, PM 2017, 'Insights from Australians with respiratory disease living in the community with experience of self-managing through an emergency department ‘near miss’ for breathlessness: a strengths-based qualitative study', BMJ Open, vol. 7, no. 12, pp. e017536-e017536.
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ObjectivesBreathlessness ‘crises’ in people with chronic respiratory conditions are a common precipitant for emergency department (ED) presentations, many of which might be avoided through improved self-management and support. This study sought insights from people with experience of ED ‘near misses’ where they considered going to the ED but successfully self-managed instead.Design and methodsA qualitative approach was used with a phenomenological orientation. Participants were eligible if they reported breathlessness on most days from a diagnosed respiratory condition and experience of ≥1 ED near miss. Recruitment was through respiratory support groups and pulmonary rehabilitation clinics. Semistructured interviews were conducted with each participant via telephone or face-to-face. Questions focused on ED-related decision-making, information finding, breathlessness management and support. This analysis used an integrative approach and independent coding by two researchers. Lazarus and Cohen’s Transactional Model of Stress and Coping informed interpretive themes.ResultsInterviews were conducted with 20 participants, 15 of whom had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nineteen interviews were conducted via telephone. Analysis identified important factors in avoiding ED presentation to include perceived control over breathlessness, self-efficacy in coping with a crisis and desire not to be hospitalised. Effective coping strategies included: taking a project management approach that involved goal setting, monitoring and risk management; managing the affective dimension of breathlessness separately from the sensory perceptual and building three-way partnerships with primary care and respiratory services.ConclusionsIn addition t...

Luckett, T, Phillips, J, Johnson, MJ, Farquhar, M, Swan, F, Assen, T, Bhattarai, P & Booth, S 2017, 'Contributions of a hand-held fan to self-management of chronic breathlessness', European Respiratory Journal, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 1700262-1700262.
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© ERS 2017. This study explored the benefits of a hand-held fan as perceived by patients with chronic breathlessness and their carers. A secondary multimethod analysis was conducted of interview data collected in three clinical trials. Two researchers independently coded level of benefit qualitatively reported by each patient. Univariate and multivariate statistics were used to explore perceived benefit as a factor of sex, age and diagnosis. Qualitative analysis used an integrative method. 133 patients commented on the fan, of whom 72 had a carer. Diagnoses included nonmalignant (n=91, 68.4%) and malignant (n=21, 15.8%) conditions. Of 111 patients who provided codable data, four (3.6%) perceived no benefit, 16 (14.4%) were uncertain, 80 (72.0%) perceived some benefit and 11 (10.0%) perceived very substantial benefit. Multivariate analysis was inconclusive. Benefit was described in terms of shorter recovery time, especially after activity. 10 (7.5%) patients said the fan reduced their need for home oxygen or inhaled β-agonist medications. Negative perceptions of a few included dislike of the cooling sensation and embarrassment in public. Findings suggest that a hand-held fan is a portable intervention with few disadvantages from which most patients with chronic breathlessness will derive benefit alongside other nonpharmacological and pharmacological strategies. Research is needed to optimise guidance on fan administration.

Macha, IJ, Ben-Nissan, B & Müller, W 2017, 'Kinetics and the Theoretical Aspects of Drug Release from PLA/HAp Thin Films', Key Engineering Materials, vol. 758, pp. 113-119.
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The theory of dissolution kinetics of gentamicin from polylactic acid-hydroxyapatite thin film composites is spotlighted with the combination of diffusion and polymer degradation modeling. The use of various mathematical models, characterizing diffusion, dissolution or/and erosion prevalence as well as a mix of dissolution-diffusion rate processes were employed in order to compare theory with experimental data. A number of factors influence the release kinetics of gentamicin from medical drug release systems and devices. It is difficult to have a single mathematical model that takes all these factors into account. It is shown that the degradation of the polymer matrix plays the biggest role in the release kinetics of polymer-ceramics thin film composites. It was also observed that multistage drug release form these devices depends also on the degradation kinetics of the polymer matrix. The effect of pH and device sizes were not studied but could also be of interest in future studies.

Macha, IJ, Ben-Nissan, B, Santos, J, Cazalbou, S, Stamboulis, A, Grossin, D & Giordano, G 2017, 'Biocompatibility of a new biodegradable polymer-hydroxyapatite composite for biomedical applications', Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology, vol. 38, pp. 72-77.
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© 2017 Elsevier B.V. The rise in the number of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) due to an increasingly aging population has led to a growing demand for medication to prevent and treat these diseases. An increased interest in the development of new drugs to allow treatment of these diseases in their very early stages is currently observed. The current approach on local direct delivery of medication and key minerals to support bone repair and regeneration at the defect site, from flexible degradable devices, seems to be an effective strategy. Polylactic acid (PLA) and microspheres of hydrothermally converted coralline hydroxyapatite (cHAp) were used to develop PLA thin film composites as drug delivery systems. The PLA provided flexibility and biodegradability of the systems, while coralline hydroxyapatite provided the required calcium and phosphate ions for bone regeneration. These coralline hydroxyapatite microspheres have a unique architecture of interconnected porosity, are bioactive in nature and suitable for drug loading and controlled slow drug release. The cell attachment and morphology of the PLA thin film composites were evaluated in vitro using cell cultures of human adipose derived stem cells (hADSC). It was shown that hADSC cells exhibited a strong attachment and proliferation on PLA thin film-cHAp composites, signifying high biocompatibility and a potential for osteointegration due to the presence of HAp.

Macha, IJ, Cazalbou, S, Shimmon, R, Ben-Nissan, B & Milthorpe, B 2017, 'Development and dissolution studies of bisphosphonate (clodronate)-containing hydroxyapatite-polylactic acid biocomposites for slow drug delivery', Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 1723-1731.
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Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. An increase in clinical demand on the controlled release of bisphosphonates (BPs) due to complications associated with systemic administration, has been the current driving force on the development of BP drug-release systems. Bisphosphonates have the ability to bind to divalent metal ions, such as Ca2+, in bone mineral and prevent bone resorption by influencing the apoptosis of osteoclasts. Localized delivery using biodegradable materials, such as polylactic acid (PLA) and hydroxyapatite (HAp), which are ideal in this approach, have been used in this study to investigate the dissolution of clodronate (non-nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate) in a new release system. The effects of coral structure-derived HAp and the release kinetics of the composites were evaluated. The release kinetics of clodronate from PLA–BP and PLA–HAp–BP systems seemed to follow the power law model described by Korsmeyer–Peppas. Drug release was quantified by 31P-NMR with detection and quantification limits of 9.2 and 30.7 mM, respectively. The results suggest that these biocomposite systems could be tuned to release clodronate for both relatively short and prolonged period of time. In addition to drug delivery, the degradation of HAp supplies both Ca2+ and phosphate ions that can help in bone mineralization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Malone, JJ, Lovell, R, Varley, MC & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Unpacking the Black Box: Applications and Considerations for Using GPS Devices in Sport', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. s2, pp. S218-S226.
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Athlete-tracking devices that include global positioning system (GPS) and microelectrical mechanical system (MEMS) components are now commonplace in sport research and practice. These devices provide large amounts of data that are used to inform decision making on athlete training and performance. However, the data obtained from these devices are often provided without clear explanation of how these metrics are obtained. At present, there is no clear consensus regarding how these data should be handled and reported in a sport context. Therefore, the aim of this review was to examine the factors that affect the data produced by these athlete-tracking devices and to provide guidelines for collecting, processing, and reporting of data. Many factors including device sampling rate, positioning and fitting of devices, satellite signal, and data-filtering methods can affect the measures obtained from GPS and MEMS devices. Therefore researchers are encouraged to report device brand/model, sampling frequency, number of satellites, horizontal dilution of precision, and software/firmware versions in any published research. In addition, details of inclusion/exclusion criteria for data obtained from these devices are also recommended. Considerations for the application of speed zones to evaluate the magnitude and distribution of different locomotor activities recorded by GPS are also presented, alongside recommendations for both industry practice and future research directions. Through a standard approach to data collection and procedure reporting, researchers and practitioners will be able to make more confident comparisons from their data, which will improve the understanding and impact these devices can have on athlete performance.

Maltby, KF, Sanderson, CR, Lobb, EA & Phillips, JL 2017, 'Sleep disturbances in caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: A systematic review.', Palliative and Supportive Care, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 125-140.
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ABSTRACTObjective:Sleep disturbances are a common issue for those who provide informal care to someone with a life-limiting condition. The negative consequences of poor sleep are well documented. The purpose of the present study was to determine the sleep patterns of caregivers of patients with advanced cancer.Method:An extensive systematic review of studies reporting empirical sleep data was undertaken in 2015 in accordance with the PRISMA Statement. A total of eight electronic databases were searched, with no date restrictions imposed. Additionally, a search of the bibliographies of the studies identified during the electronic search was conducted. Search terms included: “sleep,” “insomnia,” “sleep disturbance,” “circadian rhythm,” “caregiver,” “carer,” “advanced cancer,” “palliative cancer,” and MESH suggestions. The inclusion criteria required studies to be in English and to report primary qualitative and/or quantitative research that examined sleep in caregivers of patients with advanced cancer. Unpublished studies, conference papers, and dissertations were excluded.Results:Overall, 10 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Two major findings emerged from the data synthesis. First, at least 72% of caregivers reported moderate to severe sleep disturbance as measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Second, objective measurement of caregivers' sleep identified that some caregivers experienced up to a 44% reduction in their total sleep time compared to the recommended eight hours.Significance of Results:Reduction in total sleep time appears to be ...

Mao, R, Liang, C, Zhang, Y, Hao, X & Li, J 2017, '50/50 Expressional Odds of Retention Signifies the Distinction between Retained Introns and Constitutively Spliced Introns in Arabidopsis thaliana', Frontiers in Plant Science, vol. 8, pp. 1-16.
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© 2017 Mao, Liang, Zhang, Hao and Li. Intron retention, one of the most prevalent alternative splicing events in plants, can lead to introns retained in mature mRNAs. However, in comparison with constitutively spliced introns (CSIs), the relevantly distinguishable features for retained introns (RIs) are still poorly understood. This work proposes a computational pipeline to discover novel RIs from multiple next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) datasets of Arabidopsis thaliana. Using this pipeline, we detected 3,472 novel RIs from 18 RNA-Seq datasets and re-confirmed 1,384 RIs which are currently annotated in the TAIR10 database. We also use the expression of intron-containing isoforms as a new feature in addition to the conventional features. Based on these features, RIs are highly distinguishable from CSIs by machine learning methods, especially when the expressional odds of retention (i.e., the expression ratio of the RI-containing isoforms relative to the isoforms without RIs for the same gene) reaches to or larger than 50/50. In this case, the RIs and CSIs can be clearly separated by the Random Forest with an outstanding performance of 0.95 on AUC (the area under a receiver operating characteristics curve). The closely related characteristics to the RIs include the low strength of splice sites, high similarity with the flanking exon sequences, low occurrence percentage of YTRAY near the acceptor site, existence of putative intronic splicing silencers (ISSs, i.e., AG/GA-rich motifs) and intronic splicing enhancers (ISEs, i.e., TTTT-containing motifs), and enrichment of Serine/Arginine-Rich (SR) proteins and heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoparticle proteins (hnRNPs).

Mao, Y, Nguyen, T, Tonkin, RS, Lees, JG, Warren, C, O’Carroll, SJ, Nicholson, LFB, Green, CR, Moalem-Taylor, G & Gorrie, CA 2017, 'Characterisation of Peptide5 systemic administration for treating traumatic spinal cord injured rats', Experimental Brain Research, vol. 235, no. 10, pp. 3033-3048.
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© 2017, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany. Systemic administration of a Connexin43 mimetic peptide, Peptide5, has been shown to reduce secondary tissue damage and improve functional recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI). This study investigated safety measures and potential off-target effects of Peptide5 systemic administration. Rats were subjected to a mild contusion SCI using the New York University impactor. One cohort was injected intraperitoneally with a single dose of fluorescently labelled Peptide5 and euthanised at 2 or 4 h post-injury for peptide distribution analysis. A second cohort received intraperitoneal injections of Peptide5 or a scrambled peptide and was culled at 8 or 24 h post-injury for the analysis of connexin proteins and systemic cytokine profile. We found that Peptide5 did not cross the blood-spinal cord barrier in control animals, but reached the lesion area in the spinal cord-injured animals without entering non-injured tissue. There was no evidence that the systemic administration of Peptide5 modulates Connexin43 protein expression or hemichannel closure in the heart and lung tissue of SCI animals. The expression levels of other major connexin proteins including Connexin30 in astrocytes, Connexin36 in neurons and Connexin47 in oligodendrocytes were also unaltered by systemic delivery of Peptide5 in either the injured or non-injured spinal cords. In addition, systemic delivery of Peptide5 had no significant effect on the plasma levels of cytokines, chemokines or growth factors. These data indicate that the systemic delivery of Peptide5 is unlikely to cause any off-target or adverse effects and may thus be a safe treatment option for traumatic SCI.

Mao, Y, Tonkin, RS, Nguyen, T, O'Carroll, SJ, Nicholson, LFB, Green, CR, Moalem-Taylor, G & Gorrie, CA 2017, 'Systemic Administration of Connexin43 Mimetic Peptide Improves Functional Recovery after Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury in Adult Rats', Journal of Neurotrauma, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 707-719.
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© Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2017. Blocking of Connexin43 hemichannels, the main gap junction protein located on astrocytes in the central nervous system, has been shown to reduce neural injury in a number of models. We demonstrated previously that local administration of a Connexin43 mimetic peptide, Peptide5, reduces secondary tissue damage after spinal cord injury (SCI). Here, we investigated whether acute systemic delivery of Peptide5 is also protective in a model of SCI. Rats were subjected to a mild spinal cord contusion using the Multicentre Animal Spinal Cord Injury Study impactor and were injected intraperitoneally with Peptide5 or a scrambled peptide immediately and at 2 h and 4 h post-injury. Rats were tested for locomotor recovery and pain hypersensitivity and euthanized at 8 h, 24 h, two weeks, or six weeks post-injury. Compared with control rats, Peptide5 treated rats showed significant improvement in hindlimb locomotor function between three and six weeks post-injury and reductions in at-level mechanical allodynia at weeks one and six post-injury. Immunohistochemistry showed that Peptide5 treatment led to a reduction in total Connexin43 and increased phosphorylated Connexin43 at 8 h compared with scrambled peptide. At two and six weeks, lesion size, the astrocytic and the activated macrophage, and/or microglial response were all decreased in the Peptide5 animals. In addition, neuronal cell numbers were higher in the Peptide5 animals compared with the scrambled peptide treated rats at two and six weeks. These results show for the first time that systemic administration of Peptide5 to block the pathological opening of Connexin43 hemichannels is a feasible treatment strategy in this setting, ameliorating the secondary SCI.

McCall, A, Fanchini, M & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Prediction: The Modern-Day Sport-Science and Sports-Medicine “Quest for the Holy Grail”', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 704-706.
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In high-performance sport, science and medicine practitioners employ a variety of physical and psychological tests, training and match monitoring, and injury-screening tools for a variety of reasons, mainly to predict performance, identify talented individuals, and flag when an injury will occur. The ability to “predict” outcomes such as performance, talent, or injury is arguably sport science and medicine’s modern-day equivalent of the “Quest for the Holy Grail.” The purpose of this invited commentary is to highlight the common misinterpretation of studies investigating association to those actually analyzing prediction and to provide practitioners with simple recommendations to quickly distinguish between methods pertaining to association and those of prediction.

MCCLEAVE, EL, SLATTERY, KM, DUFFIELD, ROB, SAUNDERS, PU, SHARMA, AP, CROWCROFT, SJ & COUTTS, AJ 2017, 'Temperate Performance Benefits after Heat, but Not Combined Heat and Hypoxic Training', Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 509-517.
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PURPOSE: Independent heat and hypoxic exposure can enhance temperate endurance performance in trained athletes, although their combined effects remain unknown. This study examined whether the addition of heat interval training during "live high, train low" (LHTL) hypoxic exposure would result in enhanced performance and physiological adaptations as compared with heat or temperate training. METHODS: Twenty-six well-trained runners completed 3 wk of interval training assigned to one of three conditions: 1) LHTL hypoxic exposure plus heat training (H + H; 3000 m for 13 h·d, train at 33°C, 60% relative humidity [RH]), 2) heat training with no hypoxic exposure (HOT, live at <600 m and train at 33°C, 60% RH), or 3) temperate training with no hypoxic exposure (CONT; live at <600 m and train at 14°C, 55% RH). Performance 3-km time-trials (3-km TT), running economy, hemoglobin mass, and plasma volume were assessed using magnitude-based inferences statistical approach before (Baseline), after (Post), and 3 wk (3wkP) after exposure. RESULTS: Compared with Baseline, 3-km TT performance was likely increased in HOT at 3wkP (-3.3% ± 1.3%; mean ± 90% confidence interval), with no performance improvement in either H + H or CONT. Hemoglobin mass increased by 3.8% ± 1.8% at Post in H + H only. Plasma volume in HOT was possibly elevated above H + H and CONT at Post but not at 3wkP. Correlations between changes in 3-km TT performance and physiological adaptations were unclear. CONCLUSION: Incorporating heat-based training into a 3-wk training block can improve temperate performance at 3 wk after exposure, with athlete psychology, physiology, and environmental dose all important considerations. Despite hematological adaptations, the addition of LHTL to heat interval training has no greater 3-km TT performance benefit than temperate training alone.

McGregor, D, Rankin, N, Butow, P, York, S, White, K, Phillips, J, Stone, E, Barnes, D, Jones, R & Shaw, T 2017, 'Closing evidence-practice gaps in lung cancer: Results from multi-methods priority setting in the clinical context', Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 28-36.
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© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd Aim: To establish priorities for implementation research to reduce evidence-practice gaps in lung cancer care. Methods: A modified Nominal Group Technique was used to prioritize evidence-practice gaps in lung cancer care with oncology professionals at three clinical study sites: one rural and two metropolitan. A multimethods design was used to gather quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, while qualitative data were thematically analyzed. Results: Forty-two health professionals participated, representing a multidisciplinary spread across the care trajectory. A standout priority was identified: reducing the time from first presentation of symptoms to diagnosis and referral for treatment (gap 1), as well as significant focus on a number of presented priorities, including: utilization of active treatments; timely referral to palliative care services; screening as a potential diagnostic tool; and focusing on the care needs of our vulnerable population groups. We describe emerging themes from the qualitative analysis, including: patient help-seeking behavior, provider knowledge about lung cancer, service factors, patient and provider factors in not receiving treatment, the “flow on” effect of variations from optimal care, vulnerable populations of patients, psychosocial needs and early referral to palliative care services. Conclusion: This study is an example of a priority setting partnership between clinicians and health researchers. The priorities highlighted by this study guide future decision making for collaborative implementation of research in lung cancer care.

McRobb, LS, McGrath, KCY, Tsatralis, T, Liong, EC, Tan, JTM, Hughes, G, Handelsman, DJ & Heather, AK 2017, 'Estrogen Receptor Control of Atherosclerotic Calcification and Smooth Muscle Cell Osteogenic Differentiation', Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, vol. 37, no. 6, pp. 1127-1137.
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Objective— Vascular calcification is associated with increased risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. The objective of this work was to examine the ability of 17β-estradiol (E2) to stimulate calcification of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) in vivo, using aged apolipoprotein E-null mice with advanced atherosclerotic lesions, and subsequently to explore underlying mechanisms in vitro. Approach and Results— Silastic E2 capsules were implanted into male and female apolipoprotein E-null mice aged 34 weeks. Plaque and calcified area were measured in the aortic sinus and innominate artery after 8 weeks. Immunohistochemical analysis examined expression of the estrogen receptors (estrogen receptor alpha and estrogen receptor beta [ERβ]). VSMC expression of osteogenic markers was examined using digital polymerase chain reaction. Advanced atherosclerotic lesions were present in all mice at the end of 8 weeks. In both male and female mice, E2 increased calcified area in a site-specific manner in the aortic sinus independently of plaque growth or lipid levels and occurred in association with a site-specific decrease in the proportion of ERβ-positive intimal cells. Calcified lesions expressed collagen I and bone sialoprotein, with decreased matrix Gla protein. In vitro, E2 suppressed ERβ expression and increased VSMC mineralization, demonstrating increased collagen I and II, osteocalcin and bone sialoprotein, and reduced matrix Gla protein and osteopontin. Antagonism or RNA silencing of estrogen receptor alpha, ERβ, or both further increased VSMC mineralization. Conclusions— We have demonstrated that E2 can drive calcification in advanced atherosclerotic lesions by promoting the ...

Menear, A, Elliott, R, M Aitken, L, Lal, S & McKinley, S 2017, 'Repeated sleep‐quality assessment and use of sleep‐promoting interventions in ICU', Nursing in Critical Care, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 348-354.
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ABSTRACTTo describe sleep quality using repeated subjective assessment and the ongoing use of sleep‐promoting interventions in intensive care. It is well known that the critically ill experience sleep disruption while receiving treatment in the intensive care unit. Both the measurement and promotion of sleep is challenging in the complex environment of intensive care unit. Repeated subjective assessment of patients' sleep in the intensive care unit and use of sleep‐promoting interventions has not been widely reported. An observational study was conducted in a 58‐bed adult intensive care unit. Sleep quality was assessed using the Richards‐Campbell Sleep Questionnaire (RCSQ) each morning. intensive care unit audit sleep‐promoting intervention data were compared to data obtained prior to the implementation of a sleep guideline. Patients answered open‐ended questions about the facilitators and deterrents of their sleep in intensive care unit. The sample (n = 50) was predominately male (76%) with a mean age: 62.6±16.9 years. Sleep quality was assessed on 2 days or more for 21 patients. The majority of patients (98%) received sleep‐promoting interventions. Sleep quality had not improved significantly since the guideline was first implemented. The mean Richards‐Campbell Sleep Questionnaire score was 47.9±24.1 mm. The main sleep deterrents were discomfort and noise. Frequently cited facilitators were nothing (i.e. nothing helped) and analgesia. The Richards‐Campbell Sleep Questionnaire was used on repeated occasions, and sleep‐promoting interventions were used extensively. There was no evidence of improvement in sleep quality since the implementation of a sleep guideline. The use of the Richards‐Campbell Sleep Questionnaire for the subjective self‐assessment of sleep quality in intensive care unit patients and the implementation of simple‐promoting interventions by intensive care unit clinicians is bot...

Meng, Q, Catchpoole, D, Skillicorn, D & Kennedy, PJ 2017, 'DBNorm: normalizing high-density oligonucleotide microarray data based on distributions', BMC Bioinformatics, vol. 18, no. 1.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: Data from patients with rare diseases is often produced using different platforms and probe sets because patients are widely distributed in space and time. Aggregating such data requires a method of normalization that makes patient records comparable. Results: This paper proposed DBNorm, implemented as an R package, is an algorithm that normalizes arbitrarily distributed data to a common, comparable form. Specifically, DBNorm merges data distributions by fitting functions to each of them, and using the probability of each element drawn from the fitted distribution to merge it into a global distribution. DBNorm contains state-of-the-art fitting functions including Polynomial, Fourier and Gaussian distributions, and also allows users to define their own fitting functions if required. Conclusions: The performance of DBNorm is compared with z-score, average difference, quantile normalization and ComBat on a set of datasets, including several that are publically available. The performance of these normalization methods are compared using statistics, visualization, and classification when class labels are known based on a number of self-generated and public microarray datasets. The experimental results show that DBNorm achieves better normalization results than conventional methods. Finally, the approach has the potential to be applicable outside bioinformatics analysis.

Mitchell, AB, Mourad, B, Malouf, MA, Benzimra, M, Morgan, LC, Oliver, BG & Glanville, AR 2017, 'Transplanting the Human Respiratory Virome', The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. S148-S149.
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Mittra, R, Pavy, M, Subramanian, N, George, AM, O'Mara, ML, Kerr, ID & Callaghan, R 2017, 'Location of contact residues in pharmacologically distinct drug binding sites on P-glycoprotein', Biochemical Pharmacology, vol. 123, pp. 19-28.
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The multidrug resistance P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is characterised by the ability to bind and/or transport an astonishing array of drugs. This poly-specificity is imparted by at least four pharmacologically distinct binding sites within the transmembrane domain. Whether or not these sites are spatially distinct has remained unclear. Biochemical and structural investigations have implicated a central cavity as the likely location for the binding sites. In the present investigation, a number of contact residues that are involved in drug binding were identified through biochemical assays using purified, reconstituted P-gp. Drugs were selected to represent each of the four pharmacologically distinct sites. Contact residues important in rhodamine123 binding were identified in the central cavity of P-gp. However, contact residues for the binding of vinblastine, paclitaxel and nicardipine were located at the lipid-protein interface rather than the central cavity. A key residue (F978) within the central cavity is believed to be involved in coupling drug binding to nucleotide hydrolysis. Data observed in this investigation suggest the presence of spatially distinct drug binding sites connecting through to a single translocation pore in the central cavity.

Moosavi, SM, Prabhala, P & Ammit, AJ 2017, 'Role and regulation of MKP-1 in airway inflammation', Respiratory Research, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 154-12.
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Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphatase 1 (MKP-1) is a protein with anti-inflammatory properties and the archetypal member of the dual-specificity phosphatases (DUSPs) family that have emerged over the past decade as playing an instrumental role in the regulation of airway inflammation. Not only does MKP-1 serve a critical role as a negative feedback effector, controlling the extent and duration of pro-inflammatory MAPK signalling in airway cells, upregulation of this endogenous phosphatase has also emerged as being one of the key cellular mechanism responsible for the beneficial actions of clinically-used respiratory medicines, including β2-agonists, phosphodiesterase inhibitors and corticosteroids. Herein, we review the role and regulation of MKP-1 in the context of airway inflammation. We initially outline the structure and biochemistry of MKP-1 and summarise the multi-layered molecular mechanisms responsible for MKP-1 production more generally. We then focus in on some of the key in vitro studies in cell types relevant to airway disease that explain how MKP-1 can be regulated in airway inflammation at the transcriptional, post-translation and post-translational level. And finally, we address some of the potential challenges with MKP-1 upregulation that need to be explored further to fully exploit the potential of MKP-1 to repress airway inflammation in chronic respiratory disease.

Naik, GR, Al-Ani, A, Gobbo, M & Nguyen, HT 2017, 'Does Heel Height Cause Imbalance during Sit-to-Stand Task: Surface EMG Perspective', Frontiers in Physiology, vol. 8, pp. 1-20.
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The purpose of this study was to determine whether electromyography (EMG) muscle activities around the knee differ during sit-to-stand (STS) and returning task for females wearing shoes with different heel heights. Sixteen healthy young women (age = 25.2 ± 3.9 years, body mass index = 20.8 ± 2.7 kg/m2) participated in this study. Electromyography signals were recorded fromthe twomuscles, vastusmedialis (VM) and vastus lateralis (VL) that involve in the extension of knee. The participants wore shoes with five different heights, including 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 cm. Surface electromyography (sEMG) data were acquired during STS and stand-to-sit-returning (STSR) tasks. The data was filtered using a fourth order Butterworth (band pass) filter of 20–450 Hz frequency range. For each heel height, we extractedmedian frequency (MDF) and root mean square (RMS) features to measure sEMG activities between VM and VL muscles. The experimental results (based on MDF and RMS-values) indicated that there is imbalance between vasti muscles for more elevated heels. The results are also quantified with statistical measures.The study findings suggest that there would be an increased likelihood of knee imbalance and fatigue with regular usage of high heel shoes (HHS) in women.

Nair, PM, Starkey, MR, Haw, TJ, Liu, G, Horvat, JC, Morris, JC, Verrills, NM, Clark, AR, Ammit, AJ & Hansbro, PM 2017, 'Targeting PP2A and proteasome activity ameliorates features of allergic airway disease in mice', Allergy, vol. 72, no. 12, pp. 1891-1903.
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AbstractBackgroundAsthma is an allergic airway disease (AAD) caused by aberrant immune responses to allergens. Protein phosphatase‐2A (PP2A) is an abundant serine/threonine phosphatase with anti‐inflammatory activity. The ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) controls many cellular processes, including the initiation of inflammatory responses by protein degradation. We assessed whether enhancing PP2A activity with fingolimod (FTY720) or 2‐amino‐4‐(4‐(heptyloxy) phenyl)‐2‐methylbutan‐1‐ol (AAL(S)), or inhibiting proteasome activity with bortezomib (BORT), could suppress experimental AAD.MethodsAcute AAD was induced in C57BL/6 mice by intraperitoneal sensitization with ovalbumin (OVA) in combination with intranasal (i.n) exposure to OVA. Chronic AAD was induced in mice with prolonged i.n exposure to crude house dust mite (HDM) extract. Mice were treated with vehicle, FTY720,

Newton-John, TRO, Ventura, AD, Mosely, K, Browne, JL & Speight, J 2017, '‘Are you sure you’re going to have another one of those?’: A qualitative analysis of the social control and social support models in type 2 diabetes', Journal of Health Psychology, vol. 22, no. 14, pp. 1819-1829.
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While there is evidence that spouses can impact the self-management of adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus, less is known about the influence of the wider social network. This qualitative study explored the perceived impact of the family as well as friends and work colleagues on type 2 diabetes mellitus self-management. A total of 25 adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus participated in semi-structured interviews regarding their social experiences of living with diabetes. Deductive thematic analysis was applied to the data. Pre-existing themes of health-related social control and social support were identified in the wider social network, with additional themes of non-involvement and unintentional undermining also emerging.

Nguyen, LT, Chen, H, Pollock, C & Saad, S 2017, 'SIRT1 reduction is associated with sex-specific dysregulation of renal lipid metabolism and stress responses in offspring by maternal high-fat diet', Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-13.
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AbstractRodent models of maternal obesity have been associated with kidney damage and dysfunction in offspring. However, the underlying mechanisms are yet to be elucidated. In this study, female rats were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 6 weeks prior to mating, throughout gestation and lactation; both male and female offspring were examined at weaning. Our results demonstrate that renal lipid deposition was increased in male offspring only, which is associated with reduced protein expression of Sirtuin (SIRT) 1, an essential regulator of lipid metabolism and stress response. Other components in its signalling network including phosphorylated 5′-AMP-activated protein kinase (pAMPKα), Forkhead box FOXO3a and Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)γ coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α) were also downregulated. By contrast, in female offspring, renal fat/lipid distribution was unchanged in coupling with normal SIRT1 regulation. Specific autophagy and antioxidant markers were suppressed in both sexes. On the other hand, fibronectin and Collagen type IV protein expression was significantly higher in the offspring born HFD-fed dams, particularly in the males. Collectively, these findings suggest that maternal HFD consumption can induce sex-specific changes in offspring kidney lipid metabolism and stress responses at early ages, which may underpin the risk of kidney diseases later in life.

Nguyen, LT, Saad, S, Tan, Y, Pollock, C & Chen, H 2017, 'Maternal high-fat diet induces metabolic stress response disorders in offspring hypothalamus', Journal of Molecular Endocrinology, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 81-92.
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Maternal obesity has been shown to increase the risk of obesity and related disorders in the offspring, which has been partially attributed to changes of appetite regulators in the offspring hypothalamus. On the other hand, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and autophagy have been implicated in hypothalamic neuropeptide dysregulation, thus may also play important roles in such transgenerational effect. In this study, we show that offspring born to high-fat diet-fed dams showed significantly increased body weight and glucose intolerance, adiposity and plasma triglyceride level at weaning. Hypothalamic mRNA level of the orexigenic neuropeptide Y (NPY) was increased, while the levels of the anorexigenic pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC), NPY1 receptor (NPY1R) and melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4R) were significantly downregulated. In association, the expression of unfolded protein response (UPR) markers including glucose-regulated protein (GRP)94 and endoplasmic reticulum DNA J domain-containing protein (Erdj)4 was reduced. By contrast, protein levels of autophagy-related genes Atg5 and Atg7, as well as mitophagy marker Parkin, were slightly increased. The administration of 4-phenyl butyrate (PBA), a chemical chaperone of protein folding and UPR activator, in the offspring from postnatal day 4 significantly reduced their body weight, fat deposition, which were in association with increased activating transcription factor (ATF)4, immunoglobulin-binding protein (BiP) and Erdj4 mRNA as well as reduced Parkin, PTEN-induced putative kinase (PINK)1 and dynamin-related protein (Drp)1 protein expression levels. These results suggest that hypothalamic ER stress and mitophagy are among the regulatory factors of offspring metabolic changes due to maternal obesity.

Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Air pollution: a largely neglected risk factor for osteoporosis', The Lancet Planetary Health, vol. 1, no. 8, pp. e311-e312.
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Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Individualized Assessment of Fracture Risk: Contribution of “Osteogenomic Profile”', Journal of Clinical Densitometry, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 353-359.
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Over the past decade, several genetic variants or genes for osteoporosis have been identified through genome-wide association studies and candidate gene association studies. These genetic variants are common in the general population but have modest effect sizes, with odds ratio ranging from 1.1 to 1.5. Thus, the utility of any single variant is limited. However, theoretical and empirical studies have suggested that a profiling of multiple variants that are associated with bone phenotypes (i.e., "osteogenomic profile") can improve the accuracy of fracture prediction and classification beyond that obtained by conventional clinical risk factors. These results support the view that an osteogenomic profile, when integrated into existing models, can help clinicians and patients alike to better assess the risk fracture for an individual, and raise the possibility of personalized osteoporosis care.

Nguyen, TV & Eisman, JA 2017, 'Fracture Risk Assessment: From Population to Individual', Journal of Clinical Densitometry, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 368-378.
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© 2017 The International Society for Clinical Densitometry Fracture caused by osteoporosis remains a major public health burden on contemporary populations because fracture is associated with a substantial increase in the risk of mortality. Early identification of high-risk individuals for prevention is a priority in osteoporosis research. Over the past decade, few risk prediction models, including the Garvan Fracture Risk Calculator (Garvan) and FRAX®, have been developed to provide absolute (individualized) risk of fracture. Recent validation studies suggested that the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve in fracture discrimination ranged from 0.61 to 0.83 for FRAX® and from 0.63 to 0.88 for Garvan, with hip fractures having a better discrimination than fragility fractures as a group. Although the prognostic performance of Garvan and FRAX® for fracture prediction is not perfect and there is room for further improvement, these predictive models can aid patients and doctors communicate about fracture risk in the medium term and to make rational decisions. However, the application of these predictive models in making decisions for an individual should take into account the individual's perception of the importance of fracture relative to other diseases.

Nguyen, TV, Ho-Le, TP & Le, UV 2017, 'International collaboration in scientific research in Vietnam: an analysis of patterns and impact', Scientometrics, vol. 110, no. 2, pp. 1035-1051.
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Nizalapur, S, Kimyon, O, Yee, E, Ho, K, Berry, T, Manefield, M, Cranfield, CG, Willcox, M, Black, DS & Kumar, N 2017, 'Amphipathic guanidine-embedded glyoxamide-based peptidomimetics as novel antibacterial agents and biofilm disruptors', Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, vol. 15, no. 9, pp. 2033-2051.
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Novel antibacterial peptidomimetics that inhibit the growth of planktonic cells and reduce biofilm formation in both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.

Norouzi, M, Miro, JV & Dissanayake, G 2017, 'Planning Stable and Efficient Paths for Reconfigurable Robots On Uneven Terrain', Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, vol. 87, no. 2, pp. 291-312.
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© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. An analytical strategy to generate stable paths for reconfigurable mobile robots such as those equipped with manipulator arms and/or flippers, operating in an uneven environment whilst also meeting additional navigational objectives is hereby proposed. The suggested solution looks at minimising the length of the traversed path and the energy expenditure in changing postures, and also accounts for additional constraints in terms of sensor visibility and traction. This is particularly applicable to operations such as search and rescue where observing the environment for locating victims is the major objective, although this technique can be generalised to incorporate other potentially conflicting objectives (e.g. maximising ground clearance for a legged robot). The validity of the proposed approach is evaluated with two popular graph-based planners (A* and RRT) on a multi-tracked robot fitted with a manipulator arm and a range camera. Two challenging 3D terrain data sets have been employed: one obtained whilst operating the robot in a mock-up urban search and rescue (USAR) arena, and a second one, a reference on-line data set acquired on the quasi-outdoor rover testing facility at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS).

Nuryani, NA, Harjito, B, Yahya, I, Solikhah, M, Chai, R & Lestari, A 2017, 'Atrial fibrillation detection using support vector machine and electrocardiographic descriptive statistics', International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 225-225.
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This paper proposes a new technique for detecting atrial fibrillation (AF). The method employs electrocardiographic features and support vector machine (SVM). The features include descriptive statistics of electrocardiographic RR interval. The RR interval is the distance in time between two consecutive R-peaks of electrocardiogram. AF detections using SVM with different electrocardiographic features and different SVM free parameters are explored. Employing SVM with the optimal free parameters and all the proposed electrocardiographic features, we find an AF detection technique with a comparable performance. The best performance obtained by the technique is 98.47% and 97.84%, in terms of sensitivity and specificity.

Ong, M, Peng, J, Jin, X & Qu, X 2017, 'Chinese Herbal Medicine for the Optimal Management of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome', The American Journal of Chinese Medicine, vol. 45, no. 03, pp. 405-422.
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Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex heterogeneous disorder characterized by androgen excess and ovulatory dysfunction; it is now known to be closely linked to metabolic syndrome. Recent research suggests that insulin resistance plays an important role in the pathogenesis of PCOS which may lead to the excessive production of androgens by ovarian theca cells. Currently there is no single drug that can treat both the reproductive and metabolic complications of the disorder. Existing pharmaceutical agents such as hormonal therapies have been associated with side effects and are not appropriate for PCOS women with infertility. Additionally, insulin sensitizing agents useful for treating the metabolic abnormalities in PCOS have limited efficacy for treating reproductive aspects of the disorder. Chinese herbal medicines have a long history of treating gynaecological problems and infertility and therefore may be a novel approach to the treatment of PCOS. Current research demonstrates that the compounds isolated from herbs have shown beneficial effects for PCOS and when combined in an herbal formula can target both reproductive and metabolic defects simultaneously. Therefore, further investigation into Chinese herbal medicine in the treatment of PCOS is warranted.

Pang, CT, Ammit, AJ, Ong, YQE & Wheate, NJ 2017, 'para -Sulfonatocalix[4]arene and polyamidoamine dendrimer nanocomplexes as delivery vehicles for a novel platinum anticancer agent', Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, vol. 176, pp. 1-7.
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Novel para-sulfonatocalix[4]arene (sCX[4]) and polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimer nanocomplexes were evaluated as delivery vehicles for the platinum anticancer agent [(1,10-phenanthroline)(1S,2S-diaminocyclohexane)platinum(II)] chloride (PHENSS). Different ratios of sCX[4] to PHENSS were tested for their compatibility, with a ratio of 6:1 sCX[4]:PHENSS having the best solubility. The loading of sCX[4], and sCX[4]-bound PHENSS, onto three different generations of PAMAM dendrimers (G3.0-5.0) was examined using UV-visible spectrophotometry. The quantity of sCX[4] bound was found to increase exponentially with dendrimer size: G3, 15 sCX[4] molecules per dendrimer; G4, 37; and G5, 78. Similarly, the loading of sCX[4]-bound PHENSS also increased with increasing dendrimer size: G3, 7 PHENSS molecules per dendrimer; G4, 14; and G5, 28.5. The loading of sCX[4]-bound PHENSS molecules is significantly lower when compared with that of sCX[4], which indicates that less than half of the binding sites were occupied (45, 44, and 44%, respectively). By 1H NMR and UV-vis analysis, the nanocomplex was found to be stable in NaCl solutions at concentrations up to 150mM. While PHENSS is more active in vitro than cisplatin against the human breast cancer cell line, MCF-7, delivery of PHENSS using the sCX[4]-dendrimer nanocomplexes, regardless of dendrimer generation, had little effect on PHENSS cytotoxicity. The results of this study may have application in the delivery of a variety of small molecule metal-based drugs for which chemical conjugation to a nanoparticle is undesired or not feasible.

Parker, D, Eley, R, Burston, A & Tuckett, A 2017, 'Moral Distress', Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 24-24.
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Practicing within a moral framework is expected professionally and framed within documents such as the Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia (Nursing & Midwifery Board of Australia, 2013a) and Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses in Australia (Nursing & Midwifery Board of Australia, 2013b). The challenge is for the profession to embrace our role as moral agents, actively educate staff and provide forums for multi-disciplinary teams to discuss and debate ethical challenges in practice.

Patel, BS, Kugel, MJ, Baehring, G & Ammit, AJ 2017, 'Doxofylline does not increase formoterol-induced cAMP nor MKP-1 expression in ASM cells resulting in lack of anti-inflammatory effect', Pulmonary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, vol. 45, pp. 34-39.
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© 2017 The xanthine doxofylline has been examined in clinical trials and shown to have efficacy and greater tolerability than theophylline in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The ‘novofylline’ doxofylline has demonstrated bronchodilatory and anti-inflammatory actions in in vivo and ex vivo experimental models of respiratory disease. However, there are limited studies in vitro. We address this herein and examine whether doxofylline has anti-inflammatory impact on primary cultures of airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells. We conduct a series of investigations comparing and contrasting doxofylline with the archetypal xanthine, theophylline, and the specific phosphodiesterase (PDE) 4 inhibitor, cilomilast. We confirm that the xanthine drugs do not have action as PDE inhibitors in ASM cells. Unlike cilomilast, doxofylline (and theophylline) do not increase cAMP production in ASM cells induced by long-acting β2-agonist formoterol. Similar to theophylline, and consistent with the lack of cAMP potentiation, doxofylline does not augment formoterol-induced upregulation of the anti-inflammatory protein mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase 1 (MKP-1). However, when we examine the effect of doxofylline on secretion of the interleukin 8 from ASM cells stimulated by tumour necrosis factor (an in vitro surrogate measure of inflammation), there was no repression of inflammation. This is in contrast to the anti-inflammatory impact exerted by theophylline and cilomilast in confirmatory experiments. In summary, our study is the first to examine the effect of doxofylline on ASM cells in vitro and highlights some distinct differences between two key members of xanthine drug family, doxofylline and theophylline.

Patel, BS, Rahman, MM, Baehring, G, Xenaki, D, Tang, FS-M, Oliver, BG & Ammit, AJ 2017, 'Roflumilast N-Oxide in Combination with Formoterol Enhances the Antiinflammatory Effect of Dexamethasone in Airway Smooth Muscle Cells', American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 532-538.
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Roflumilast is an orally active phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitor approved for use in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. RoflumilastN-oxide (RNO) is the active metabolite of roflumilast and has a demonstrated antiinflammatory impact in vivo and in vitro. To date, the effect of RNO on the synthetic function of airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells is unknown. We address this herein and investigate the effect of RNO on β2-adrenoceptor-mediated, cAMPdependent responses in ASM cells in vitro, and whether RNO enhances steroid-induced repression of inflammation. RNO (0.001-1,000 nM) alone had no effect onAMPproduction fromASM cells, and significant potentiation of the long-acting β2-agonist formoterol-induced cAMP could only be achieved at the highest concentration ofRNOtested (1,000 nM). At this concentration,RNO exerted a small, but not significantly different, potentiation of formoterol-induced expression of antiinflammatory mitogenactivated protein kinase phosphatase 1. Consequently, tumor necrosis factor-induced IL-8 secretion was unaffected by RNO in combination with formoterol. However, because there was the potential for phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitors and long-acting β2-agonists to interact with corticosteroids to achieve superior antiinflammatory efficacy, we examined whether RNO, alone or in combination with formoterol, enhanced the antiinflammatory effect of dexamethasone by measuring the impact on IL-8 secretion. Although RNO alone did not significantly enhance the cytokine repression achieved with steroids, RNO in combination with formoterol significantly enhanced the antiinflammatory effect of dexamethasone in ASM cells. This was linked to increased mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase 1 expression in ASM cells, suggesting that a molecular mechanism is responsible for augmented antiinflammatory actions of combination therapeutic approaches that include RNO.

Pellegrino, G, Taraschi, V, Vercellotti, T, Ben-Nissan, B & Marchetti, C 2017, 'Three-Dimensional Implant Positioning with a Piezosurgery Implant Site Preparation Technique and an Intraoral Surgical Navigation System: Case Report', The International Journal of Oral & Maxillofacial Implants, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. e163-e165.
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© 2017 by Quintessence Publishing Co Inc. This case report describes new implant site preparation techniques joining the benefits of using an intraoral navigation system to optimize three-dimensional implant site positioning in combination with an ultrasonic osteotomy. A report of five patients is presented, and the implant positions as planned in the navigation software with the postoperative scan image were compared. The preliminary results are useful, although further clinical studies with larger populations are needed to confirm these findings.

Peng, H, Lan, C, Liu, Y, Liu, T, Blumenstein, M & Li, J 2017, 'Chromosome preference of disease genes and vectorization for the prediction of non-coding disease genes', Oncotarget, vol. 8, no. 45, pp. 78901-78916.
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© Peng et al. Disease-related protein-coding genes have been widely studied, but diseaserelated non-coding genes remain largely unknown. This work introduces a new vector to represent diseases, and applies the newly vectorized data for a positive-unlabeled learning algorithm to predict and rank disease-related long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) genes. This novel vector representation for diseases consists of two sub-vectors, one is composed of 45 elements, characterizing the information entropies of the disease genes distribution over 45 chromosome substructures. This idea is supported by our observation that some substructures (e.g., the chromosome 6 p-arm) are highly preferred by disease-related protein coding genes, while some (e.g., the 21 p-arm) are not favored at all. The second sub-vector is 30-dimensional, characterizing the distribution of disease gene enriched KEGG pathways in comparison with our manually created pathway groups. The second sub-vector complements with the first one to differentiate between various diseases. Our prediction method outperforms the stateof- the-art methods on benchmark datasets for prioritizing disease related lncRNA genes. The method also works well when only the sequence information of an lncRNA gene is known, or even when a given disease has no currently recognized long noncoding genes.

Peng, H, Lan, C, Zheng, Y, Hutvagner, G, Tao, D & Li, J 2017, 'Cross disease analysis of co-functional microRNA pairs on a reconstructed network of disease-gene-microRNA tripartite', BMC Bioinformatics, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 1-17.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: MicroRNAs always function cooperatively in their regulation of gene expression. Dysfunctions of these co-functional microRNAs can play significant roles in disease development. We are interested in those multi-disease associated co-functional microRNAs that regulate their common dysfunctional target genes cooperatively in the development of multiple diseases. The research is potentially useful for human disease studies at the transcriptional level and for the study of multi-purpose microRNA therapeutics. Methods and results: We designed a computational method to detect multi-disease associated co-functional microRNA pairs and conducted cross disease analysis on a reconstructed disease-gene-microRNA (DGR) tripartite network. The construction of the DGR tripartite network is by the integration of newly predicted disease-microRNA associations with those relationships of diseases, microRNAs and genes maintained by existing databases. The prediction method uses a set of reliable negative samples of disease-microRNA association and a pre-computed kernel matrix instead of kernel functions. From this reconstructed DGR tripartite network, multi-disease associated co-functional microRNA pairs are detected together with their common dysfunctional target genes and ranked by a novel scoring method. We also conducted proof-of-concept case studies on cancer-related co-functional microRNA pairs as well as on non-cancer disease-related microRNA pairs. Conclusions: With the prioritization of the co-functional microRNAs that relate to a series of diseases, we found that the co-function phenomenon is not unusual. We also confirmed that the regulation of the microRNAs for the development of cancers is more complex and have more unique properties than those of non-cancer diseases.

Pham, HM, Nguyen, SC, Ho-Le, TP, Center, JR, Eisman, JA & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Association of Muscle Weakness With Post-Fracture Mortality in Older Men and Women: A 25-Year Prospective Study', Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 698-707.
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ABSTRACT   Osteoporotic fracture increases the risk of premature mortality. Muscle weakness is associated with both increased fracture risk and low bone mineral density (BMD). However, the role of muscle strength in post-fracture mortality is not well understood. This study examines the change of muscle strength measured at quadriceps (QS) before and after fracture and defines the relationship between muscle strength and post-fracture mortality. The study involved 889 women and 295 men (who were participating in the Dubbo Osteoporosis Study) who had at least one low-trauma fracture (ascertained from X-ray reports) after the age of 50 years. Median follow-up time was 11 years (range 1 to 24). To determine the change in muscle strength before and after a fracture, we selected a subset of 344 women and 99 men who had had at least two muscle strength measurements before the fracture event and a subset of 407 women and 105 men who had had at least two measurements after the fracture. During the follow-up period, 366 (41.2%) women and 150 (50.9%) men died. The annual rate of decrease in height-adjusted muscle strength before fracture was 0.27 kg/m (1.85%) in women and 0.40 kg/m (1.79%) in men. Strength loss after fracture was not significantly different from that before fracture. In women, after adjusting for baseline age and BMD, each SD (5 kg/m) lower height-adjusted pre- and post-fracture quadriceps strength was associated with a 27% (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.27; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.07, 1.50) and 18% (HR = 1.18; 95% CI 1.01, 1.38) increase in post-fracture mortality risk, respectively. Similarly, in men, each SD (5 kg/m) lower height-adjusted pre- and post-fracture QS was associated with increased mortality before fracture (HR = 1.33; 95% CI 1.09, 1.63) and after fracture (HR = 1.43; 95% CI 1.16, 1.78). Muscle weakness accounted f...

Phillips, JL & Currow, DC 2017, 'Would reframing aged care facilities as a ‘hospice’ instead of a ‘home’ enable older people to get the care they need?', Collegian, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 1-2.
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Phillips, JL, Heneka, N, Hickman, L, Lam, L & Shaw, T 2017, 'Can A Complex Online Intervention Improve Cancer Nurses’ Pain Screening and Assessment Practices? Results from a Multicenter, Pre-post Test Pilot Study', Pain Management Nursing, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 75-89.
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© 2017 American Society for Pain Management Nursing Unrelieved cancer pain has an adverse impact on quality of life. While routine screening and assessment forms the basis of effective cancer pain management, it is often poorly done, thus contributing to the burden of unrelieved cancer pain. The aim of this study was to test the impact of an online, complex, evidence-based educational intervention on cancer nurses' pain assessment capabilities and adherence to cancer pain screening and assessment guidelines. Specialist inpatient cancer nurses in five Australian acute care settings participated in an intervention combining an online spaced learning cancer pain assessment module with audit and feedback of pain assessment practices. Participants' self-perceived pain assessment competencies were measured at three time points. Prospective, consecutive chart audits were undertaken to appraise nurses' adherence with pain screening and assessment guidelines. The differences in documented pre-post pain assessment practices were benchmarked and fed back to all sites post intervention. Data were analyzed using inferential statistics. Participants who completed the intervention (n = 44) increased their pain assessment knowledge, assessment tool knowledge, and confidence undertaking a pain assessment (p < .001). The positive changes in nurses' pain assessment capabilities translated into a significant increasing linear trend in the proportion of documented pain assessments in patients’ charts at the three time points (χ2 trend = 18.28, df = 1, p < .001). There is evidence that learning content delivered using a spaced learning format, augmented with pain assessment audit and feedback data, improves inpatient cancer nurses' self-perceived pain screening and assessment capabilities and strengthens cancer pain guideline adherence.

Polonchuk, L, Chabria, M, Badi, L, Hoflack, J-C, Figtree, G, Davies, MJ & Gentile, C 2017, 'Cardiac spheroids as promising in vitro models to study the human heart microenvironment', Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-12.
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AbstractThree-dimensional in vitro cell systems are a promising alternative to animals to study cardiac biology and disease. We have generated three-dimensional in vitro models of the human heart (“cardiac spheroids”, CSs) by co-culturing human primary or iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and fibroblasts at ratios approximating those present in vivo. The cellular organisation, extracellular matrix and microvascular network mimic human heart tissue. These spheroids have been employed to investigate the dose-limiting cardiotoxicity of the common anti-cancer drug doxorubicin. Viability/cytotoxicity assays indicate dose-dependent cytotoxic effects, which are inhibited by the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor L-NIO, and genetic inhibition of endothelial NOS, implicating peroxynitrous acid as a key damaging agent. These data indicate that CSs mimic important features of human heart morphology, biochemistry and pharmacology in vitro, offering a promising alternative to animals and standard cell cultures with regard to mechanistic insights and prediction of toxic effects in human heart tissue.

Popp, J, Matthews, D, Martinez-Coll, A, Mayerhöfer, T & Wilson, BC 2017, 'Challenges in translation: models to promote translation', Journal of Biomedical Optics, vol. 23, no. 02, pp. 1-1.
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We first discuss the main obstacles for clinical translation of biophotonics technologies, in particular, the different valleys of death, after which we present different examples of ways to bridge these gaps, remove the obstacles, and promote clinical translation.

Prakash, YS, Halayko, AJ, Gosens, R, Panettieri, RA, Camoretti-Mercado, B & Penn, RB 2017, 'An Official American Thoracic Society Research Statement: Current Challenges Facing Research and Therapeutic Advances in Airway Remodeling', American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, vol. 195, no. 2, pp. e4-e19.
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BACKGROUND: Airway remodeling (AR) is a prominent feature of asthma and other obstructive lung diseases that is minimally affected by current treatments. The goals of this Official American Thoracic Society (ATS) Research Statement are to discuss the scientific, technological, economic, and regulatory issues that deter progress of AR research and development of therapeutics targeting AR and to propose approaches and solutions to these specific problems. This Statement is not intended to provide clinical practice recommendations on any disease in which AR is observed and/or plays a role. METHODS: An international multidisciplinary group from within academia, industry, and the National Institutes of Health, with expertise in multimodal approaches to the study of airway structure and function, pulmonary research and clinical practice in obstructive lung disease, and drug discovery platforms was invited to participate in one internet-based and one face-to-face meeting to address the above-stated goals. Although the majority of the analysis related to AR was in asthma, AR in other diseases was also discussed and considered in the recommendations. A literature search of PubMed was performed to support conclusions. The search was not a systematic review of the evidence. RESULTS: Multiple conceptual, logistical, economic, and regulatory deterrents were identified that limit the performance of AR research and impede accelerated, intensive development of AR-focused therapeutics. Complementary solutions that leverage expertise of academia and industry were proposed to address them. CONCLUSIONS: To date, numerous factors related to the intrinsic difficulty in performing AR research, and economic forces that are disincentives for the pursuit of AR treatments, have thwarted the ability to understand AR pathology and mechanisms and to address it clinically. This ATS Research Statement identifies potential solutions for each of these factors and emphasizes the importance of educ...

Rafeie, M, Welleweerd, M, Hassanzadeh-Barforoushi, A, Asadnia, M, Olthuis, W & Ebrahimi Warkiani, M 2017, 'An easily fabricated three-dimensional threaded lemniscate-shaped micromixer for a wide range of flow rates', Biomicrofluidics, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 014108-014108.
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Mixing fluid samples or reactants is a paramount function in the fields of micro total analysis system (μTAS) and microchemical processing. However, rapid and efficient fluid mixing is difficult to achieve inside microchannels because of the difficulty of diffusive mass transfer in the laminar regime of the typical microfluidic flows. It has been well recorded that the mixing efficiency can be boosted by migrating from two-dimensional (2D) to three-dimensional (3D) geometries. Although several 3D chaotic mixers have been designed, most of them offer a high mixing efficiency only in a very limited range of Reynolds numbers (Re). In this work, we developed a 3D fine-threaded lemniscate-shaped micromixer whose maximum numerical and empirical efficiency is around 97% and 93%, respectively, and maintains its high performance (i.e., &gt;90%) over a wide range of 1 &lt; Re &lt; 1000 which meets the requirements of both the μTAS and microchemical process applications. The 3D micromixer was designed based on two distinct mixing strategies, namely, the inducing of chaotic advection by the presence of Dean flow and diffusive mixing through thread-like grooves around the curved body of the mixers. First, a set of numerical simulations was performed to study the physics of the flow and to determine the essential geometrical parameters of the mixers. Second, a simple and cost-effective method was exploited to fabricate the convoluted structure of the micromixers through the removal of a 3D-printed wax structure from a block of cured polydimethylsiloxane. Finally, the fabricated mixers with different threads were tested using a fluorescent microscope demonstrating a good agreement with the results of the numerical simulation. We envisage that the strategy used in this work would expand the scope of the micromixer technology by broadening the range of efficient working flow rate and providing an easy way to the fabrication of 3D convoluted microstru...

Raka, A, Naik, G & Chai, R 2017, 'Computational Algorithms Underlying the Time-Based Detection of Sudden Cardiac Arrest via Electrocardiographic Markers', Applied Sciences, vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 954-954.
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Early detection of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is critical to prevent serious repercussion such as irreversible neurological damage and death. Currently, the most effective method involves analyzing electrocardiogram (ECG) features obtained during ventricular fibrillation. In this study, data from 10 normal patients and 10 SCA patients obtained from Physiobank were used to statistically compare features, such as heart rate, R-R interval duration, and heart rate variability (HRV) features from which the HRV features were then selected for classification via linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and linear and fine Gaussian support vector machines (SVM) in order to determine the ideal time-frame in which SCA can be accurately detected. The best accuracy was obtained at 2 and 8 min prior to SCA onset across all three classifiers. However, accuracy rates of 75–80% were also obtained at time-frames as early as 50 and 40 min prior to SCA onset. These results are clinically important in the field of SCA, as early detection improves overall patient survival.

Ramalingam, N, Warkiani, ME & Gong, TH-Q 2017, 'Acetylated bovine serum albumin differentially inhibits polymerase chain reaction in microdevices', Biomicrofluidics, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 034110-034110.
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Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is widely used as an additive in polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based microfluidic devices to passivate reactors and alleviate nucleic-acid amplification. BSA is available commercially in two types: either acetylated or non-acetylated. A survey of literature indicates that both types of BSA are used in PCR-based microfluidic devices. Our study results reveal that the use of acetylated BSA in PCR micro-devices leads to differential inhibition of PCR, compared to non-acetylated BSA. This result is noticed for the first time, and the differential inhibition generally goes un-noticed, as compared to complete PCR inhibition.

Rana, M, Li, L & Su, SW 2017, 'Distributed State Estimation Over Unreliable Communication Networks With an Application to Smart Grids', IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 89-96.
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© 2017 IEEE. In contrast to the traditional centralized power system state estimation methods, this paper investigates the interconnected optimal filtering problem for distributed dynamic state estimation considering packet losses. Specifically, the power system incorporating microgrids is modeled as a state-space linear equation where sensors are deployed to obtain measurements. Basically, the sensing information is transmitted to the energy management system through a lossy communication network where measurements are lost. This can seriously deteriorate the system monitoring performance and even lose network stability. Second, as the system states are unavailable, so the estimation is essential to know the overall operating conditions of the electricity network. Availability of the system states provides designers with an accurate picture of the power network, so a suitable control strategy can be applied to avoid massive blackouts due to losing network stability. Particularly, the proposed estimator is based on the mean squared error between the actual state and its estimate. To obtain the distributed estimation, the optimal local and neighboring gains are computed to reach a consensus estimation after exchanging their information with the neighboring estimators. Then, the convergence of the developed algorithm is theoretically proved. Afterward, a distributed controller is designed based on the semidefinite programming approach. Simulation results demonstrate the accuracy of the developed approaches under the condition of missing measurements.

Rana, MM, Li, L & Su, S 2017, 'Design a distributed controller for microgrids', International Journal of Innovative Computing, Information and Control, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 1055-1060.
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This paper addresses the problem of distributed energy management system (EMS) design considering network-induced delays. First of all, the distribution power network incorporating solar panels is modelled as a discrete-time linear state-space equation and its measurements/control information is obtained using a set of sensors and actuators. These electronic devices send the observation information to the EMS via un-reliable communication links. In order to stabilize the system, we propose discrete-time distributed static output feedback control strategies based on the linear matrix inequality and semi definite programming approaches. Using the Taylor series method, delays are integrated into the closed loop system so that the proposed controller runs with less energy resources and computation. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to stabilize the system in a fairly short time.

Rana, MM, Li, L & Su, SW 2017, 'Controlling the renewable microgrid using semidefinite programming technique', International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, vol. 84, pp. 225-231.
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© 2016 Given the significant concerns regarding carbon emissions from fossil fuels, global warming and energy crisis, renewable distributed energy resources (DERs) are going to be integrated in smart grids, which will make the energy supply more reliable and decrease the costs and transmission losses. Unfortunately, one of the key technical challenges in power system planning, control and operation with DERs is the voltage regulation at the distribution level. This problem stimulates the deployment of smart sensors and actuators in smart grids so that the voltage can be stabilized. The observation from the microgrid incorporating DERs is transmitted to the control center via wireless communication systems. In other words, the proposed communication infrastructure provides an opportunity to address the voltage regulation challenge by offering the two-way communication links for microgrid state information collection, estimation and stabilization. Based on the communication infrastructure, we propose a least square based Kalman filter algorithm for state estimation and an optimal feedback control framework for stabilizing the microgrid states. Specifically, we propose to optimize the performance index by using semidefinite programming techniques in the context of smart grid applications. At the end, the efficacy of the developed approaches is demonstrated using a microgrid incorporating multiple DERs.

Rana, MM, Li, L & Su, SW 2017, 'Distributed State Estimation of Smart Grids with Packet Losses', Asian Journal of Control, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 1306-1315.
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AbstractThis paper explores the problem of distributed state estimation including packet losses for the environment‐friendly renewable microgrid incorporating electricity generating circuits. The problem is becoming critical due to the global warming, increasing green house gas emissions, and practical infeasibility with computational burden of the large‐scale centralized power system monitoring. To address the impending problem, a novel distributed state estimation algorithm is derived in the context of smart grids. Specifically, after modelling the microgrid, this paper proposes a local state estimation algorithm considering packet losses. Then a novel optimal weighting factor calculation method for the global state estimation is proposed. Particularly, it can automatically adjust the optimal weighting factors for different sensor measurements based on the observation. Simulations results show that the desired state estimation accuracy is achieved.

Rawlings, D, Miller-Lewis, L, Collien, D, Tieman, J, Parker, D & Sanderson, C 2017, 'Lessons Learned from the Dying2Learn MOOC: Pedagogy, Platforms and Partnerships', Education Sciences, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 67-67.
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(1) Background: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are becoming more commonplace in the delivery of free online education and a Dying2Learn MOOC was offered by a team at Palliative and Supportive Services, Flinders University, South Australia; (2) Methods: Working with the OpenLearning platform developer, a research study and MOOC evaluation were embedded in the course, and content was delivered in innovative ways without compromising pedagogical approaches; (3) Results: This MOOC provided the facilitators with the opportunity to view education as an intervention, with testing undertaken, including measuring attitudinal change. Research, clinical and community partnerships were developed or reaffirmed and the value of ongoing partnerships with developers in creating platforms and tools that can expand the options for online learning is highlighted. Opportunities for future health professional and consumer education were also explored; (4) Conclusion: MOOCs can provide innovative opportunities to redesign educational approaches, which can be achieved by working with new technologies and with platform developers, while still adhering to pedagogical principles.

Rawlings, D, Tieman, JJ, Sanderson, C, Parker, D & Miller-Lewis, L 2017, 'Never say die: death euphemisms, misunderstandings and their implications for practice', International Journal of Palliative Nursing, vol. 23, no. 7, pp. 324-330.
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Background: A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on death and dying was conducted to open the dialogue around death and dying. In one activity, participants were asked to engage with language and to think of alternative words (or euphemisms) that are used to describe death. Aim: To reflect from a nursing perspective how language enables and sometimes disguises important messages and conversations. Methods: Four hundred and seventy one participants provided 3053 euphemisms. Findings: Euphemisms were varied, with many providing commentary on their purpose and use. Discussion: As a society we have become quite creative in the use of euphemisms, but need to be mindful of misunderstandings and misinterpretations which can cause embarrassment and distress in clinical situations. Conclusion: This paper describes some of the euphemisms that were provided, examining why they are used and how their use can be easily misconstrued in daily life and in clinical practice.

Razmjou, A, Asadnia, M, Ghaebi, O, Yang, H-C, Ebrahimi Warkiani, M, Hou, J & Chen, V 2017, 'Preparation of Iridescent 2D Photonic Crystals by Using a Mussel-Inspired Spatial Patterning of ZIF-8 with Potential Applications in Optical Switch and Chemical Sensor', ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, vol. 9, no. 43, pp. 38076-38080.
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© 2017 American Chemical Society. In this work, spatial patterning of a thin, dense, zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) pattern was generated using photolithography and nanoscale (60 nm) dopamine coating. A bioinspired, unique, reversible, two-color iridescent pattern can be easily obtained for potential applications in sensing and photonics.

Ren, J, Song, J, Ellis, J & Li, J 2017, 'Staged heterogeneity learning to identify conformational B-cell epitopes from antigen sequences', BMC Genomics, vol. 18, no. S2.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: The broad heterogeneity of antigen-antibody interactions brings tremendous challenges to the design of a widely applicable learning algorithm to identify conformational B-cell epitopes. Besides the intrinsic heterogeneity introduced by diverse species, extra heterogeneity can also be introduced by various data sources, adding another layer of complexity and further confounding the research. Results: This work proposed a staged heterogeneity learning method, which learns both characteristics and heterogeneity of data in a phased manner. The method was applied to identify antigenic residues of heterogenous conformational B-cell epitopes based on antigen sequences. In the first stage, the model learns the general epitope patterns of each kind of propensity from a large data set containing computationally defined epitopes. In the second stage, the model learns the heterogenous complementarity of these propensities from a relatively small guided data set containing experimentally determined epitopes. Moreover, we designed an algorithm to cluster the predicted individual antigenic residues into conformational B-cell epitopes so as to provide strong potential for real-world applications, such as vaccine development. With heterogeneity well learnt, the transferability of the prediction model was remarkably improved to handle new data with a high level of heterogeneity. The model has been tested on two data sets with experimentally determined epitopes, and on a data set with computationally defined epitopes. This proposed sequence-based method achieved outstanding performance - about twice that of existing methods, including the sequence-based predictor CBTOPE and three other structure-based predictors. Conclusions: The proposed method uses only antigen sequence information, and thus has much broader applications.

Rihari-Thomas, J, DiGiacomo, M, Phillips, J, Newton, P & Davidson, PM 2017, 'Clinician Perspectives of Barriers to Effective Implementation of a Rapid Response System in an Academic Health Centre: A Focus Group Study', International Journal of Health Policy and Management, vol. 6, no. 8, pp. 447-456.
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Background: Systemic and structural issues of rapid response system (RRS) models can hinder implementation. This study sought to understand the ways in which acute care clinicians (physicians and nurses) experience and negotiate care for deteriorating patients within the RRS. Methods: Physicians and nurses working within an Australian academic health centre within a jurisdictional-based model of clinical governance participated in focus group interviews. Verbatim transcripts were analysed using thematic content analysis. Results: Thirty-four participants (21 physicians and 13 registered nurses [RNs]) participated in six focus groups over five weeks in 2014. Implementing the RRS in daily practice was a process of informal communication and negotiation in spite of standardised protocols. Themes highlighted several systems or organisational-level barriers to an effective RRS, including (1) responsibility is inversely proportional to clinical experience; (2) actions around system flexibility contribute to deviation from protocol; (3) misdistribution of resources leads to perceptions of inadequate staffing levels inhibiting full optimisation of the RRS; and (4) poor communication and documentation of RRS increases clinician workloads. Conclusion: Implementing a RRS is complex and multifactorial, influenced by various inter- and intra-professional factors, staffing models and organisational culture. The RRS is not a static model; it is both reflexive and iterative, perpetually transforming to meet healthcare consumer and provider demands and local unit contexts and needs. Requiring more than just a strong initial implementation phase, new models of care such as a RRS demand good governance processes, ongoing support and regular evaluation and refinement. Cultural, organizational and professional factors, as well as systems-based processes, require consideration if RRSs are to achieve their intended outcomes in dynamic healthcare settings.

Rodriguez, GM, Bowen, J, Grossin, D, Ben-Nissan, B & Stamboulis, A 2017, 'Functionalisation of Ti6Al4V and hydroxyapatite surfaces with combined peptides based on KKLPDA and EEEEEEEE peptides', Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces, vol. 160, pp. 154-160.
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Surface modifications are usually performed on titanium alloys to improve osteo-integration and surface bioactivity. Modifications such as alkaline and acid etching, or coating with bioactive materials such as hydroxyapatite, have previously been demonstrated. The aim of this work is to develop a peptide with combined titanium oxide and hydroxyapatite binders in order to achieve a biomimetic hydroxyapatite coating on titanium surfaces. The technology would also be applicable for the functionalisation of titanium and hydroxyapatite surfaces for selective protein adsorption, conjugation of antimicrobial peptides, and adsorption of specialised drugs for drug delivery. In this work, functionalisation of Ti6Al4V and hydroxyapatite surfaces was achieved using combined titanium-hydroxyapatite (Ti-Hap) peptides based on titanium peptide binder (KKLPDA) and hydroxyapatite peptide binder (EEEEEEEE). Homogeneous peptide coatings on Ti6Al4V surfaces were obtained after surface chemical treatments with a 30wt% aqueous solution of H2O2 for 24 and 48h. The treated titanium surfaces presented an average roughness of Sa=197nm (24h) and Sa=128nm (48h); an untreated mirror polished sample exhibited an Sa of 13nm. The advancing water contact angle of the titanium oxide layer after 1h of exposure to 30wt% aqueous solution of H2O2 was around 65°, decreasing gradually with time until it reached 35° after a 48h exposure, suggesting that the surface hydrophilicity increased over etching time. The presence of a lysine (L) amino acid in the sequence of the titanium binder resulted in fluorescence intensity roughly 16% higher compared with the arginine (R) amino acid analogue and therefore the lysine containing titanium peptide binder was used in this work. The Ti-Hap peptide KKLPDAEEEEEEEE (Ti-Hap1) was not adsorbed by the treated Ti6Al4V surfaces and therefore was modified. The modifications involved the inclusion of a glycine spacer between the binding terminals (Ti-Hap2) and the additio...

Ryan, S, Coutts, AJ, Hocking, J & Kempton, T 2017, 'Factors Affecting Match Running Performance in Professional Australian Football', International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 1199-1204.
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Purpose:To examine the influence of a range of individual player characteristics and match-related factors on activity profiles during professional Australian football matches.Methods:Global positioning system (GPS) profiles were collected from 34 professional Australian football players from the same club over 15 competition matches. GPS data were classified into relative total and high-speed running (HSR; >20 km/h) distances. Individual player aerobic fitness was determined from a 2-km time trial conducted during the preseason. Each match was classified according to match location, season phase, recovery length, opposition strength, and match outcome. The total number of stoppages during the match was obtained from a commercial statistics provider. A linear mixed model was constructed to examine the influence of player characteristics and match-related factors on both relative total and HSR outputs.Results:Player aerobic fitness had a large effect on relative total and HSR distances. Away matches and matches lost produced only small reductions in relative HSR distances, while the number of rotations also had a small positive effect. Matches won, more player rotations, and playing against strong opposition all resulted in small to moderate increases in relative total distance, while early season phase, increased number of stoppages, and away matches resulted in small to moderate reductions in relative total distance.Conclusions:There is a likely interplay of factors that influence running performance during Australian football matches. The results highlight the need to consider a variety of contextual factors when interpreting physical outp...

Samardzic, K & Rodgers, KJ 2017, 'Oxidised protein metabolism: recent insights', Biological Chemistry, vol. 398, no. 11, pp. 1165-1175.
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AbstractThe ‘oxygen paradox’ arises from the fact that oxygen, the molecule that aerobic life depends on, threatens its very existence. An oxygen-rich environment provided life on Earth with more efficient bioenergetics and, with it, the challenge of having to deal with a host of oxygen-derived reactive species capable of damaging proteins and other crucial cellular components. In this minireview, we explore recent insights into the metabolism of proteins that have been reversibly or irreversibly damaged by oxygen-derived species. We discuss recent data on the important roles played by the proteasomal and lysosomal systems in the proteolytic degradation of oxidatively damaged proteins and the effects of oxidative damage on the function of the proteolytic pathways themselves. Mitochondria are central to oxygen utilisation in the cell, and their ability to handle oxygen-derived radicals is an important and still emerging area of research. Current knowledge of the proteolytic machinery in the mitochondria, including the ATP-dependent AAA+ proteases and mitochondrial-derived vesicles, is also highlighted in the review. Significant progress is still being made in regard to understanding the mechanisms underlying the detection and degradation of oxidised proteins and how proteolytic pathways interact with each other. Finally, we highlight a few unanswered questions such as the possibility of oxidised amino acids released from oxidised proteins by proteolysis being re-utilised in protein synthesis thus establishing a vicious cycle of oxidation in cells.

Sanderson, CR, Cahill, PJ, Phillips, JL, Johnson, A & Lobb, EA 2017, 'Patient-centered family meetings in palliative care: a quality improvement project to explore a new model of family meetings with patients and families at the end of life', Annals of Palliative Medicine, vol. 6, no. S2, pp. S195-S205.
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Santos, J, Milthorpe, BK, Herbert, BR & Padula, MP 2017, 'Proteomic Analysis of Human Adipose Derived Stem Cells during Small Molecule Chemical Stimulated Pre-neuronal Differentiation', International Journal of Stem Cells, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 193-217.
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© 2017 by the Korean Society for Stem Cells Research. Background: Adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) are acquired from abdominal liposuction yielding a thousand fold more stem cells per millilitre than those from bone marrow. A large research void exists as to whether ADSCs are capable of transdermal differentiation toward neuronal phenotypes. Previous studies have investigated the use of chemical cocktails with varying inconclusive results. Methods: Human ADSCs were treated with a chemical stimulant, beta-mercaptoethanol, to direct them toward a neuronal- like lineage within 24 hours. Quantitative proteomics using iTRAQ was then performed to ascertain protein abundance differences between ADSCs, beta-mercaptoethanol treated ADSCs and a glioblastoma cell line. Results: The soluble proteome of ADSCs differentiated for 12 hours and 24 hours was significantly different from basal ADSCs and control cells, expressing a number of remodeling, neuroprotective and neuroproliferative proteins. However toward the later time point presented stress and shock related proteins were observed to be up regulated with a large down regulation of structural proteins. Cytokine profiles support a large cellular remodeling shift as well indicating cellular distress. Conclusion: The earlier time point indicates an initiation of differentiation. At the latter time point there is a vast loss of cell population during treatment. At 24 hours drastically decreased cytokine profiles and overexpression of stress proteins reveal that exposure to beta-mercaptoethanol beyond 24 hours may not be suitable for clinical application as our results indicate that the cells are in trauma whilst producing neuronal-like morphologies. The shorter treatment time is promising, indicating a reducing agent has fast acting potential to initiate neuronal differentiation of ADSCs.

Sarkheil, H, Rahbari, S, Rad, MH & Tavakoli, J 2017, 'Development of a three-step hierarchical screening matrix to optimize inherently safety design index and inherently safety design cost (A case study in Acetic acid production process)', JOURNAL OF HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 245-254.

Schmit, C, Le Meur, Y, Duffield, R, Robach, P, Oussedik, N, Coutts, AJ & Hausswirth, C 2017, 'Heat‐acclimatization and pre‐cooling: a further boost for endurance performance?', Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 55-65.
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To determine if pre‐cooling (PC) following heat‐acclimatization (HA) can further improve self‐paced endurance performance in the heat, 13 male triathletes performed two 20‐km cycling time‐trials (TT) at 35 °C, 50% relative humidity, before and after an 8‐day training camp, each time with (PC) or without (control) ice vest PC. Pacing strategies, physiological and perceptual responses were assessed during each TT. PC and HA induced moderate (+10 ± 18 W; effect size [ES] 4.4 ± 4.6%) and very large (+28 ± 19 W; ES 11.7 ± 4.1%) increases in power output (PO), respectively. The overall PC effect became unclear after HA (+4 ± 14 W; ES 1.4 ± 3.0%). However, pacing analysis revealed that PC remained transiently beneficial post‐HA, i.e., during the first half of the TT. Both HA and...

Schweinsberg, S, Darcy, S & Cheng, M 2017, 'The agenda setting power of news media in framing the future role of tourism in protected areas', Tourism Management, vol. 62, pp. 241-252.
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© 2017 Elsevier Ltd This exploratory paper examines the agenda-setting and framing role of news media in the ongoing development of the Draft Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Master Plan. The paper will argue that the publication of the Masterplan and ensuing public commentary has drawn into stark focus future challenges in juxtaposing the frames of public use, commercial tourism and scientific/cultural values in the sustainable management of protected areas. Agenda setting and framing theory provides the theoretical foundation for the paper. Guided by critical discourse analysis, the analysis of the paper is supported through the use of Leximancer and Gephi software for visually illustrating the relationship between different framing perspectives. This paper contributes to a fresh understanding of the complex nature of the sustainable management of protected areas in urban spaces.

Sengupta, D, Kottapalli, AGP, Chen, SH, Miao, JM, Kwok, CY, Triantafyllou, MS, Warkiani, ME & Asadnia, M 2017, 'Characterization of single polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofiber for flow sensing applications', AIP Advances, vol. 7, no. 10, pp. 105205-105205.
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The use of Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) based piezoelectric nanofibers for sensing and actuation has been reported widely in the past. However, in most cases, PVDF piezoelectric nanofiber mats have been used for sensing applications. This work fundamentally characterizes a single electrospun PVDF nanofiber and demonstrates its application as a sensing element for nanoelectromechanical sensors (NEMS). PVDF nanofiber mats were spun by far field electrospinning (FFES) process and complete material characterization was conducted by means of scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging, Raman Spectroscopy and FTIR spectroscopy. An optimized recipe was developed for spinning a single suspended nanofiber on a specially designed MEMS substrate which allows the nano-mechanical and electrical characterization of a single PVDF nanofiber. Electrical characterization is conducted using a single suspended nanofiber to determine the piezoelectric coefficient (d33) of the nanofiber to be -58.77 pm/V. Also the mechanical characterization conducted using a nanoindenter revealed a Young’s Modulus and hardness of 2.2 GPa and 0.1 GPa respectively. Finally, an application that utilizes the single PVDF nanofiber as a sensing element to form a NEMS flow sensor is demonstrated. The single nanofiber flow sensor is tested in presence of various oscillatory flow conditions.

Shakeel Syed, M, Rafeie, M, Henderson, R, Vandamme, D, Asadnia, M & Ebrahimi Warkiani, M 2017, 'A 3D-printed mini-hydrocyclone for high throughput particle separation: application to primary harvesting of microalgae', Lab on a Chip, vol. 17, no. 14, pp. 2459-2469.
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3D-printed hydrocyclones are low-cost microdevices which be part of a library of standardized active and passive microfluidic components, suitable for particle–liquid separation.

Shariflou, S, Georgevsky, D, Mansour, H, Rezaeian, M, Hosseini, N, Gani, F, Gupta, V, Braidy, N & Golzan, SM 2017, 'Diagnostic and Prognostic Potential of Retinal Biomarkers in Early On-Set Alzheimer’s Disease', Current Alzheimer Research, vol. 14, no. 9, pp. 1000-1007.
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© 2017 Bentham Science Publishers. Objective: Accumulating evidence suggests that the eye can be used in the assessment of early on-set Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The eye offers a natural window to the brain through the retina. The retina and brain share common developmental origins and patho-physiological origins and mechanisms, having been sequestered from it during early development, but retaining its connections with the brain via the optic nerve. Therefore, it is well understood that neurological abnormalities have a direct profound impact on the retina. Recent studies suggest an array of physiological and pathological changes in the retina in dementia and specifically in AD. There are also reports on imaging the two hallmark proteins of the disease, extracellular amyloid beta peptides and intracellular hyper phosphorylated tau protein, as a proxy to neuroimaging. Results: In this review, we summarise retinal structural, functional and vascular changes reported to be associated with AD. We also review techniques employed to image these two major hall mark proteins of AD and their relevance for early detection of AD.

Sharma, P, Yi, R, Nayak, AP, Wang, N, Tang, F, Knight, MJ, Pan, S, Oliver, B & Deshpande, DA 2017, 'Bitter Taste Receptor Agonists Mitigate Features of Allergic Asthma in Mice.', Scientific reports, vol. 7, pp. 46166-14.
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Asthma is characterized by airway inflammation, mucus secretion, remodeling and hyperresponsiveness (AHR). Recent research has established the bronchodilatory effect of bitter taste receptor (TAS2R) agonists in various models. Comprehensive pre-clinical studies aimed at establishing effectiveness of TAS2R agonists in disease models are lacking. Here we aimed to determine the effect of TAS2R agonists on features of asthma. Further, we elucidated a mechanism by which TAS2R agonists mitigate features of asthma. Asthma was induced in mice using intranasal house dust mite or aerosol ova-albumin challenge, and chloroquine or quinine were tested in both prophylactic and treatment models. Allergen challenge resulted in airway inflammation as evidenced by increased immune cells infiltration and release of cytokines and chemokines in the lungs, which were significantly attenuated in TAS2R agonists treated mice. TAS2R agonists attenuated features of airway remodeling including smooth muscle mass, extracellular matrix deposition and pro-fibrotic signaling, and also prevented mucus accumulation and development of AHR in mice. Mechanistic studies using human neutrophils demonstrated that inhibition of immune cell chemotaxis is a key mechanism by which TAS2R agonists blocked allergic airway inflammation and exerted anti-asthma effects. Our comprehensive studies establish the effectiveness of TAS2R agonists in mitigating multiple features of allergic asthma.

Shi, Y, Tuan, HD, Tuy, H & Su, S 2017, 'Global optimization for optimal power flow over transmission networks', Journal of Global Optimization, vol. 69, no. 3, pp. 745-760.
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© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media New York. The optimal power flow (OPF) problem for power transmission networks is an NP-hard optimization problem with nonlinear constraints on complex bus voltages. The existing nonlinear solvers may fail in yielding a feasible point. Semi-definite relaxation (SDR) could provide the global solution only when the matrix solution of the relaxed semi-definite program (SDP) is of rank-one, which does not hold in general. Otherwise, the point found by SDR is infeasible. High-order SDR has recently been used to find the global solution, which leads to explosive growth of the matrix variable dimension and semi-definite constraints. Consequently, it is suitable only for OPF over very small networks with a few buses. In this paper, we follow our previously developed nonsmooth optimization approach to address this difficult OPF problem, which is an iterative process to generate a sequence of improved points that converge to a global solution in many cases. Each iteration calls an SDP of moderate dimension. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the efficiency of our approach.

Shirani, E, Razmjou, A, Tavassoli, H, Landarani-Isfahani, A, Rezaei, S, Abbasi Kajani, A, Asadnia, M, Hou, J & Ebrahimi Warkiani, M 2017, 'Strategically Designing a Pumpless Microfluidic Device on an “Inert” Polypropylene Substrate with Potential Application in Biosensing and Diagnostics', Langmuir, vol. 33, no. 22, pp. 5565-5576.
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© 2017 American Chemical Society. This study is an attempt to make a step forward to implement the very immature concept of pumpless transportation of liquid into a real miniaturized device or lab-on-chip (LOC) on a plastic substrate. 'Inert' plastic materials such as polypropylene (PP) are used in a variety of biomedical applications but their surface engineering is very challenging. Here, it was demonstrated that with a facile innovative wettability patterning route using fluorosilanized UV-independent TiO2 nanoparticle coating it is possible to create wedge-shaped open microfluidic tracks on inert solid surfaces for low-cost biomedical devices (lab-on-plastic). For the future miniaturization and integration of the tracks into a device, a variety of characterization techniques were used to not only systematically study the surface patterning chemistry and topography but also to have a clear knowledge of its biological interactions and performance. The effect of such surface architecture on the biological performance was studied in terms of static/dynamic protein (bovine serum albumin) adsorption, bacterial (Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis) adhesion, cell viability (using HeLa and MCF-7 cancer cell lines as well as noncancerous human fibroblast cells), and cell patterning (Murine embryonic fibroblasts). Strategies are discussed for incorporating such a confined track into a diagnostic device in which its sensing portion is based on protein, microorganism, or cells. Finally, for the proof-of-principle of biosensing application, the well-known high-affinity molecular couple of BSA-antiBSA as a biological model was employed.

Smith, MR, Fransen, J, Deprez, D, Lenoir, M & Coutts, AJ 2017, 'Impact of mental fatigue on speed and accuracy components of soccer-specific skills', Science and Medicine in Football, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 48-52.
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This study examined the impact of mental fatigue on speed and accuracy components of soccerspecific skills. Fourteen well-trained soccer players completed the Loughborough Soccer Passing Test on two occasions, separated by a minimum of 48 h. Tests were preceded, in a randomised order, by 30 min of reading magazines (control) or the Stroop task (mental fatigue). Subjective mental fatigue was recorded on visual analogue scales before and after reading. Mental effort (referring to the reading task) and motivation (for the upcoming passing test) were recorded after reading. Soccer-specific skill performance was assessed using time taken to complete all passes, and number of errors committed. Mental fatigue and effort were higher following the Stroop task than the magazines (P < 0.001), while motivation was similar between conditions. Time taken to complete the passing test was similar between conditions; however, players committed more missed target errors (2.4 ± 1.3 s vs. 1.6 ± 1.1; P = 0.02) and less perfect passes (5.6 ± 1.4 s vs. 6.6 ± 1.5; P = 0.04) in the mental fatigue condition, while no other errors were significantly different between conditions. Mental fatigue impairs short passing accuracy, but not movement speeds during the Loughborough Soccer Passing Test.

Stone, E, Rankin, N, Phillips, J, Fong, K, Miller, A, Largey, G, Zielinski, R, Flynn, P, Currow, D & Shaw, T 2017, 'P3.07-019 AMDAT Lung, An Ideal Lung Cancer MDT Dataset', Journal of Thoracic Oncology, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. S1442-S1442.
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Sukjamnong, S, Chan, YL, Zakarya, R, Saad, S, Sharma, P, Santiyanont, R, Chen, H & Oliver, BG 2017, 'Effect of long-term maternal smoking on the offspring’s lung health', American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, vol. 313, no. 2, pp. L416-L423.
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Maternal smoking during pregnancy contributes to long-term health problems in offspring, especially respiratory disorders that can manifest in either childhood or adulthood. Receptors for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) are multiligand receptors abundantly localized in the lung, capable of responding to by-products of reactive oxygen species and proinflammatory responses. RAGE signaling is a key regulator of inflammation in cigarette smoking-related pulmonary diseases. However, the impact of maternal cigarette smoke exposure on lung RAGE signaling in the offspring is unclear. This study aims to investigate the effect of maternal cigarette smoke exposure (SE), as well as mitochondria-targeted antioxidant [mitoquinone mesylate (MitoQ)] treatment, during pregnancy on the RAGE-mediated signaling pathway in the lung of male offspring. Female Balb/c mice (8 wk) were divided into a sham group (exposed to air), an SE group (exposed to cigarette smoke), and an SE + MQ group (exposed to cigarette smoke with MitoQ supplement from mating). The lungs from male offspring were collected at 13 wk. RAGE and its downstream signaling, including nuclear factor-κB and mitogen-activated protein kinase family consisting of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1, ERK2, c-JUN NH2-terminal kinase (JNK), and phosphorylated JNK, in the lung were significantly increased in the SE offspring. Mitochondrial antioxidant manganese superoxide dismutase was reduced, whereas IL-1β and oxidative stress response nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 were significantly increased in the SE offspring. Maternal MitoQ treatment normalized RAGE, IL-1β, and Nrf-2 levels in the SE + MQ offspring. Maternal SE increased RAGE and its signaling elements associated with increased oxidative stress and inflammatory cytokines in offspring lungs, whereas maternal MitoQ treatment can partially normalize these changes.

Sundaraneedi, MK, Ammit, AJ, Tedla, BA, Pearson, MS, Loukas, A, Keene, FR & Collins, JG 2017, 'Tetranuclear Polypyridylruthenium(II) Complexes as Inhibitors and Down‐Regulators of Phosphatase Enzymes', ChemistrySelect, vol. 2, no. 33, pp. 10668-10672.
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AbstractMitogen‐activated protein kinase phosphatases (MKPs) are over‐expressed in many cancers. The increased levels of MKP enzymes protect cells from apoptosis induced by anticancer drugs, and thereby decrease the efficacy of the drug. Consequently, there is considerable interest in the development of agents that can down‐regulate the production of the MKP enzymes or inhibit their catalytic activities. We have examined the ability of a series of oligonuclear polypyridylruthenium(II) complexes to inhibit the activity of MKP‐1 and MKP‐3. The results demonstrated that two tetranuclear complexes inhibit the activity of MKP‐1 and MKP‐3 at 10‐20 μM concentrations. The ability of the ruthenium complexes to inhibit the production of MKP‐1 in live cancer cells was demonstrated through Western blotting assays, while real‐time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assays demonstrated the tetranuclear complexes decreased the amount of mkp‐1 mRNA produced in cancer cells. The results of this study suggest that tetranuclear ruthenium complexes could be used to enhance the antiproliferative effect of anticancer drugs.

Sutherland, TC, Mathews, KJ, Mao, Y, Nguyen, T & Gorrie, CA 2017, 'Differences in the Cellular Response to Acute Spinal Cord Injury between Developing and Mature Rats Highlights the Potential Significance of the Inflammatory Response', Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, vol. 10, pp. 1-18.
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© 2017 Sutherland, Mathews, Mao, Nguyen and Gorrie. There exists a trend for a better functional recovery from spinal cord injury (SCI) in younger patients compared to adults, which is also reported for animal studies; however, the reasons for this are yet to be elucidated. The post injury tissue microenvironment is a complex milieu of cells and signals that interact on multiple levels. Inflammation has been shown to play a significant role in this post injury microenvironment. Endogenous neural progenitor cells (NPC), in the ependymal layer of the central canal, have also been shown to respond and migrate to the lesion site. This study used a mild contusion injury model to compare adult (9 week), juvenile (5 week) and infant (P7) Sprague-Dawley rats at 24 h, 1, 2, and 6 weeks post-injury (n = 108). The innate cells of the inflammatory response were examined using counts of ED1/IBA1 labeled cells. This found a decreased inflammatory response in the infants, compared to the adult and juvenile animals, demonstrated by a decreased neutrophil infiltration and macrophage and microglial activation at all 4 time points. Two other prominent cellular contributors to the post-injury microenvironment, the reactive astrocytes, which eventually form the glial scar, and the NPC were quantitated using GFAP and Nestin immunohistochemistry. After SCI in all 3 ages there was an obvious increase in Nestin staining in the ependymal layer, with long basal processes extending into the parenchyma. This was consistent between age groups early post injury then deviated at 2 weeks. The GFAP results also showed stark differences between the mature and infant animals. These results point to significant differences in the inflammatory response between infants and adults that may contribute to the better recovery indicated by other researchers, as well as differences in the overall injury progression and cellular responses. This may have important consequences if we are able to mirr...

Tan, Y, Kim, J, Cheng, J, Ong, M, Lao, W-G, Jin, X-L, Lin, Y-G, Xiao, L, Zhu, X-Q & Qu, X-Q 2017, 'Green tea polyphenols ameliorate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease through upregulating AMPK activation in high fat fed Zucker fatty rats', World Journal of Gastroenterology, vol. 23, no. 21, pp. 3805-3805.
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AIM To investigate protective effects and molecular mechanisms of green tea polyphenols (GTP) on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in Zucker fatty (ZF) rats. METHODS Male ZF rats were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 2 wk then treated with GTP (200 mg/kg) or saline (5 mL/kg) for 8 wk, with Zucker lean rat as their control. At the end of experiment, serum and liver tissue were collected for measurement of metabolic parameters, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), inflammatory cytokines and hepatic triglyceride and liver histology. Immunoblotting was used to detect phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC), and sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1c (SREBP1c). RESULTS Genetically obese ZF rats on a HFD presented with metabolic features of hepatic pathological changes comparable to human with NAFLD. GTP intervention decreased weight gain (10.1%, P = 0.052) and significantly lowered visceral fat (31.0%, P < 0.01). Compared with ZF-controls, GTP treatment significantly reduced fasting serum insulin, glucose and lipids levels. Reduction in serum ALT and AST levels (both P < 0.01) were observed in GTP-treated ZF rats. GTP treatment also attenuated the elevated TNFα and IL-6 in the circulation. The increased hepatic TG accumulation and cytoplasmic lipid droplet were attenuated by GTP treatment, associated with significantly increased expression of AMPK-Thr172 (P < 0.05) and phosphorylated ACC and SREBP1c (both P < 0.05), indicating diminished hepatic lipogenesis and triglycerides out flux from liver in GTP treated rats. CONCLUSION The protective effects of GTP against HFD-induced NAFLD in genetically obese ZF rats are positively correlated to reduction in hepatic lipogenesis through upregulating the AMPK pathway.

Tanaka, A, To, J, O’Brien, B, Donnelly, S & Lund, M 2017, 'Selection of reliable reference genes for the normalisation of gene expression levels following time course LPS stimulation of murine bone marrow derived macrophages', BMC Immunology, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 1-12.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Background: Macrophages are key players in the initiation, perpetuation and regulation of both innate and adaptive immune responses. They largely perform these roles through modulation of the expression of genes, especially those encoding cytokines. Murine bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDMs) are commonly used as a model macrophage population for the study of immune responses to pro-inflammatory stimuli, notably lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which may be pertinent to the human situation. Evaluation of the temporal responses of LPS stimulated macrophages is widely conducted via the measurement of gene expression levels by RT-qPCR. While providing a robust and sensitive measure of gene expression levels, RT-qPCR relies on the normalisation of gene expression data to a stably expressed reference gene. Generally, a normalisation gene(s) is selected from a list of 'traditional' reference genes without validation of expression stability under the specific experimental conditions of the study. In the absence of such validation, and given that many studies use only a single reference gene, the reliability of data is questionable. Results: The stability of expression levels of eight commonly used reference genes was assessed during the peak (6 h) and resolution (24 h) phases of the BMDM response to LPS. Further, this study identified two additional genes, which have not previously been described as reference genes, and the stability of their expression levels during the same phases of the inflammatory response were validated. Importantly, this study demonstrates that certain 'traditional' reference genes are in fact regulated by LPS exposure, and, therefore, are not reliable candidates as their inclusion may compromise the accuracy of data interpretation. Testament to this, this study shows that the normalisation of gene expression data using an unstable reference gene greatly affects the experimental data obtained, and, therefore, the ultim...

Tavakoli, J 2017, 'Physico-mechanical, morphological and biomedical properties of a novel natural wound dressing material', Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, vol. 65, pp. 373-382.
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Wound healing as a complex biological process greatly affects the quality of patients׳ lives. The high initial cost of wound treatment using advanced wound dressing is a major concern that warrants more attention. Because of the similarities between body macromolecules and polysaccharides and proteoglycans, gelatin and starch were used extensively as wound dressings; however their solubility in aqueous environment is known as a major drawback. Crosslinking, as a common method for enhancing mechanical properties, has its own limitation as some chemical cross-likers reduce biocompatibility. In this research, a simple and economical method for the fabrication of a novel wound dressing foam based on natural polymers of starch and gelatin with borax as the crosslinking agent is introduced. To evaluate the utility of the foams for wound dressing application, morphology, swelling behaviour and kinetics of swelling, vapour permeability, dimension stability, their mechanical properties and cytotoxicity as well as their ability to control release properties were examined as a function of crosslinking density. It was found that however, all borax-induced-samples show acceptable biocompatibility, incorporation of 30% borax solution optimises their mechanical properties.

Tavakoli, J 2017, 'Region–media coupling in characterization and modelling of the disc annulus single lamella swelling', Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing, vol. 55, no. 8, pp. 1483-1492.
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The annulus fibrosus (AF) swelling property, which is correlated with its rheological and viscoelastic properties, plays a significant role in disc nutrition and mechanical loading justification during daily activities as well as designing scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. The objective of this study was twofold: firstly to characterize the AF single lamella swelling kinetics in different regions and solutions at the temperature range of 35-40 °C and secondly to use the swelling results as a baseline to model (independent to swelling media and anatomic region) the AF single lamella swelling. It was found that the AF single lamella swelling kinetics (equilibrium swelling ratio and swelling rate) depends on anatomic region and swelling media; however, its trend for different swelling media (ionic and molecular solution) is similar and the majority of hydration occurs during first 20% of equilibrium swelling time (about 20 min). Change in swelling rate constant in circumferential direction depends on the solution type. It decreases from anterior to lateral regions for water, PBS and glucose solution and remains constant-or its change is negligible-from lateral to posterolateral regions. The effect of temperature (in the range of 35-40 °C) on swelling kinetics was seen to be negligible. It was also understood that it is possible to present a model (independent to swelling media type) to predict the swelling kinetics of posterior and posterolateral AF single lamella, as these locations are less sensitive to the swelling media.

Tavakoli, J 2017, 'Tissue Engineering of the Intervertebral Disc’s Annulus Fibrosus: A Scaffold-Based Review Study', Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 81-91.
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Tissue engineering as a high technology solution for treating disc's problem has been the focus of some researches recently; however, the upcoming successful results in this area depends on understanding the complexities of biology and engineering interface. Whereas the major responsibility of the nucleus pulposus is to provide a sustainable hydrated environment within the disc, the function of the annulus fibrosus (AF) is more mechanical, facilitating joint mobility and preventing radial bulging by confining of the central part, which makes the AF reconstruction important. Although the body of knowledge regarding the AF tissue engineering has grown rapidly, the opportunities to improve current understanding of how artificial scaffolds are able to mimic the AF concentric structure-including inter-lamellar matrix and cross-bridges-addressed unresolved research questions. The aim of this literature review was to collect and discuss, from the international scientific literature, information about tissue engineering of the AF based on scaffold fabrication and material properties, useful for developing new strategies in disc tissue engineering. The key parameter of this research was understanding if role of cross-bridges and inter-lamellar matrix has been considered on tissue engineering of the AF.

Tavakoli, J & Costi, JJ 2017, 'Development of a rapid matrix digestion technique for ultrastructural analysis of elastic fibers in the intervertebral disc', Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, vol. 71, pp. 175-183.
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Collagen and elastic fibers are two major fibrous constituents of the annulus fibrosus (AF) in the disc that contribute to its mechanical and viscoelastic properties. It was thought that elastic fibers play no substantial role in the function and properties of the disc as these fibers were irregularly distributed. Studies that have revealed highly organized elastic fibers with different regional orientation and distribution, while being strongly crosslinked with matrix, suggesting their contribution to disc structure-function properties. These studies that were performed by light microscopic analysis of histologically prepared samples, have not been able to reveal the fine-scale architectural details of the elastic fiber network. Since elastic fibers are intermingled with other fibrous components of the disc and mostly obscured by the extracellular matrix, it is difficult to demonstrate their ultra-structural organization using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Therefore the aim of this study was to develop a rapid matrix digestion technique for ultrastructural analysis of the disc elastic fibers. This study provides a new method for fundamental visualization of elastic fibers and their architecture in the disc. Through the ultra-structural analysis, the relationship between structure and function, as well as the role of elastic fibers on AF mechanical properties can be studied. This method may be used to develop a three-dimensional map of elastic fibers distribution within the disc, which would provide valuable information for designing tissue engineered scaffolds for AF repair and replacement.

Tavakoli, J & Tang, Y 2017, 'Honey/PVA hybrid wound dressings with controlled release of antibiotics: Structural, physico-mechanical and in-vitro biomedical studies', Materials Science and Engineering: C, vol. 77, pp. 318-325.
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Hydrogel/honey hybrids manifest an attractive design with an exclusive therapeutic property that promotes wound healing process. The greater the concentration of honey within the formulation, the better the biomedical properties that will be achieved. However, an increase in the percentage of honey can negatively affect the physico-chemical and mechanical properties of hybrid hydrogels. The need exists, therefore, to prepare wound dressings that contain high honey density with optimal biomedical, mechanical and physicochemical properties. In this study, a simple method for the preparation of a highly concentrated honey/PVA hybrid hydrogel with borax as the crosslinking agent is reported. Comprehensive evaluations of the morphology, swelling kinetics, permeability, bio-adhesion, mechanical characteristics, cytotoxicity, antibacterial property, cell proliferation ability and their controlling release properties were conducted as a function of crosslinking density. All the borax-induced hydrogels showed acceptable biocompatibility, and the incorporation of 1% borax in the hydrogel formulation produced optimal behaviours for wound addressing applications.

Tavakoli, J & Tang, Y 2017, 'Hydrogel Based Sensors for Biomedical Applications: An Updated Review', Polymers, vol. 9, no. 12, pp. 364-364.
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Biosensors that detect and convert biological reactions to a measurable signal have gained much attention in recent years. Between 1950 and 2017, more than 150,000 papers have been published addressing the applications of biosensors in different industries, but to the best of our knowledge and through careful screening, critical reviews that describe hydrogel based biosensors for biomedical applications are rare. This review discusses the biomedical application of hydrogel based biosensors, based on a search performed through Web of Science Core, PubMed (NLM), and Science Direct online databases for the years 2000⁻2017. In this review, we consider bioreceptors to be immobilized on hydrogel based biosensors, their advantages and disadvantages, and immobilization techniques. We identify the hydrogels that are most favored for this type of biosensor, as well as the predominant transduction strategies. We explain biomedical applications of hydrogel based biosensors including cell metabolite and pathogen detection, tissue engineering, wound healing, and cancer monitoring, and strategies for small biomolecules such as glucose, lactate, urea, and cholesterol detection are identified.

Tavakoli, J, Elliott, DM & Costi, JJ 2017, 'The ultra-structural organization of the elastic network in the intra- and inter-lamellar matrix of the intervertebral disc', Acta Biomaterialia, vol. 58, pp. 269-277.
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The inter-lamellar matrix (ILM)-located between adjacent lamellae of the annulus fibrosus-consists of a complex structure of elastic fibers, while elastic fibers of the intra-lamellar region are aligned predominantly parallel to the collagen fibers. The organization of elastic fibers under low magnification, in both inter- and intra-lamellar regions, was studied by light microscopic analysis of histologically prepared samples; however, little is known about their ultrastructure. An ultrastructural visualization of elastic fibers in the inter-lamellar matrix is crucial for describing their contribution to structural integrity, as well as mechanical properties of the annulus fibrosus. The aims of this study were twofold: first, to present an ultrastructural analysis of the elastic fiber network in the ILM and intra-lamellar region, including cross section (CS) and in-plane (IP) lamellae, of the AF using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and second, to -compare the elastic fiber orientation between the ILM and intra-lamellar region. Four samples (lumbar sheep discs) from adjacent sections (30μm thickness) of anterior annulus were partially digested by a developed NaOH-sonication method for visualization of elastic fibers by SEM. Elastic fiber orientation and distribution were quantified relative to the tangential to circumferential reference axis. Visualization of the ILM under high magnification revealed a dense network of elastic fibers that has not been previously described. Within the ILM, elastic fibers form a complex network, consisting of different size and shape fibers, which differed to those located in the intra-lamellar region. For both regions, the majority of fibers were oriented near 0° with respect to tangential to circumferential (TCD) direction and two minor symmetrical orientations of approximately±45°. Statistically, the orientation of elastic fibers between the ILM and intra-lamellar region was not different (p=0.171). The present stud...

Teng, B, Peng, J, Ong, M & Qu, X 2017, 'Successful Pregnancy after Treatment with Chinese Herbal Medicine in a 43‐Year‐Old Woman with Diminished Ovarian Reserve and Multiple Uterus Fibrosis: A Case Report', Medicines, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 7-7.
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To highlight a natural approach to coexisting oligomenorrhea, subfertility, luteal phase insufficiency and multiple fibroids cohesively when in vitro fertilisation (IVF) has failed.A 43-year-old woman with diminished ovarian reserve and multiple uterine fibroids had previously been advised to discontinue IVF treatment. According to Chinese Medicine diagnosis, herbal formulae were prescribed for improving age-related ovarian insufficiency as well as to control the growth of fibroids. After 4 months of treatment, the patient's menstrual cycle became regula r and plasma progesterone one week after ovulation increased from 10.9 nmol/L to 44.9 nmol/L. After 6 months, she achieved a natural conception, resulting in a live birth of a healthy infant at an estimated gestational age of 40 weeks.The successful treatment with Chinese Herbal Medicine for this case highlights a natural therapy to manage infertility due to ovarian insufficiency and multiple fibroids after unsuccessful IVF outcome.

Thach, T, Bliuc, D, Hanh, P, van Geel, T, Adachi, JD, Berger, C, van den Bergh, J, Eisman, JA, Geusens, P, Goltzman, D, Hanley, DA, Josse, RG, Kaiser, SM, Kovacs, CS, Langsetmo, L, Prior, JC, Nguyen, TV & Center, JR 2017, 'Transition to re-fracture and mortality in the elderly: An individualized risk assessment tool for fracture and its outcomes from two large population-based prospective cohort studies.', JOURNAL OF BONE AND MINERAL RESEARCH, vol. 32, pp. S19-S19.

Ting, SRS, Min, EH, Lau, BKF & Hutvagner, G 2017, 'Acetyl‐α‐d‐mannopyranose‐based cationic polymer via RAFT polymerization for lectin and nucleic acid bindings', Journal of Applied Polymer Science, vol. 134, no. 24, pp. 1-11.
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ABSTRACTFunctional cationic polymers carrying mannose moieties were synthesized in a facile manner by employing RAFT polymerization. Initially, a protected carbohydrate based monomer, [2‐(2,3,4,6‐tetra‐O‐acetyl‐α‐d‐mannopyranosyloxy)ethyl methacrylate (AcManEMA)], was prepared by the O‐glycosylation of 2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA). Subsequently, a macroRAFT agent of poly[2‐(dimethyl)amino ethyl methacrylate] (PDMAEMA) was generated, and a further chain extension polymerization with AcManEMA was carried out in dioxane to form a acetylated mannose cationic diblock copolymer, PDMAEMA‐b‐PAcManEMA. It was attained in high yields and displayed low dispersity (Ð). Acetylated mannose moieties on the polymer were deprotected with sodium methoxide and the amines from the DMAEMA block were protonated to yield a cationic diblock glycopolymer, PDMAEMA‐b‐PManEMA. The cationic property of polymers were characterized by mixing with a negatively charged siRNA duplex and a pDNA, and aggregates of 102 and 233 nm were obtained, respectively. Agarose gel shift assay revealed that the polymers were able to retain the nucleic acids as large polymer complexes. Lectin binding assay proved that the mannose residue on the polymers were only able to bind specifically with ConA. PNA lectin was employed as a control and did not show specific binding. The cationic glycopolymer could be advantageous in targeted nucleic acids delivery in specific cells. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 44947.

Tong, JY, Golzan, M, Georgevsky, D, Williamson, JP, Graham, SL, Farah, CS & Fraser, CL 2017, 'Quantitative Retinal Vascular Changes in Obstructive Sleep Apnea', American Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 182, pp. 72-80.
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Purpose To examine the relationship between both static and dynamic retinal vascular caliber and the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Design Prospective cross-sectional study. Methods Adult patients undergoing diagnostic polysomnography studies at a private Australian university teaching hospital were recruited. OSA severity was defined by the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI): severe >30, moderate >15–30, mild 5–15, and controls <5. Of 115 patients recruited (73 male; mean age 58 ± 13 years), there were 41 severe, 35 moderate, and 25 mild OSA patients and 14 controls. Static retinal vascular caliber was measured as the average diameter of retinal arterioles (CRAE) and venules (CRVE), and summarized as the arteriovenous ratio (AVR). Dynamic retinal vascular caliber was evaluated as the average pulsation amplitude of retinal arterioles (SRAP) and venules (SRVP). Comparisons across groups were performed using multivariate linear regression analysis. All results were adjusted for age, body mass index, and mean arterial pressure. Results Increasing AHI was significantly associated with decreasing AVR (P = .008) and CRAE (P = .016). A significant relationship was demonstrated between increasing AHI and attenuated retinal vascular pulsation amplitude (arterioles P = .028; venules P < .0001). Conclusions Increasing OSA severity is independently associated with retinal arteriolar narrowing and attenuated vascular pulsation amplitude. The retinal vasculature is easily imaged, and may be a surrogate biomarker of cerebral and systemic vascular risk in patients with OSA requiring further comprehensive investigation.

Tran, GM, Ho-Le, TP, Ha, DT, Tran-Nguyen, CH, Nguyen, TSM, Pham, TTN, Nguyen, TA, Nguyen, DA, Hoang, HQ, Tran, NV & Nguyen, TV 2017, 'Patterns of antimicrobial resistance in intensive care unit patients: a study in Vietnam', BMC Infectious Diseases, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1-7.
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© The Author(s). 2017. Background: Antimicrobial resistance has emerged as a major concern in developing countries. The present study sought to define the pattern of antimicrobial resistance in ICU patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia. Methods: Between November 2014 and September 2015, we enrolled 220 patients (average age ~ 71 yr) who were admitted to ICU in a major tertiary hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Data concerning demographic characteristics and clinical history were collected from each patient. The Bauer-Kirby disk diffusion method was used to detect the antimicrobial susceptibility. Results: Antimicrobial resistance was commonly found in ceftriaxone (88%), ceftazidime (80%), ciprofloxacin (77%), cefepime (75%), levofloxacin (72%). Overall, the rate of antimicrobial resistance to any drug was 93% (n = 153/164), with the majority (87%) being resistant to at least 2 drugs. The three commonly isolated microorganisms were Acinetobacter (n = 75), Klebsiella (n = 39), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 29). Acinetobacter baumannii were virtually resistant to ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, piperacilin, imipenem, meropenem, ertapenem, ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin. High rates ( > 70%) of ceftriaxone and ceftazidime-resistant Klebsiella were also observed. Conclusion: These data indicated that critically ill patients on ventilator in Vietnam were at disturbingly high risk of antimicrobial resistance. The data also imply that these Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and multidrug resistance pose serious therapeutic problems in ICU patients. A concerted and systematic effort is required to rapidly identify high risk patients and to reduce the burden of antimicrobial resistance in developing countries.

Tran, T, Bliuc, D, van Geel, T, Adachi, JD, Berger, C, van den Bergh, J, Eisman, JA, Geusens, P, Goltzman, D, Hanley, DA, Josse, RG, Kaiser, SM, Kovacs, CS, Langsetmo, L, Prior, JC, Nguyen, TV & Center, JR 2017, 'Population-Wide Impact of Non-Hip Non-Vertebral Fractures on Mortality', Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, vol. 32, no. 9, pp. 1802-1810.
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ABSTRACT   Data on long-term consequences of non-hip non-vertebral (NHNV) fractures, accounting for approximately two-thirds of all fragility fractures, are scanty. Our study aimed to quantify the population-wide impact of NHNV fractures on mortality. The national population-based prospective cohort study (Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study) included 5526 community dwelling women and 2163 men aged 50 years or older followed from July 1995 to September 2013. Population impact number was used to quantify the average number of people for whom one death would be attributable to fracture and case impact number to quantify the number of deaths out of which one would be attributable to a fracture. There were 1370 fragility fractures followed by 296 deaths in women (mortality rate: 3.49; 95% CI, 3.11 to 3.91), and 302 fractures with 92 deaths in men (5.05; 95% CI, 4.12 to 6.20). NHNV fractures accounted for three-quarters of fractures. In women, the population-wide impact of NHNV fractures on mortality was greater than that of hip and vertebral fractures because of the greater number of NHNV fractures. Out of 800 women, one death was estimated to be attributable to a NHNV fracture, compared with one death in 2000 women attributable to hip or vertebral fracture. Similarly, out of 15 deaths in women, one was estimated to be attributable to a NHNV fracture, compared with one in over 40 deaths for hip or vertebral fracture. The impact of forearm fractures (ie, one death in 2400 women and one out of 42 deaths in women attributable to forearm fracture) was similar to that of hip, vertebral, or rib fractures. Similar, albeit not significant, results were noted for men. The study highlights the important contribution of NHNV fractures on mortality because many NHNV fracture types, except for the most distal fractures, have serious adverse consequ...

Turturice, BA, McGee, HS, Oliver, B, Baraket, M, Nguyen, BT, Ascoli, C, Ranjan, R, Rani, A, Perkins, DL & Finn, PW 2017, 'Atopic asthmatic immune phenotypes associated with airway microbiota and airway obstruction', PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 10, pp. e0184566-e0184566.
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© 2017 Turturice et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Background: Differences in asthma severity may be related to inflammation in the airways. The lower airway microbiota has been associated with clinical features such as airway obstruction, symptom control, and response to corticosteroids. Objective: To assess the relationship between local airway inflammation, severity of disease, and the lower airway microbiota in atopic asthmatics. Methods: A cohort of young adult, atopic asthmatics with intermittent or mild/moderate persistent symptoms (n = 13) were assessed via bronchoscopy, lavage, and spirometry. These individuals were compared to age matched non-asthmatic controls (n = 6) and to themselves after six weeks of treatment with fluticasone propionate (FP). Inflammation of the airways was assessed via a cytokine and chemokine panel. Lower airway microbiota composition was determined by metagenomic shotgun sequencing. Results: Unsupervised clustering of cytokines and chemokines prior to treatment with FP identified two asthmatic phenotypes (AP), termed AP1 and AP2, with distinct bronchoalveolar lavage inflammatory profiles. AP2 was associated with more obstruction, compared to AP1. After treatment with FP reduced MIP-1β and TNF-α and increased IL-2 was observed. A module of highly correlated cytokines that include MIP-1β and TNF-α was identified that negatively correlated with pulmonary function. Independently, IL-2 was positively correlated with pulmonary function. The airway microbiome composition correlated with asthmatic phenotypes. AP2, prior to FP treatment, was enriched with Streptococcus pneumoniae. Unique associations between IL-2 or the cytokine module and the microbiota composition of the airways were observed in asthmatics subjects prio...

Ulapane, N, Alempijevic, A, Vidal Calleja, T & Valls Miro, J 2017, 'Pulsed Eddy Current Sensing for Critical Pipe Condition Assessment', Sensors, vol. 17, no. 10, pp. 2208-2208.
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© 2017 by the authors. Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC) sensing is used for Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) of the structural integrity of metallic structures in the aircraft, railway, oil and gas sectors. Urban water utilities also have extensive large ferromagnetic structures in the form of critical pressure pipe systems made of grey cast iron, ductile cast iron and mild steel. The associated material properties render NDE of these pipes by means of electromagnetic sensing a necessity. In recent years PEC sensing has established itself as a state-of-the-art NDE technique in the critical water pipe sector. This paper presents advancements to PEC inspection in view of the specific information demanded from water utilities along with the challenges encountered in this sector. Operating principles of the sensor architecture suitable for application on critical pipes are presented with the associated sensor design and calibration strategy. A Gaussian process-based approach is applied to model a functional relationship between a PEC signal feature and critical pipe wall thickness. A case study demonstrates the sensor’s behaviour on a grey cast iron pipe and discusses the implications of the observed results and challenges relating to this application.

van Breeschoten, J, De Abreu Lourenco, R, Signorelli, C, Haas, M, Cohn, RJ, Wakefield, CE & Fardell, JE 2017, 'Patterns and drivers of health care use in long-term childhood cancer survivors: A systematic review', Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology, vol. 120, pp. 60-76.
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© 2017 The Authors Background Childhood cancer survival is increasing. But cancer and treatment late-effects can lead to ongoing health care use. We summarised the literature on the patterns and drivers of health care use among childhood cancer survivors. Method Pubmed, Embase and Medline were searched for studies reporting health care use in childhood cancer survivors. Results We included 22 studies, covering 88787 experiences of health care use. The proportion of survivors using follow-up care, physician visits, specialist visits, hospitalisations, dental care and screening services varied (36.4%–88.8%). Participation in screening was below recommendations (11.5%–81%). Drivers of increased health care use included higher income, private health insurance, attending follow-up care, chronic health conditions, prior radiotherapy, being female and older age. Conclusion Sociodemographic and clinical factors result in differences in health care use. Future research could investigate whether such use is appropriate and how survivors might be engaged to receive care appropriate to manage their needs.

Viglione, LL, Chamoli, U & Diwan, AD 2017, 'Is Stand-Alone Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion a Safe and Efficacious Treatment for Isthmic Spondylolisthesis of L5-S1?', Global Spine Journal, vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 587-595.
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Study Design:A systematic review.Objective:The objective of this study was to determine the safety and efficacy of stand-alone anterior lumbar interbody fusion (sa-ALIF) for the treatment of symptomatic isthmic spondylolisthesis of L5-S1 by assessing the level of available clinical and radiographic evidence.Methods:A systematic review utilizing Medline, Embase, and Scopus online databases was undertaken. Clinical, radiographic, and adverse outcome data were extracted for the relevant isthmic spondylolisthesis cases with the intention of undertaking a meta-analysis.Results:The database search between January 1980 and December 2015 yielded 23 articles that concerned sa-ALIF for isthmic spondylolisthesis of L5-S1. Only in 9 of the 23 articles data could be extracted specific to sa-ALIF for isthmic spondylolisthesis of L5-S1. There was considerable inconsistency in the standards for reporting outcomes of the surgery due to which meta-analysis could not be undertaken, and hence each article was reviewed.Conclusions:There was insufficient evidence to support the safety and efficacy of sa-ALIF for the treatment of isthmic spondylolisthesis of L5-S1. Although sa-ALIF is widely documented in the literature, there was insufficient evidence to support its use in treating this specific pathology. The unique pathological and anatomical situation that isthmic spondylolisthesis of L5-S1 presents must be recognized and its treatment with sa-ALIF should be well thought out.

Virdun, C, Luckett, T, Lorenz, K, Davidson, PM & Phillips, J 2017, 'Analyzing Consumer Priorities for Hospital End-of-Life Care Using a Systematic Review to Inform Policy and Practice', SAGE Research Methods Cases.
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A systematic review is a useful method to answer a research question where prior studies have been conducted. A well-designed and executed systematic review can inform policy and/or practice change. It can also identify gaps and generate new research questions. Although the requirements considered essential for conducting a rigorous systematic review are well defined in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement, the approaches taken to synthesize the data vary. This case study describes the narrative synthesis of heterogeneous quantitative studies and the meta-synthesis of qualitative studies used to answer a complex research question from the consumer perspective. The study design focused on the analysis of consumer data only. As a result, the synthesis of both quantitative data and qualitative data has provided a detailed insight into consumers' unique perspectives and needs. The synthesis approach for both datasets is described, and linkages to key tools and resources to help facilitate this approach are provided. Processes used by the research team to enable effective research governance and collaboration throughout are also detailed.

Virdun, C, Luckett, T, Lorenz, K, Davidson, PM & Phillips, J 2017, 'Dying in the hospital setting: A meta-synthesis identifying the elements of end-of-life care that patients and their families describe as being important', Palliative Medicine, vol. 31, no. 7, pp. 587-601.
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Background: Despite most expected deaths occurring in hospital, optimal end-of-life care is not available for all in this setting. Aim: To gain a richer and deeper understanding of elements of end-of-life care that consumers consider most important within the hospital setting. Design: A meta-synthesis. Data sources: A systematic search of Academic Search Complete, AMED, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, PubMed, Google, Google Scholar and CareSearch for qualitative studies published between 1990 and April 2015 reporting statements by consumers regarding important elements of end-of-life hospital care. Study quality was appraised by two independent researchers using an established checklist. A three-stage synthesis approach focusing on consumer quotes, rather than primary author themes, was adopted for this review. Results: Of 1922 articles, 16 met the inclusion criteria providing patient and family data for analysis. Synthesis yielded 7 patient and 10 family themes including 6 common themes: (1) expert care, (2) effective communication and shared decision-making, (3) respectful and compassionate care, (4) adequate environment for care, (5) family involvement and (6) financial affairs. Maintenance of sense of self was the additional patient theme, while the four additional family themes were as follows: (1) maintenance of patient safety, (2) preparation for death, (3) care extending to the family after patient death and (4) enabling patient choice at the end of life. Conclusion: Consumer narratives help to provide a clearer direction as to what is important for hospital end-of-life care. Systems are nee...

Wakefield, CE, Fardell, JE, Doolan, EL, Drew, D, De Abreu Lourenco, R, Young, AL & Cohn, RJ 2017, 'Grandparents of children with cancer: Quality of life, medication and hospitalizations', Pediatric Blood & Cancer, vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 163-171.
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AbstractBackgroundGrandparents can play a crucial role of providing emotional and practical support for families facing childhood cancer. Yet, many have their own healthcare needs. This controlled study systematically assesses the impact of childhood cancer on grandparents’ quality of life (QOL). Our objective was to compare QOL in grandparents of children with and without cancer and to identify factors associated with grandparents’ QOL.ProcedureGrandparents (N = 222) completed two patient‐reported outcome (PRO) measures assessing QOL: EQ‐5D‐5L and WHOQOL‐BREF. Secondary endpoints included sleep, medications and hospitalizations. We used independent samples t‐tests and multivariate linear regression to assess between‐group differences and identify predictors.ResultsGrandparents of children with cancer (n = 89) reported significantly worse QOL than controls (n = 133) [mean WHOQOL‐BREF score: 75.6 (SD = 17.6) vs. 81.5 (15.6), P = 0.007; mean EQ‐5D‐5L index value: 0.777 (0.20) vs. 0.874 (0.14), P < 0.001)]. They also reported more problems with anxiety and depression (47.2 vs. 21.8%, P < 0.001) and pain (64.8 vs. 49.6%, P = 0.031). Grandparents of children with cancer reported taking longer to fall asleep [mean: 30.4 min (55.6) vs. 18.2 (20.2), P = 0.011] and taking more medications in the last 4 weeks [mean: 2.9 (SD = 3.8) vs. 1.8 (SD = 2.3), P = 0.012]. Hospitalizations were comparable across groups. Grandmothers, those living in urban locations, and retired/unemployed grandparents experienced reduced QOL.

Whyte, T, Gibson, T, Eager, D & Milthorpe, B 2017, 'Full-face motorcycle helmet protection from facial impacts: an investigation using THOR dummy impacts and SIMon finite element head model', Injury Prevention, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 205-210.
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© 2017, BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved. Objective Facial impacts are both common and injurious for helmeted motorcyclists who crash; however, there is no facial impact requirement in major motorcycle helmet standards. This study examined the effect of fullface motorcycle helmet protection on brain injury risk in facial impacts using a test device with biofidelic head and neck motion. A preliminary investigation of energy absorbing foam in the helmet chin bar was carried out. Method Flat-faced rigid pendulum impacts were performed on a THOR dummy in an unprotected (no helmet) and protected mode (two full-face helmet conditions). The head responses of the dummy were input into the simulated injury monitor finite element head model to analyse the risk of brain injury in these impacts. Results Full-face helmet protection provides a significant reduction in brain injury risk in facial impacts at increasing impact speeds compared with an unprotected rider (p<0.05). The effect of low-density crushable foam added to the chin bar could not be distinguished from an unpadded chin bar impact. Conclusions Despite the lack of an impact attenuation requirement for the face, full-face helmets do provide a reduction in head injury risk to the wearer in facial impacts. The specific helmet design factors that influence head injury risk in facial impacts need further investigation if improved protection for helmeted motorcyclists is to be achieved.

Wijesinghe, P, Gorrie, C, Shankar, SK, Chickabasaviah, YT, Amaratunga, D, Hulathduwa, S, Kumara, KS, Samarasinghe, K, Suh, Y-H, Steinbusch, HWM & De Silva, KRD 2017, 'Early stages of Alzheimer's disease are alarming signs in injury deaths caused by traffic accidents in elderly people (≥60 years of age): A neuropathological study.', Indian J Psychiatry, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 471-477.
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BACKGROUND: There is little information available in the literature concerning the contribution of dementia in injury deaths in elderly people (≥60 years). AIM: This study was intended to investigate the extent of dementia-related pathologies in the brains of elderly people who died in traffic accidents or by suicide and to compare our findings with age- and sex-matched natural deaths in an elderly population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Autopsy-derived human brain samples from nine injury death victims (5 suicide and 4 traffic accidents) and nine age- and sex-matched natural death victims were screened for neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular pathologies using histopathological and immunohistochemical techniques. For the analysis, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 was used. RESULTS: There was a greater likelihood for Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related changes in the elders who succumbed to traffic accidents (1 out of 4) compared to age- and sex-matched suicides (0 out of 5) or natural deaths (0 out of 9) as assessed by the National Institute on Aging - Alzheimer's Association guidelines. Actual burden of both neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) and (SPs) was comparatively higher in the brains of traffic accidents, and the mean NFT counts were significantly higher in the region of entorhinal cortex (P < 0.05). However, associations obtained for other dementia-related pathologies were not statistically important. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that early Alzheimer stages may be a contributing factor to injury deaths caused by traffic accidents in elderly people whereas suicidal brain neuropathologies resembled natural deaths.

Winata, P, Williams, M, McGowan, E, Nassif, N, van Zandwijk, N & Reid, G 2017, 'The analysis of novel microRNA mimic sequences in cancer cells reveals lack of specificity in stem-loop RT-qPCR-based microRNA detection', BMC Research Notes, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1-7.
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© 2017 The Author(s). Objective: MicroRNAs are frequently downregulated in cancer, and restoring expression has tumour suppressive activity in tumour cells. Our recent phase I clinical trial investigated microRNA-based therapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Treatment with TargomiRs, microRNA mimics with novel sequence packaged in EGFR antibody-targeted bacterial minicells, revealed clear signs of clinical activity. In order to detect delivery of microRNA mimics to tumour cells in future clinical trials, we tested hydrolysis probe-based assays specific for the sequence of the novel mimics in transfected mesothelioma cell lines using RT-qPCR. Results: The custom assays efficiently and specifically amplified the consensus mimics. However, we found that these assays gave a signal when total RNA from untransfected and control mimic-transfected cells were used as templates. Further investigation revealed that the reverse transcription step using stem-loop primers appeared to introduce substantial non-specific amplification with either total RNA or synthetic RNA templates. This suggests that reverse transcription using stem-loop primers suffers from an intrinsic lack of specificity for the detection of highly similar microRNAs in the same family, especially when analysing total RNA. These results suggest that RT-qPCR is unlikely to be an effective means to detect delivery of microRNA mimic-based drugs to tumour cells in patients.

Ye, L, Argha, A, Celler, BG, Nguyen, HT & Su, SW 2017, 'Online auto-calibration of triaxial accelerometer with time-variant model structures', Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, vol. 266, pp. 294-307.
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© 2017 Elsevier B.V. In this paper, an online auto-calibration method for MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) triaxial accelerometer (TA) is proposed, which can simultaneously identify the time-dependent model structure and its parameters during the changes of the operating environment. Firstly, the model as well as its associated cost function is linearized by a new proposed linearization approach. Then, exploiting an online sparse recursive least square (SPARLS) estimation, the unknown parameters are identified. In particular, the online sparse recursive method is based on an L1-norm penalized expectation-maximum (EM) algorithm, which can amend the model automatically by penalizing the insignificant parameters to zero. Furthermore, this method can reduce computational complexity and be implemented in a low-cost Micro-Controller-Unit (MCU). Based on the numerical analysis, it can be concluded that the proposed recursive algorithm can calculate the unknown parameters reliably and accurately for most MEMS triaxial accelerometers available in the market. Additionally, this method is experimentally validated by comparing the output estimations before and after calibration under various scenarios, which further confirms its feasibility and effectiveness for online TA calibration.

Ye, L, Guo, Y & Su, SW 2017, 'An Efficient Autocalibration Method for Triaxial Accelerometer', IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 66, no. 9, pp. 2380-2390.
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© 1963-2012 IEEE. This paper investigates the autocalibration of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) triaxial accelerometer (TA) based on experimental design (DoE). First, for a special 6-parameter second-degree model, a six-point experimental scheme is proposed, and its G-optimality has been proven based on optimal DoE. Then, a new linearization approach is introduced, by which the TA model for autocalibration can be simplified as the expected second-degree form so that the proposed optimal experimental scheme can be applied. To reliably estimate the model parameter, a convergence-guaranteed iterative algorithm is also proposed, which can significantly reduce the bias caused by linearization. Thereafter, the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach have been demonstrated by simulation. Finally, the proposed calibration method has been experimentally verified using two typical types of MEMS TA, and desired experimental results effectively demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed calibration approach.

Yu, TT, Nizalapur, S, Ho, KKK, Yee, E, Berry, T, Cranfield, CG, Willcox, M, Black, DS & Kumar, N 2017, 'Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of N‐Sulfonylphenyl glyoxamide‐Based Antimicrobial Peptide Mimics as Novel Antimicrobial Agents', ChemistrySelect, vol. 2, no. 12, pp. 3452-3461.
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AbstractAntibiotic resistance is a major global health concern. There is an urgent need for the development of novel antimicrobials. Recently, phenylglyoxamide‐based small molecular antimicrobial peptide mimics have been identified as potential new leads to treat bacterial infections. Here, we describe the synthesis of novel phenylglyoxamide derivatives via the ring‐opening reaction of N‐sulfonylisatins with primary amines, followed by conversion into hydrochloride, quaternary ammonium iodide or gunidinium salts. The antibacterial activity of the compounds against Staphylococcus aureus was evaluated by in vitro assays. Structure‐activity relationship studies revealed that 5‐bromo‐substituent at the phenyl ring, octyl group appended to the ortho sulfonamide group or guanidine hydrochloride salt as the terminal group significantly contributed to potency. The most potent compound, the gunidinium salt 35 d, exhibited a minimum inhibitory concentration value of 12 μM and a therapeutic index of 15. It also demonstrated its potential to act as antimicrobial pore‐forming agent. Overall, the results identified 35 d as a new lead antimicrobial compound.

Zhang, Y, Li, P, Zhu, X, Su, SW, Guo, Q, Xu, P & Yao, D 2017, 'Extracting time-frequency feature of single-channel vastus medialis EMG signals for knee exercise pattern recognition', PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 7, pp. e0180526-e0180526.
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The EMG signal indicates the electrophysiological response to daily living of activities, particularly to lower-limb knee exercises. Literature reports have shown numerous benefits of the Wavelet analysis in EMG feature extraction for pattern recognition. However, its application to typical knee exercises when using only a single EMG channel is limited. In this study, three types of knee exercises, i.e., flexion of the leg up (standing), hip extension from a sitting position (sitting) and gait (walking) are investigated from 14 healthy untrained subjects, while EMG signals from the muscle group of vastus medialis and the goniometer on the knee joint of the detected leg are synchronously monitored and recorded. Four types of lower-limb motions including standing, sitting, stance phase of walking, and swing phase of walking, are segmented. The Wavelet Transform (WT) based Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) approach is proposed for the classification of four lower-limb motions using a single-channel EMG signal from the muscle group of vastus medialis. Based on lower-limb motions from all subjects, the combination of five-level wavelet decomposition and SVD is used to comprise the feature vector. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) is then configured to build a multiple-subject classifier for which the subject independent accuracy will be given across all subjects for the classification of four types of lower-limb motions. In order to effectively indicate the classification performance, EMG features from time-domain (e.g., Mean Absolute Value (MAV), Root-Mean-Square (RMS), integrated EMG (iEMG), Zero Crossing (ZC)) and frequency-domain (e.g., Mean Frequency (MNF) and Median Frequency (MDF)) are also used to classify lower-limb motions. The five-fold cross validation is performed and it repeats fifty times in order to acquire the robust subject independent accuracy. Results show that the proposed WT-based SVD approach has the classification accuracy of 91.85%±0.88% which...

Zhang, Y, Su, S, Savkin, A, Celler, B & Nguyen, H 2017, 'Multiloop Integral Controllability Analysis for Nonlinear Multiple-Input Single-Output Processes', Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, vol. 56, no. 28, pp. 8054-8065.
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© 2017 American Chemical Society. The decentralized integral controllability (DIC) for linear/nonlinear square processes implies the existence of stable decentralized controllers with integral actions capable of achieving offset-free control and detuning any subset of the control loops independently. However, the current version of the DIC cannot be directly applied to nonsquare processes specifically for multiple-input single-output (MISO) processes. This paper presents the new definition and theorem of multiloop integral controllability (MIC) to nonlinear MISO processes, and proposes the sufficient MIC conditions in order for such processes to guarantee decentralized unconditional stability under control loop failure as well as to achieve offset-free tracking performance. Two examples, the quadruple-tank system (model based) and the temperature control system, are modified as two-input single-output (TISO) plants and given to quantitatively interpret the effectiveness of the proposed MIC analysis where the desirable performance of both applications can be obtained.

Zhao, L, Chen, Q, Li, W, Jiang, P, Wong, L & Li, J 2017, 'MapReduce for accurate error correction of next-generation sequencing data', Bioinformatics, vol. 33, no. 23, pp. 3844-3851.
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Abstract Motivation Next-generation sequencing platforms have produced huge amounts of sequence data. This is revolutionizing every aspect of genetic and genomic research. However, these sequence datasets contain quite a number of machine-induced errors—e.g. errors due to substitution can be as high as 2.5%. Existing error-correction methods are still far from perfect. In fact, more errors are sometimes introduced than correct corrections, especially by the prevalent k-mer based methods. The existing methods have also made limited exploitation of on-demand cloud computing. Results We introduce an error-correction method named MEC, which uses a two-layered MapReduce technique to achieve high correction performance. In the first layer, all the input sequences are mapped to groups to identify candidate erroneous bases in parallel. In the second layer, the erroneous bases at the same position are linked together from all the groups for making statistically reliable corrections. Experiments on real and simulated datasets show that our method outperforms existing methods remarkably. Its per-position error rate is consistently the lowest, and the correction gain is always the highest. Availability and Implementation The source code is available at bioinformatics.gxu.edu.cn/ngs/mec. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Zhuang, L, Taylor, T, Beirman, D & Darcy, S 2017, 'Socially sustainable ethnic tourism: a comparative study of two Hakka communities in China', Tourism Recreation Research, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 467-483.
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© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Ethnic tourism is a catalyst for economic and sociocultural development in many countries. However, ethnic tourism development has given rise to many challenges associated with the sustainable development of ethnic regions within different cultural contexts. This paper addresses the social aspect of sustainable ethnic tourism through comparative case studies of two ethnic Hakka tourism destinations, Nanyuan and Sujiawei villages in Heyuan, Guangdong Province, China. The comparative case-study research design included in-depth interviews, document analysis and a household study in each case-study village. The comparative case study provides insights into factors contributing to socially sustainable ethnic tourism in China, including levels of community involvement, control of the tourism ‘product’, the benefits accruing to the ethnic community, perceived inconveniences/externalities and authenticity considerations. This study contributes to a better understanding of socially sustainable ethnic tourism in a Chinese context, and has practical implications for ethnic tourism destination marketing, management and policy-making.

Al-Jubouri, B & Gabrys, B 1970, 'Diversity and Locality in Multi-Component, Multi-Layer Predictive Systems: A Mutual Information Based Approach', ADVANCED DATA MINING AND APPLICATIONS, ADMA 2017, International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications (ADMA), Springer International Publishing, Singapore, SINGAPORE, pp. 313-325.
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Alturki, R & Gay, V 1970, 'Usability Testing of Fitness Mobile Application : Methodology and Quantitative Results', Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT), 7th International Conference on Computer Science, Engineering & Applications, Academy & Industry Research Collaboration Center (AIRCC), Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Obesity is a major health problem around the world. Saudi Arabia is a nation where obesity is increasing at an alarming rate. Mobile apps could help obese individuals but they need to be usable and personalized to be adopted by those users. This paper aims at testing the usability of a fitness mobile app” Twazon”, an app in Arabic language. This paper presents an extensive literature review on the attributes that improve the usability of fitness apps. Then, it explains our methodology and our set up of a trial to test the usability of Twazon app that is popular in Saudi Arabia. The usability attributes tested are effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, memorability, errors, learnability and cognitive load. The trial is done in collaboration with participants from the Armed Forces Hospitals - Taif Region in Saudi Arabia. The results highlight that the app failed to meet with the usability attributes.

Alzahid, Y, Mostaghimi, P, Warkiani, ME, Armstrong, RT, Joekar-Niasar, V & Karadimitriou, N 1970, 'Alkaline Surfactant Polymer Flooding: What Happens at the Pore Scale?', Day 2 Tue, June 13, 2017, SPE Europec featured at 79th EAGE Conference and Exhibition, SPE, pp. 386-402.
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Abstract Alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding is a Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (CEOR) method whereby alkali, surfactant and polymer are injected as the same slug. It is one of the most promising world-wide focus of CEOR research and field trials, due to the unique synergy of the three chemical components. Polymers increase the viscosity of injected water, which improves macroscopic sweep efficiency by stabilizing the displacing front and counteracting heterogeneity effects. Surfactants, on the other hand, decrease the interfacial tension between the injected water and crude oil, which improves microscopic displacement efficiency by mobilizing trapped oil. Alkaline chemicals generate soap when reacting with crude oil, which reduces surfactant adsorption to grain surfaces. To fully understand the flow mechanisms in oil reservoirs and develop efficient recovery methods, it is essential to recognize the physics at the pore scale since this is the length scale at which capillary-trapped oil is mobilized. We developed an experimental micro-scale approach in which oil recovery is analyzed using microfluidics. The micromodels are fabricated based on: (1) a pore network generated via a Delaunay triangulation with an average pore size of 60 µm, (2) X-ray micro-Computed Tomography images of Bentheimer sandstone with resolution of 4.95 µm, and (3) a fractured network with a porosity of 10%. The networks are etched into silicon wafers and used to fabricate polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic devices. We compare not only oil recovery with ASP flooding between different porous networks but we also study displacement mechanisms and pore scale emulsion formation for ASP formulations that exhibit Winsor Type II+, II- and III behaviour. Our studies elucidate micro-scale oil recovery mechanisms for different ASP flooding scenarios. Our results provide direct visualization of the micro-scale phenomena occurring d...

Argha, A, Li, L, Ha, Q, Su, SW & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Strong stability based robust sliding mode control.', ASCC, Asian Control Conference, IEEE, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia, pp. 588-593.
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© 2017 IEEE. In this paper, a new method for designing the robust Discrete-time Sliding Mode Control (DSMC) is proposed. To this end, firstly, the regular form based sliding mode control is reviewed. Then, according to the notion of strong stability and using scaling matrices (similarity transformation), a new method for considering the stability of discrete-time systems in the presence of general uncertainty term (matched and unmatched) is developed. Above all, in this paper, a new method to design the robust sliding surface according to the notion of strong stability is proposed. This problem is studied for both cases which system is or is not 'strongly stabilizable under state-feedback'.

Argha, A, Li, L, Su, SW & Nguyen, H 1970, 'Sparse Observer-Based Sliding Mode Control For Networked Control Systems', IFAC-PapersOnLine, World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control, Elsevier BV, Toulouse, France, pp. 12997-13002.
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© 2017 This paper is devoted to the problem of designing a sparse distributed output feedback discrete-time sliding mode control (ODSMC) for the networked systems. A distributed structure is employed in the discrete-time sliding mode control framework by exploiting other sub-systems’ information to improve the performance of each local controller/observer so that it can widen the applicability region of the given scheme. As the first step, a stability condition is derived for the overall closed-loop system obtained from applying ODSMC to the underlying interconnected system, by assuming a given structure for the control/observer network. In the second step, we explore a methodology to obtain a sparse control/observer network structure with the least possible number of communication links that satisfies the stability condition given in the first step. The boundedness of the obtained overall closed-loop system is analyzed and a bound is derived for the augmented system state which includes the closed-loop system state and the switching function.

Asadnia, M, Kottapalli, AGP, Warkiani, ME, Miao, JM & Triantafyllou, MS 1970, 'Engineering miniaturized hair cell sensors for auditory system', 2017 IEEE 30th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), 2017 IEEE 30th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), IEEE, Las Vegas, NV, pp. 1173-1176.
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© 2017 IEEE. Mechanosensory haircells are well-evolved biological sensors found in nature. In this paper, we present a novel artificial NEMS stereovilli sensor developed through novel fabrication techniques. The NEMS stereovilli sensor fabrication combines soft-polymer material synthesis methods and nanofiber generation techniques with conventional microfabrication methods to form novel flow sensors. The sensor fabrication mainly consists of three major steps which are 1) fabrication of artificial stereovilli of varying aspect ratios, 2) formation of nanofiber tip-links through electrospinning of PVDF material and 3) development of biomimetic HA-MA hydrogel cupula. These artificial sensors closely mimic stereovilli and achieve ultrahigh sensitivities through a biomimetic design. The sensors achieve a sensitivity and threshold detection limit of 300 mV/(m/s) and 8 μm/s, respectively.

Belic, NK, Padula, M, Milthorpe, B & Santos, J 1970, 'Multiple sclerosis: a disease in a dish', MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS JOURNAL, Progress in MS Research Conference, SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, MS Res Australia, Sydney, AUSTRALIA, pp. NP26-NP27.

Benner, L, Castro, EA, Whitworth, C, Cook, KR, Oliver, B & Lerit, DA 1970, 'Regulation of cell division by the intrinsic and extrinsic activities of small ovaries is required for germline development.', MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF THE CELL, Annual Joint Meeting of the American-Society-for-Cell-Biology and the European-Molecular-Biology-Organization (ASCB/EMBO), AMER SOC CELL BIOLOGY, Philadelphia, PA.

Bliuc, D, Tran, T, van Geel, T, Adachi, J, Berger, C, van den Bergh, J, Eisman, JA, Geusens, P, Goltzman, D, Hanley, DA, Josse, RG, Kaiser, SM, Kovacs, CS, Langsetmo, L, Prior, JC, Nguyen, TV & Center, JR 1970, 'The Effect of Bisphosphonates on Mortality Risk Reduction is Partly Mediated Through a Reduction in the Rate of Bone Loss.', JOURNAL OF BONE AND MINERAL RESEARCH, Annual Meeting of the American-Society-for-Bone-and-Mineral-Research (ASBMR), WILEY, Denver, CO, pp. S23-S24.

Braytee, A, Liu, W & Kennedy, PJ 1970, 'Supervised context-aware non-negative matrix factorization to handle high-dimensional high-correlated imbalanced biomedical data', 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), IEEE, Anchorage, AK, USA, pp. 4512-4519.
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© 2017 IEEE. Traditional feature selection techniques are used to identify a subset of the most useful features, and consider the rest as unimportant, redundant or noisy. In the presence of highly correlated features, many variable selection methods consider correlated features as redundant and need to be removed. In this paper, a novel supervised feature selection algorithm SCANMF is proposed by jointly integrating correlation analysis and structural analysis of the balanced supervised non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). Furthermore, ℓ2,1-norm minimization constraint is incorporated into the objective function to guarantee sparsity in the feature matrix rows and reduce noisy features. Our algorithm exploits the discriminative information, feature combinations, and the original features in the context of a supervised NMF method which can be beneficial for both classification and interpretation. An efficient iterative algorithm is designed to solve the constrained optimization problem with guaranteed convergence. Finally, a series of extensive experiments are conducted on 8 complex datasets. Promising results using multiple classifiers demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our algorithm over state-of-the-art methods.

Braytee, A, Liu, W, Catchpoole, DR & Kennedy, PJ 1970, 'Multi-Label Feature Selection using Correlation Information', Proceedings of the 2017 ACM on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, CIKM '17: ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, ACM, Singapore, Singapore, pp. 1649-1656.
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© 2017 ACM. High-dimensional multi-labeled data contain instances, where each instance is associated with a set of class labels and has a large number of noisy and irrelevant features. Feature selection has been shown to have great benefits in improving the classification performance in machine learning. In multi-label learning, to select the discriminative features among multiple labels, several challenges should be considered: interdependent labels, different instances may share different label correlations, correlated features, and missing and .awed labels. This work is part of a project at .e Children's Hospital at Westmead (TB-CHW), Australia to explore the genomics of childhood leukaemia. In this paper, we propose a CMFS (Correlated-and Multi-label Feature Selection method), based on non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) for simultaneously performing feature selection and addressing the aforementioned challenges. Significantly, a major advantage of our research is to exploit the correlation information contained in features, labels and instances to select the relevant features among multiple labels. Furthermore, l2;1-norm regularization is incorporated in the objective function to undertake feature selection by imposing sparsity on the feature matrix rows. We employ CMFS to decompose the data and multi-label matrices into a low-dimensional space. To solve the objective function, an efficient iterative optimization algorithm is proposed with guaranteed convergence. Finally, extensive experiments are conducted on high-dimensional multi-labeled datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art multi-label feature selection methods.

Candra, H, Yuwono, M, Chai, R, Nguyen, HT & Su, S 1970, 'EEG emotion recognition using reduced channel wavelet entropy and average wavelet coefficient features with normal Mutual Information method', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 463-466.
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© 2017 IEEE. Recognizing emotion from EEG signals is a complicated task that requires complex features and a substantial number of EEG channels. Simple algorithms to analyse the feature and reduce the EEG channel number will give an indispensable advantages. Therefore, this study explores a combination of wavelet entropy and average wavelet coefficient (WEAVE) as a potential EEG-emotion feature to classify valence and arousal emotions with the advantage of the ability to identify the occurrence of a pattern while at the same time identify the shape of a pattern in EEG emotion signal. The complexity of the feature was reduced using the Normalized Mutual Information (NMI) method to obtain a reduced number of channels. Classification with the WEAVE feature achieved 76.8% accuracy for valence and 74.3% for arousal emotion, respectively. The analysis with NMI shows that the WEAVE feature has linear characteristics and offers possibilities to reduce the EEG channels to a certain number. Further analysis also reveals that detection of valence emotion with reduced EEG channels has a different combination of EEG channels compared to arousal emotion.

Chai, R, Naik, GR, Ling, SH, Tran, Y, Craig, A & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Channels selection using independent component analysis and scalp map projection for EEG-based driver fatigue classification', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 1808-1811.
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This paper presents a classification of driver fatigue with electroencephalography (EEG) channels selection analysis. The system employs independent component analysis (ICA) with scalp map back projection to select the dominant of EEG channels. After channel selection, the features of the selected EEG channels were extracted based on power spectral density (PSD), and then classified using a Bayesian neural network. The results of the ICA decomposition with the backprojected scalp map and a threshold showed that the EEG channels can be reduced from 32 channels into 16 dominants channels involved in fatigue assessment as chosen channels, which included AF3, F3, FC1, FC5, T7, CP5, P3, O1, P4, P8, CP6, T8, FC2, F8, AF4, FP2. The result of fatigue vs. alert classification of the selected 16 channels yielded a sensitivity of 76.8%, specificity of 74.3% and an accuracy of 75.5%. Also, the classification results of the selected 16 channels are comparable to those using the original 32 channels. So, the selected 16 channels is preferable for ergonomics improvement of EEG-based fatigue classification system.

Chen, W-H, Liu, G, Su, SW, Jiang, Q & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'A CHF detection method based on deep learning with RR intervals.', EMBC, 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, IEEE, Seogwipo, South Korea, pp. 3369-3372.
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© 2017 IEEE. There are extensive studies investigating congestive heart failure (CHF) detection based on heart rate variability. Although a high level of accuracy has been achieved, its robustness under different conditions is not guaranteed. To improve the robustness, we applied sparse auto-encoder-based deep learning algorithm in CHF detection with RR intervals. A total data size of 30,592 (5-min RR interval) was obtained from 72 healthy persons and 44 CHF patients. The deep learning algorithm first extracts unsupervised features using a sparse auto-encoder from raw RR intervals, then constructs a deep neural network model with various hidden nodes combinations. Results showed that the model achieved 72.41% accuracy. This demonstrated that RR intervals have potential in CHF detection but cannot fully reflect dynamic change in 24-h.

Dang, TD & Hoang, D 1970, 'A data protection model for fog computing', 2017 Second International Conference on Fog and Mobile Edge Computing (FMEC), 2017 Second International Conference on Fog and Mobile Edge Computing (FMEC), IEEE, Valencia, SPAIN, pp. 32-38.
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Darcy, SA 1970, 'Cultural Life: Disability, Inclusion and Citizenship (Abstract Only)', ATSA Independent Living Expo, Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney.
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Disability is a complex multidimensional social construct where the type of disability and the level of support of individuals needs to be considered within leisure provision. In a leisure context, people with disability often face a multitude of constraints to participation. However, when leisure is possible, the benefits are substantial and worth pursuing. While other marginalised populations have received a great deal of attention across disciplines and in the field of leisure and recreation, disability has received comparatively less attention and generally in isolation to the leisure context.

De Abreu Lourenco, R 1970, 'Does one size fit all? Determining value of prostate cancer and urology care', ANZUP Annual Scientific Meeting, Melbourne.

De Abreu Lourenco, R 1970, 'Estimating non (meta) health effects', ISPOR-AC Workshop, Sydney.

Dickson, T & Darcy, S 1970, 'Facilitating sport participation legacies from Olympic and Paralympic Games: the case of Whistler Adaptive Sports and Vancouver 2010', NASSM (North American Society for Sport Management) Conference 2017, NASSM (North American Society for Sport Management) Conference 2017, Denver, USA.
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One of the ‘offers’ to host communities from the conduct of mega sport-events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games is that following the event there would be increased participation in sport and physical activity. For Paralympic events, under the auspices of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) there is the further hope that there will be a legacy of increased participation and social inclusion of people with disabilities as the result of hosting the event. Using a contextualist approach, this research explored the reliability of these claims by exploring the case of Whistler Adaptive Sports (WAS) in the lead up to and following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (Vancouver 2010) that were held in the city of Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. WAS has evolved to leverage off the Vancouver 2010 infrastructure and social development.

Disler, RT, Cui, Y, Luckett, T, Donesky, D, Irving, L, Currow, D, Horsfall, L & Smallwood, N 1970, 'Respiratory Nurses' Knowledge And Practice Behaviours In COPD-Related Advance Care Planning: Preliminary Findings From A Cross-Sectional Survey Study', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Disler, RT, Luckett, T, Phillips, JL, Johnson, M, Garcia, M, Bhattarai, P, Hutchinson, A, Currow, D, Carrieri-Kohlman, V, Whelan, B, Newton, P, Agar, M, Chye, R, Sheehan, C, Ivynian, S & Davidson, PM 1970, 'Respiratory Patient Experiences In Self-Managing Emergency Department 'near-Miss' For Breathlessness: A Strengths-Based Qualitative Study', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Durepos, PM, Kaasalainen, S, Tamara, S, Ploeg, J, Parker, D, Brazil, K & Papaioannou, A 1970, 'ASSESSING FAMILY CARE CONFERENCES IN LONG-TERM CARE: LESSONS LEARNED FROM CONTENT ANALYSIS', Innovation in Aging, Oxford University Press (OUP), pp. 254-255.
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End-of-life (EOL) communication in long-term care (LTC) is often inadequate and delayed, leaving residents dying with unknown preferences or goals of care. Poor communication with staff contributes to families feeling unprepared, distressed and unsatisfied negatively effecting bereavement. Family Care Conferences (FCC) aim to increase structured, systematic communication around goals and plans for EOL. FCCs were implemented as part of the ‘Strengthening a Palliative Approach to Care’ (SPA-LTC) project in four LTC sites in Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this sub-study is to evaluate: a) content, b) processes, and c) interdisciplinary engagement using mixed methods. Twenty-four FCCs were held for residents with a Palliative Performance Scale of 40% (nearing death) considered appropriate by staff. Data was collected from FCC forms (i.e., Family Questionnaires, Conference Summaries) and electronic charts. Through directed-analysis, data was analyzed using the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association’s ‘Square of Care’ model which includes eight domains of care: Disease Management, Physical, Psychological, Social, Practical, Spiritual, EOL, and Loss/Bereavement. Findings showed on average each FCC documented 66% of domains with physical and EOL care domains being used the most, and content about loss/bereavement documented the least. Use of FCC hard copy forms had benefits over standard electronic charts including: higher proportion of goals, timely completion, category for end-of-life care and accessibility. FCCs were attended by an average of three disciplines prompting holistic content although Personal Support Workers (PSW) and physicians attended minimally. Implications to optimize FCCs include tailoring use of FCCs forms, prompting bereavement discussion, furthering engagement of PSWs and physicians.

Eager, D & Chapman, C 1970, 'Vibration measurement as a tool to solve a murder', ICBEN, ICBEN, Organizers Switzerland Ltd., Zurich, Switzerland.
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This paper will discuss a novel use of vibration measurement used to assist the NSW Police Force to solve the ‘pogo stick’ murder.The authors were approached by the Homicide Squad regarding a suspicious death of a 7-year boy at Oatley in May 2013. The child had reportedly fallen from a pogo stick and suffered significant head injuries. The child had not been provided with medical attention after the fall and died some 24 hours later.The incident occurred inside a small unit which was used as a music recording studio. The studio is on the first level of a larger business complex. The studio consisted of a recording room, a lounge room, and a kitchenette. The child fell in the lounge room. At the time of the alleged incident the mother was in the kitchenette, and the accused was in the recording room. According to the accused, he had headphones on and was listening to loud music when he 'felt' the vibration of the thud.Kodi Maybir was found guilty of murder in November 2015.

Eager, D, Chapman, C & Nguyen, AV 1970, 'Test method for longitudinal performance of impact attenuating surfaces', 7th International Conference on Mechanics and Materials in Design, 7th International Conference on Mechanics and Materials in Design, INEGI/FEUP, Albufeira, Portugal, pp. 149-150.
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The current test method for impact attenuation for children’s playground surfacing EN 1177 does not include a longitudinal test method to measure the expected life of the impact attenuating surface.This work proposes a test method to measure the accelerated usage of impact attenuating surfaces installed within children’s playgrounds.

Farahmandian, S & Hoang, DB 1970, 'SDS<inf>2</inf>: A novel software-defined security service for protecting cloud computing infrastructure', 2017 IEEE 16th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA), 2017 IEEE 16th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA), IEEE, Cambridge, MA, USA, pp. 1-8.
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© 2017 IEEE. Software-Defined Infrastructure (SDI) is a resource sharing infrastructure that embraces the concept of separation of the network control plane from its data plane, and software realization of network functions from the underlying hardware appliances through the virtualization technology in emerging infrastructures such as Cloud, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Virtualization and virtualized infrastructures bring with them new challenges regarding security and virtual resources protection. Traditional security measures and endpoint security are no longer adequate due to invisible boundaries created among shared logical and virtual entities among numerous users. This paper introduces a software-defined security service (SDS2) for protecting cloud infrastructures. SDS2focuses on defining security concerns regarding physical and virtual boundaries of data, resources, tenants and detecting security breaches through violations of boundaries. Boundaries are defined by security policies and security violations by attackers are predicted, monitored, and detected when boundaries are crossed. This paper describes SDS2and presents its initial implementation. The paper provides examples of policy-defined boundaries and shows the effectiveness and feasibility of our design in detecting invisible security boundaries through simulation of a security control structure and agile, dynamic, and intelligent VSFs.

Farahmandian, S & Hoang, DB 1970, 'SDS2: A Novel Software-Defined Security Service for Protecting Cloud Computing Infrastructure', The 16th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications17), The 16th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications17), Cambridge, MA, USA.

Ferguson, C, Hickman, L, Phillips, J, Newton, P, Inglis, S, Lam, L & Bajorek, B 1970, 'An mHealth intervention to improve nurses' atrial fibrillation and anticoagulation knowledge and practice: the EVICOAG study', INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STROKE, Stroke Society of Australasia, SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, Queenstown, New Zealand, pp. 9-10.

Ferguson, C, Hickman, L, Phillips, J, Newton, P, Inglis, S, Lam, L & Bajorek, B 1970, 'Exploring the acute care registered nurses' contribution in anticoagulation decision making for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation', INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STROKE, Stroke Society of Australasia, SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, Queenstown, New Zealand, pp. 48-48.

Gao, F, Musial, K & Gabrys, B 1970, 'A Community Bridge Boosting Social Network Link Prediction Model', Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining 2017, ASONAM '17: Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining 2017, ACM, pp. 683-689.
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Link prediction in social networks is a very challenging research problem. The majority of existing approaches are based on the assumption that a given network evolves following a single phenomenon, e.g.”rich get richer” or”friend of my friend is my friend”. However, dynamics of network dynamic changes over time and different parts of the network evolve in different manner. Because of that, we hypothesise that the prediction accuracy can be improved by providing different treatment to different nodes and links. Building on that assumption, we propose a Community Bridge Boosting Prediction Model (CBBPM) that treats certain bridge nodes differently depending on their structural position. For such bridge nodes their similarity score obtained using traditional link-based prediction methods is boosted. By doing so the importance of these nodes is increased and at the same time ensuring that the CBBPM can be used with any existing link prediction method. Our experimental results show that such bridge node similarity boosting mechanism can improve the accuracy of traditional link prediction methods.

Ge, Q, Wang, J, Simcock, D, Kanabar-Raivadera, V, Hirst, S, Ward, J, Sawant, S, Van De Velde, R, Oliver, BG, Ashton, A & Burgess, JK 1970, 'Connective Tissue Growth Factor (ctgf) - A Key Factor In Asthmatic Airway Angiogenesis', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Gerace, D, Martiniello-Wilks, R, Nassif, NT, Ren, B & Simpson, AM 1970, 'Ex Vivo Expanded Murine Mesenchymal Stem Cells as Targets for the Generation of a Cell Replacement Therapy for Type 1 Diabetes', DIABETES, 77th Scientific Sessions of the American-Diabetes-Association, AMER DIABETES ASSOC, San Diego, CA, pp. A83-A83.

Ghorbani, S, Razavi Bazaz, S, Ebrahimi Warkiani, M, Soleimani, M & Abouei Mehrizi, A 1970, 'Evaluation of Nanofiber PLA Scaffolds Using Dry-and Wet-Electro Spinning Methods', 2017 24th National and 2nd International Iranian Conference on Biomedical Engineering (ICBME), 2017 24th National and 2nd International Iranian Conference on Biomedical Engineering (ICBME), IEEE, Tehran, IRAN, pp. 89-94.
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© 2017 IEEE. Investigating the fabrication of a favorable scaffold is a continuing sconcern and an essential step within tissue engineering. An ideal scaffold should mimic the structure of extracellular matrix (ECM) which has considerable impacts on its function. To meet this demands, in this study, three-dimensional scaffolds by polylactic acid (PLA) polymer 10%, 13%, 15%, 17% and 20% (w/v) with a novel architecture produced by a wet-electrospinning process have been fabricated and compared with dry-electrospun scaffolds that have been developed for tissue engineering applications. In the wet-electrospinning method, an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) (pH∼13) has been used as the coagulation bath instead of the aluminum collector which is used in the dry method. Comparing with usual nanofiber non-woven PLA fabric prepared by a conventional electrospinning method, wet-electrospun spongiform PLA nanofiber scaffolds have low apparent density and high porosity. The porosity of the scaffolds has been examined in this two methods and their mechanical properties as well as their morphology are investigated. All in all, it is shown that the novel nanofiber fabrication system would be amazingly useful for the structure control of the nanofiber fabric.

Golzan, M, Georgevsky, D, Bowd, C, Weinreb, RN & Graham, SL 1970, 'Visual field sensitivity is decreased with reduced spontaneous venous pulsation in glaucoma eyes', INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE, Annual Meeting of the Association-for-Research-in-Vision-and-Ophthalmology (ARVO) - Imaging in the Eye, ASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC, MD, Baltimore.

Guo, K, Candra, H, Yu, H, Li, H, Nguyen, HT & Su, SW 1970, 'EEG-based emotion classification using innovative features and combined SVM and HMM classifier', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 489-492.
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Emotion classification is one of the state-of-theart topics in biomedical signal research, and yet a significant portion remains unknown. This paper offers a novel approach with a combined classifier to recognise human emotion states based on electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. The objective is to achieve high accuracy using the combined classifier designed, which categorises the extracted features calculated from time domain features and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). Two innovative designs are involved in this project: a novel variable is established as a new feature and a combined SVM and HMM classifier is developed. The result shows that the joined features raise the accuracy by 5% on valence axis and 1.5% on arousal axis. The combined classifier can improve the accuracy by 3% comparing with SVM classifier. One of the important applications for high accuracy emotion classification system is offering a powerful tool for psychologists to diagnose emotion related mental diseases and the system developed in this project has the potential to serve such purpose.

Ha, TV & Hoang, DB 1970, 'An assistive healthcare platform for both social and service networking for engaging elderly people', 2017 23rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications (APCC), 2017 23rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications (APCC), IEEE, Perth, Australia, pp. 1-6.
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Most countries around the globe are facing the same issue - an aging population. As an individual move from their working life to a retirement life, multiple socio-economic issues can occur as their social life has also significantly changed. This shift often affects an individual's mental health and well-being. As a result, the aging population requires a solution that does reduce not only its impact on the government but also harvests its contribution to the society. Existing solutions are based on utilizing online platforms such as social network or service network as a medium to reduce social isolation and improve the mental health of elderly people. However, these solutions fail on two accounts: 1) they fail to see older people as active contributors and 2) older people do not see the needs or benefits of using them. This paper proposes a solution that addresses those two issues by engaging people actively and collaboratively as contributors of services and/or receivers of social benefits through an assistive platform that integrates a service network with a social network. This model combines the advantages of both platforms, offers many opportunities for seniors to not only utilize their skills and knowledge to exchange benefits with other users but also expand their social life. The proposed model can be used as a mean to engage older adults to the community, making them become more active, improve their mental well-being and subsequently reduce the cost of health services to the society.

Hadaddi, N, McGowan, E & Nassif, N 1970, 'Alteration of Cellular Function by Cancer-Associated PTEN Mutations.', Frontiers in Cancer Science 6-8th Nov, Singapore, Singapore.

Haddadi, N, McGowan, E & Nassif, N 1970, 'Cancer-associated PTEN mutations alter PTEN cellular function.', Australasian Genomic Technologies Association (AGTA) Annual Conference 2017, Hobart, Tasmania.

Hayati, H, Eager, D, Brown, T & Jusufi, A 1970, 'STRIDE LENGTH AS A SPEED INDICATOR IN FAST QUADRUPEDS', International Society of Biomechanics, International Society of Biomechanics, Brisbane, Australia.

Hayati, H, Eager, D, Jusufi, A & Brown, T 1970, 'A NOVEL APPROACH TO ANALYZING RAPID TETRAPOD LOCOMOTION USING INERTIAL MEASUREMENT UNITS', International Society of Biomechanics, International Society of Biomechanics, Brisbane, Australia.
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Rapid quadrupedal movement on granular media and other irregular terrain is an interesting area of research which is under-explored. Current methods of studying rapid quadrupedal movement involve the measurement of ground reaction forces (GRF) using a force plate and a simultaneous kinematics analysis by a High Frame Rate video (HFR). Although force plates provides highly accurate kinetic data, it is not always practical to deploy in the study of animal locomotion. For instance, it is often not possible to embed force plates in irregular terrains [1] characteristic of most ecologically relevant animals’ natural habitats [2]. An alternative method is to utilize an inertial measurement unit (IMU) equipped with a tri-axial accelerometer to analyze accelerations associated with different quadruped gaits. In this study, a tri-axial accelerometer is used to analyze sprinting locomotion dynamics of a greyhound in a simulated racing condition. Kinematics data from videography of the entire race was recorded in each trial for data calibration. In addition, the paw prints of the greyhound on a sandy-loam surface of a race track are also analyzed to sync acceleration data with each individual paw print.

Hayati, H, Eager, D, Jusufi, A & Brown, T 1970, 'A Study of Rapid Tetrapod Running and Turning Dynamics Utilizing Inertial Measurement Units in Greyhound Sprinting', Volume 3: 19th International Conference on Advanced Vehicle Technologies; 14th International Conference on Design Education; 10th Frontiers in Biomedical Devices, ASME 2017 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, pp. 1-5.
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Understanding the biomechanics of rapid running locomotion plays an important role in comparative biomechanics and bio-inspired engineering and is an integral part of animal welfare. However, this is not easily achieved using conventional methods of gait analysis: measuring ground reaction forces using a force plate, mainly on irregular granular terrain i.e. greyhounds in racing conditions or in animal’s natural habitats i.e. cheetahs in natural terrain. An alternative to measuring forces externally via force platforms embedded in track ways, we can attach inertial measurement units to agile quadrupeds to measure the effects of rapid running and turning. Here we deployed an IMU equipped with a tri-axial accelerometer on sprinting greyhounds to analyze rapid locomotion behaviors like dynamic banking and turning in conditions equivalent to racing. High speed videography and paw print analysis of the entire race were used for calibration. The results are beneficial in locomotion analysis and welfare of greyhounds.

Hayati, H, Eager, D, Stephenson, R, Brown, T & Arnott, E 1970, 'The impact of track related parameters on catastrophic injury rate of racing greyhounds', 9th Australasian Congress on Applied Mechanics, ACAM 2017, Australasian Congress on Applied Mechanics, Engineers Australia, Sydney, Australia.
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Greyhounds can travel twice as fast as human athletes, attaining constant average running speeds of ~65 km/h vs ~29 km/h. Their locomotion is also different from human sprinters, and more similar to cyclists. Unlike human sprinters where the muscles powering the locomotion are also supporting the weight, locomotion of greyhound are powered by torque about the hip. Agile, high-speed quadrupeds, such as the greyhound, experience extreme ground-limb contact forces while negotiating turns; leading to an increased susceptibility to injuries. Added to this, rapid, high velocity changes in direction and extreme turning angles magnify the lateral acceleration forces experienced on the limbs and torso. In this paper, the rate of severe musculoskeletal injuries of racing greyhounds at 34 tracks in New South Wales, Australia, were obtained for the year of 2016. The correlation of parameters, namely bend radius, bend camber, bend length and back straight length and the catastrophic injury rate are statistically analyzed . Track injury locations were obtained from race video footage No correlation was seen between catastrophic injury rate and bend radius, bend camber, bend length and back straight length. Analyses revealed the highest injury rate based on location to be at the first turn. Footage lends support to this being caused by the immediate clustering of the greyhounds towards the inner ‘lure’ rail.” The results of this study support previous findings that greyhounds racing in an anti-clockwise direction most commonly suffer musculoskeletal injuries to their right hind limbs which is consistent with knowledge of the forces that occur on the leading limbs of these dogs as they maintain their speed around bends.

Hoang, D & Dang, TD 1970, 'FBRC: Optimization of task Scheduling in Fog-Based Region and Cloud', 2017 IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/ICESS, 2017 IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/ICESS, IEEE, Sydney, NSW, Australia, pp. 1109-1114.
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© 2017 IEEE. Fog computing preserves benefits of cloud computing and is strategically positioned to address effectively many local and performance issues because its resources and specific services are virtualized and located at the edge of the customer premises. Resource management is a critical issue affecting system performance significantly. Due to the complex distribution and high mobility of fog devices, computation resources still experience high latencies in fog's large coverage area. This paper considers a Fog-based Region and Cloud (FBRC) in which requests are locally handled not just by a region but multiple regions when additional resources are needed. An efficient task scheduling mechanism is thus essential to minimize the completion time of tasks and improve user experiences. To this end, two issues are investigated in the paper: 1) designing a fog-based region architecture to provide nearby computing resources; 2) investigating efficient scheduling algorithms to distribute tasks among regions and remote clouds. To deal with the complexity of scheduling tasks, a heuristic-based algorithm is proposed based on our formulation and validated by extensive simulations.

Ho-Le, TP, Center, JR, Eisman, JA, Nguyen, TV & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Prediction of hip fracture in post-menopausal women using artificial neural network approach', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 4207-4210.
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Hip fracture is one of the most serious health problems among post-menopausal women with osteoporosis. It is very difficult to predict hip fracture, because it is affected by multiple risk factors. Existing statistical models for predicting hip fracture risk yield area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) ~0.7-0.85. In this study, we trained an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict hip fracture in one cohort, and validated its predictive performance in another cohort. The data for training and validation included age, bone mineral density (BMD), clinical factors, and lifestyle factors which had been obtained from a longitudinal study that involved 1167 women aged 60 years and above. The women had been followed up for up to 10 years, and during the period, the incidence of new hip fractures was ascertained. We applied feed-forward neural networks to learn from the data, and then used the learning for predicting hip fracture. Results of prediction showed that the accuracy of model I (which included only lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD) and model II (which included non-BMD factors) was 82% and 84%, respectively. When both BMD and non-BMD factors were combined (Model III), the accuracy increased to 87%. The AUC for model III was 0.94. These findings indicate that ANNs are able to predict hip fracture more accurately than any existing statistical models, and that ANNs can help stratify individuals for clinical management.

Iversen, TF, Ellekilde, L-P & Miro, JV 1970, 'Adaptive motion planning in bin-picking with object uncertainties', 2017 17th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS), 2017 17th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS), IEEE, Jeju, South Korea, pp. 921-928.
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© 2017 Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems - ICROS. Doing motion planning for bin-picking with object uncertainties requires either a re-grasp of picked objects or an online sensor system. Using the latter is advantageous in terms of computational time, as no time is wasted doing an extra pick and place action. It does, however, put extra requirements on the motion planner, as the target position may change on-the-fly. This paper solves that problem by using a state adjusting Partial Observable Markov Decision Process, where the state space is modified between runs, to better fit earlier solved problems. The approach relies on a set of waypoints, containing information about which parts of the state space may contain feasible solutions. Waypoints are pushed around the state space by observing which states in the neighborhood lead to successfully solved problems. Two bin-picking scenarios are modeled with the proposed method. One scenario in which the system receives an object pose update while moving towards the place position. Another where the update includes the object type being grasped out of a fixed number of options, each class to be deposited in a different place. When an online POMDP solver is utilized, the state adjusting POMDP is improving performance by up to 28% on execution times compared to a not adjusted POMDP.

Jadidi, MG, Patel, M & Miro, JV 1970, 'Gaussian processes online observation classification for RSSI-based low-cost indoor positioning systems', 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Singapore, Singapore, pp. 6269-6275.
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© 2017 IEEE. In this paper, we propose a real-time classification scheme to cope with noisy Radio Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurements utilized in indoor positioning systems. RSSI values are often converted to distances for position estimation. However due to multipathing and shadowing effects, finding a unique sensor model using both parametric and non-parametric methods is highly challenging. We learn decision regions using the Gaussian Processes classification to accept measurements that are consistent with the operating sensor model. The proposed approach can perform online, does not rely on a particular sensor model or parameters, and is robust to sensor failures. The experimental results achieved using hardware show that available positioning algorithms can benefit from incorporating the classifier into their measurement model as a meta-sensor modeling technique.

Johns, R, Darcy, S & Dickson, T 1970, 'Co-creation for greater accessibility', The 15th International Reserch Symposium on Service Excellence in Management, The 15th International Reserch Symposium on Service Excellence in Management, Porto, Portugal.

Johnson, M, Swan, F, Booth, S, Currow, D, Hart, S & Phillips, JL 1970, 'The Hand-Held Fan For Breathlessness, How Do Patients Use It And Does It Help?', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Kalatzis, G, Lees, T, Nassif, N, Zaslawski, C & Lal, S 1970, 'Exploring cognitive function in diabetes and non-diabetes samples using electroencephalography (EEG) and psychometric assessment: a comparative study', 37th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Neuroscience Society.

Kota, A, Xenaki, D, Deshpande, DA, Oliver, BG & Sharma, P 1970, 'Ask1 Inhibition Prevented Mitogen-Induced Human Airway Smooth Muscle Growth In Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Lawrence, C, Leong, TW, Gay, V, Woods, A & Wadley, G 1970, '#thismymob', Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, OzCHI '17: 29th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, ACM, Brisbane, pp. 646-647.
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© 2017 Association for Computing Machinery. All rights reserved. We propose to hold a one-day workshop on developing projects relating to #thismymob: Digital Land Rights and Reconnecting Indigenous Communities at OzCHI 2017 Brisbane. See http://www.arc.gov.au/newsmedia/ news/thismymob-digital-land-rights-andreconnecting-indigenous-communities.

Liu, G, Cooley, MA, Jarnicki, AG, Hsu, AC-Y, Nair, PM, Haw, TJ, Tjin, G, Jones, B, Harrison, CL, Fricker, M, Inman, MD, Walker, MM, Horvat, JC, Oliver, BG, Argraves, WS, Knight, DA, Burgess, JK & Hansbro, PM 1970, 'FIUBLIN-1C PLAYS CRITICAL ROLES IN LUNG REMODELLING IN IDIOPATHIC PULMONARY FIBROSIS', RESPIROLOGY, WILEY, pp. 70-70.

Lourenco, RDA 1970, 'Assessing the Cost-Effectiveness of Immunotherapy: Do Modern Drugs Need Modern Methods?', ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA) Annual Scientific Meeting, WILEY, Perth, pp. 67-67.

Lourenco, RDA 1970, 'DOES ONE SIZE FIT ALL?', ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, WILEY, pp. 39-39.

Lovatt, HC, Watterson, PA, Schroth, JG, Perry, TA & de Vries, L 1970, 'Non-rotating high-accuracy iron loss measurements on motor stator stacks', 2017 20th International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS), 2017 20th International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems (ICEMS), IEEE, Sydney, Australia, pp. 1-5.
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A new and improved technique is presented for the measurement of iron loss in motor stators. The most accurate existing technique rotates dummy-test rotors, one for each field strength of interest, inside the stators to be tested and measures the reaction torque on the stators. The new technique uses a wound `rotor' component that does not rotate mechanically but does rotate electrically. Therefore, the speed and magnitude of the rotating flux can be controlled electrically without the inherent difficulties of rotating mechanically at high speed and without building different dummy-test rotors for each field strength test

Luckett, T, Agar, M, DiGiacomo, M, Ferguson, C, Lam, L, Newton, P & Phillips, J 1970, 'Predictors of Health Status in South Australians Caring for People With Cancer: A Population-Based Study', ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, WILEY, pp. 163-163.

Ly Ha, VK, Chai, R & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Real-time WebRTC-based design for a telepresence wheelchair', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 2676-2679.
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This paper presents a novel approach to the telepresence wheelchair system which is capable of real-time video communication and remote interaction. The investigation of this emerging technology aims at providing a low-cost and efficient way for assisted-living of people with disabilities. The proposed system has been designed and developed by deploying the JavaScript with Hyper Text Markup Language 5 (HTML5) and Web Real-time Communication (WebRTC) in which the adaptive rate control algorithm for video transmission is invoked. We conducted experiments in real-world environments, and the wheelchair was controlled from a distance using the Internet browser to compare with existing methods. The results show that the adaptively encoded video streaming rate matches the available bandwidth. The video streaming is high-quality with approximately 30 frames per second (fps) and round trip time less than 20 milliseconds (ms). These performance results confirm that the WebRTC approach is a potential method for developing a telepresence wheelchair system.

Ly, QT, Handojoseno, AMA, Gilat, M, Chai, R, Ehgoetz Martens, KA, Georgiades, M, Naik, GR, Tran, Y, Lewis, SJG & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Detection of gait initiation Failure in Parkinson's disease based on wavelet transform and Support Vector Machine', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 3048-3051.
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© 2017 IEEE. Gait initiation Failure (GIF) is the situation in which patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) feel as if their feet get 'stuck' to the floor when initiating their first steps. GIF is a subtype of Freezing of Gait (FOG) and often leads to falls and related injuries. Understanding of neurobiological mechanisms underlying GIF has been limited by difficulties in eliciting and objectively characterizing such gait phenomena in the clinical setting. Studies investigating the effects of GIF on brain activity using EEG offer the potential to study such behavior. In this preliminary study, we present a novel methodology where wavelet transform was used for feature extraction and Support Vector Machine for classifying GIF events in five patients with PD and FOG. To deal with the large amount of EEG data, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to reduce the data dimension from 15 EEG channels into 6 principal components (PCs), retaining 93% of the information. Independent Component Analysis using Entropy Bound Minimization (ICA-EBM) was applied to 6 PCs for source separation with the aim of improving detection ability of GIF events as compared to the normal initiation of gait (Good Starts). The results of this analysis demonstrated the correct identification of GIF episodes with an 83.1% sensitivity, 89.5% specificity and 86.3% accuracy. These results suggest that our proposed methodology is a promising non-invasive approach to improve GIF detection in PD and FOG.

Ly, QT, Handojoseno, AMA, Gilat, M, Chai, R, Ehgoetz Martens, KA, Georgiades, M, Naik, GR, Tran, Y, Lewis, SJG & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Detection of turning freeze in Parkinson's disease based on S-transform decomposition of EEG signals', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 3044-3047.
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© 2017 IEEE. Freezing of Gait (FOG) is a highly debilitating and poorly understood symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD), causing severe immobility and decreased quality of life. Turning Freezing (TF) is known as the most common sub-type of FOG, also causing the highest rate of falls in PD patients. During a TF, the feet of PD patients appear to become stuck whilst making a turn. This paper presents an electroencephalography (EEG) based classification method for detecting turning freezing episodes in six PD patients during Timed Up and Go Task experiments. Since EEG signals have a time-variant nature, time-frequency Stockwell Transform (S-Transform) techniques were used for feature extraction. The EEG sources were separated by means of independent component analysis using entropy bound minimization (ICA-EBM). The distinctive frequency-based features of selected independent components of EEG were extracted and classified using Bayesian Neural Networks. The classification demonstrated a high sensitivity of 84.2%, a specificity of 88.0% and an accuracy of 86.2% for detecting TF. These promising results pave the way for the development of a real-time device for detecting different sub-types of FOG during ambulation.

McAlinden, KD, Chan, YL, Kota, A, Chen, H, Oliver, BG & Sharma, P 1970, 'Maternal E-Cigarette Vaping Enhances Development Of Allergic Asthma In The Offspring', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.
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Rationale: E-cigarettes (eCig) are being considered as an alternative to quit cigarette smoking (CS) while their long-term safety and effect on lung patho-physiology are not known. Maternal eCig-vaping may be considered as a safer CS-replacement during pregnancy. Thus the effect of maternal eCig vaping needs further assessment, particularly the effect this has on offspring and development of allergic asthma later in life. Combining mouse models of maternal vaping and allergic asthma and human airway smooth muscle cells (ASM) in vitro we tested whether maternal eCig vaping enhances features of allergic asthma in the offspring. Methods: Female BALB/c mice were vaped with either eCig vapour (± nicotine) or CS+eCig (+nicotine) or room air (control group). The eCig vaping was started prior to mating and continued during gestation and lactation while CS-exposure was used prior to mating and replaced with eCig during gestation and mating. The female offspring from these mothers were subjected to an ovalbumin (OVA)-induced allergic asthma model. 24 hours after the last aerosolized OVA or saline challenge, lung function measurements were performed using flexiVent (Scireq, Canada) to increasing concentration of methacholine (MCh). Airway inflammation was assessed by counting total immune cell influx in BAL fluid. Human ASM cells were treated with varying concentrations of eCig liquid condensate and key parameters of mitochondrial function were measured with a Seahorse XF analyzer. Results: Repeated allergen-exposure induced Th2-driven inflammation in OVA-exposed mice, characterized by massive influx of leukocytes predominantly eosinophils (OVA: 3x105±8.3x104 vs Saline: 1.1x102±1x102) and to some extent neutrophils (OVA: 1.3x104±4.4x103 vs Saline: 1.3x102±1.1x102) into the airways. The effect of allergen on airway eosinophilia was significantly enhanced in the offsprings from eCig OVA (+Nic)-exposed mothers when compared with eCig OVA (-Nic) or CS+eCig animals. OVA-exposed ...

Mcalinden, KD, Chan, YL, Tan, B, Chen, H, Oliver, B, Sharma, P & Chapman, D 1970, 'MATERNAL E-CIGARETTE VAPING ENHANCES DEVELOPMENT OF ALLERGIC ASTHMA IN THE OFFSPRING', RESPIROLOGY, WILEY, pp. 104-104.

Meng, Q, Catchpoole, D, Skillicom, D & Kennedy, PJ 1970, 'Relational autoencoder for feature extraction', 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), IEEE, Anchorage, AK, USA, pp. 364-371.
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© 2017 IEEE. Feature extraction becomes increasingly important as data grows high dimensional. Autoencoder as a neural network based feature extraction method achieves great success in generating abstract features of high dimensional data. However, it fails to consider the relationships of data samples which may affect experimental results of using original and new features. In this paper, we propose a Relation Autoencoder model considering both data features and their relationships. We also extend it to work with other major autoencoder models including Sparse Autoencoder, Denoising Autoencoder and Variational Autoencoder. The proposed relational autoencoder models are evaluated on a set of benchmark datasets and the experimental results show that considering data relationships can generate more robust features which achieve lower construction loss and then lower error rate in further classification compared to the other variants of autoencoders.

Meng, Q, Wu, J, Ellis, J & Kennedy, PJ 1970, 'Dynamic island model based on spectral clustering in genetic algorithm', 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), IEEE, Anchorage, AK, USA, pp. 1724-1731.
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© 2017 IEEE. How to maintain relative high diversity is important to avoid premature convergence in population-based optimization methods. Island model is widely considered as a major approach to achieve this because of its flexibility and high efficiency. The model maintains a group of sub-populations on different islands and allows sub-populations to interact with each other via predefined migration policies. However, current island model has some drawbacks. One is that after a certain number of generations, different islands may retain quite similar, converged sub-populations thereby losing diversity and decreasing efficiency. Another drawback is that determining the number of islands to maintain is also very challenging. Meanwhile initializing many sub-populations increases the randomness of island model. To address these issues, we proposed a dynamic island model (DIM-SP) which can force each island to maintain different sub-populations, control the number of islands dynamically and starts with one sub-population. The proposed island model outperforms the other three state-of-the-art island models in three baseline optimization problems including job shop scheduler, travelling salesmen, and quadratic multiple knapsack.

Mitchell, A, Mourad, B, Benzimra, M, Malouf, M, Morgan, L, Oliver, B & Glanville, A 1970, 'A SINGLE CENTRE, PROSPECTIVE, LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF THE HUMAN RESPIRATORY VIROME AFTER LUNG TRANSPLANTATION', RESPIROLOGY, WILEY, pp. 34-34.

Mitchell, AB, Calligaro, GL, Malouf, MA, Benzimra, M, Rigby, A, Pearson, R, Havryk, A, Plit, M, Morgan, L, Oliver, BG & Glanville, AR 1970, 'Transplanting The Human Respiratory Microbiome', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Mitchell, AB, Mourad, B, Malouf, M, Benzimra, M, Morgan, LC, Oliver, BGG & Glanville, AR 1970, 'The human respiratory virome after lung transplantation for COPD: A single centre, prospective, longitudinal study', Respiratory Medicine, Elsevier BV, pp. 276-277.
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Mitchell, AB, Mourad, B, Malouf, MA, Benzimra, M, Morgan, LC, Oliver, BG & Glanville, AR 1970, 'Transplanting the Human Respiratory Virome', JOURNAL OF HEART AND LUNG TRANSPLANTATION, 37th Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions of the International-Society-for-Heart-and-Lung-Transplantation (ISHLT), ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, San Diego, CA, pp. S148-S149.

Mitchell, AB, Mourad, B, Malouf, MA, Benzimra, M, Stark, D, Morgan, LC, Oliver, BG & Glanville, AR 1970, 'COMMUNITY ACQUIRED RESPIRATORY VIRUS DETECTION: COMPARING THE DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY WITH THE RESEARCH LABORATORY', RESPIROLOGY, WILEY, pp. 62-62.

Mulhem, B, Norman, R, Lourenco, DR & Viney, R 1970, 'INVESTIGATING THE RELATIVE VALUE OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE USING DISCRETE CHOICE', VALUE IN HEALTH, International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research 22nd Annual International Meeting, ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, Boston, USA, pp. A333-A333.

Munoz, F, Miro, JV, Dissanayake, G, Ulapane, N & Nguyen, L 1970, 'Design of a lock-in amplifier integrated with a coil system for eddy-current non-destructive inspection', 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), IEEE, Siem Reap, Cambodia, pp. 1948-1953.
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© 2017 IEEE. Eddy-current non-destructive inspections of conductive components are of great interest in several industries including civil infrastructure and the mining industry. In this work, we have used a driver-pickup coil system as the probe to carry out inspection of ferromagnetic plates. The specific geometric configuration of the probe generates weak electric signals that are buried in a noisy environment. In order to detect these weak signals, we have designed and implemented a lock-in amplifier as part of the signal processing technique to increase the signal-to-noise ratio and also improve the sensitivity of the probe. We have used Comsol as a finite element method (FEM) to design the probe and conducted experiments with the probe and the lock-in amplifier. The experimental results, which are in agreement with the FEM results, indicate that the designed probe along with a lock-in amplifier can potentially be used to estimate the thickness of thin plates.

Naik, GR, Pratihast, M, Chai, R, Al-Ani, A, Acharyya, A & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Differences in lower limb muscle activation patterns during Sit to Stand Task for different heel heights', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 2486-2489.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in lower limb muscle activation patterns for females wearing shoes with different heel heights during Sit to Stand Task (STS). Ten female participants with no prior history of neurological disorders participated in this study. Surface electromyography (sEMG) characteristics were recorded for four different heel heights (ranging from 4cm to 10cm) while performing the STS task. Signal processing analysis suggests that muscle activities increases on elevated heel heights, which may induce muscle imbalance for frequent STS tasks. In addition, results of muscle utilisation (percentage) for different heel heights suggest that lower limb muscles tend to compensate in order to maintain postural balance.

Nguyen, L, Ulapane, N, Miro, JV, Dissanayake, G & Munoz, F 1970, 'Improved signal interpretation for cast iron thickness assessment based on pulsed eddy current sensing', 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), IEEE, Siem Reap, Cambodia, pp. 2005-2010.
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© 2017 IEEE. This paper presents a novel signal processing approach for computing thickness of ferromagnetic cast iron material, widely employed in older infrastructure such as water mains or bridges. Measurements are gathered from a Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC) based sensor placed on top of the material, with unknown lift-off, as commonly used during non-destructive testing (NDT). The approach takes advantage of an analytical logarithmic model proposed in the literature for the decaying voltage induced at the PEC sensor pick-up coil. An increasingly more accurate and robust algorithm is proven here by means of an Adaptive Least Square Fitting Line (ALSFL) recursive strategy, suitable to recognize the most linear part of the sensor's logarithmic output voltage for subsequent gradient computation, from which thickness is then derived. Moreover, efficiency is also gained as processing can be carried out on only one decaying voltage signal, unlike averaging over multiple measurements as is usually done in the literature. Importantly, the new signal processing methodology demonstrates highest accuracies at the lower thicknesses, a circumstance most relevant to NDT evaluation. Experiments that verify the proposed method in real-world thickness assessment of cast iron material are presented and compared with current practices, showing promising results.

Nguyen, T, Hoang, D, Nguyen, D & Seneviratne, A 1970, 'Initial trust establishment for personal space IoT systems', 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS), 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications: Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS), IEEE, Atlanta, USA, pp. 784-789.
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© 2017 IEEE. Increasingly, trust has played a crucial role in the security of an IoT system from its inception to the end of its lifecycle. A device has to earn some level of trust even before it is authenticated for admission to the system. Furthermore, once the device is admitted to the system, it may behave maliciously over time; hence its behavior must be evaluated constantly in the form of trust to ensure the integrity of the system. Currently, no mechanism exists to establish an initial trust on a device, without prior knowledge, before its admission to an IoT system. Even when trust is applicable, trust evaluation models require direct/indirect observations over time, historical data on past encounters, or third party recommendations. However, this type of past data is not available in the first encounter between the system and the device. The question is how to establish whether a device can be trusted to a level that merits further evaluation for admission into a mobile and dynamic IoT system when it encounters the system for the first time? This paper addresses this challenge by proposing a challenge-response method and a trust assessment model to establish, without prior knowledge, the initial trust that a device places on another in a mobile and dynamic environment called personal space IoT. The initial trust is established before further interaction can take place and under the assumption that only a limited window of time is available for the trust assessment. The paper describes and evaluates the proposed model theoretically and by simulation. It also describes a practical scheme for realizing the proposed solution.

Nguyen, TMC, Hoang, DB & Dat Dang, T 1970, 'Toward a programmable software-defined IoT architecture for sensor service provision on demand', 2017 27th International Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (ITNAC), 2017 27th International Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (ITNAC), IEEE, Mebourne, Australia, pp. 1-6.
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© 2017 IEEE. In the age of Internet of Things (IoT), sensors form a foundational component of IoT services, yet they are rigid with little capability for programmable configuration or reusability as they are application-specific, manufacturer-specific. Emerging IoT applications often deploy a vast number of sensors which may serve multiple applications. Programmability is thus essential but not found in legacy or current generation sensors. It is challenging to effectively utilize heterogeneity of resources to handle a large number of application demands. Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have proved effective paradigms for provisioning services on-demand and managing network functions and their life cycles. This paper proposes a software defined IoT architecture that captures the spirit of SDN and NFV where a software-defined Internet of Things (SD-IoT) controller can provide services as requested by an application and also manage heterogeneous physical sensors through their virtual representation called software-defined virtual sensor (SD-VSensor) autonomously. In particular, the paper presents the design of a streamline SD-IoT controller, a lightweight and reconfigurable SD-VSensor, and the communication protocol (S-MANAGE) between them. The proposed architecture enables heterogeneous application-specific WSN systems to be recognized and effectively utilized by diverse IoT applications under the orchestration of the SD-IoT controller. Moreover, heterogeneity of sensor nodes or IoT devices can be programmed to achieve sensor services on demand. The preliminary implementation results demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed architecture.

Pham, NH, Nguyen, TB, Le, HP, Pham, DT, Ho-Pham, LT, Duong, TD & Nguyen, TV 1970, 'Bisphosphonates for Osteoporosis Treatment: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Vietnamese Woman', Value in Health, Elsevier BV, pp. A535-A535.
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Phillips, JL, Kochovska, S, Luckett, T & Agar, M 1970, 'Impacts on Employment, Finances and Lifestyle for Working Age People Facing an Expected Premature Death: A Systematic Review', ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, WILEY, pp. 220-220.

Poon, J, Cui, Y, Miro, JV, Matsubara, T & Sugimoto, K 1970, 'Local driving assistance from demonstration for mobility aids', 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Singapore, pp. 5935-5941.
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© 2017 IEEE. Active assistive mobility systems are largely limited to a-priori mapped environments, whereas their reactive assistive counterparts are in general location independent and focus on the provision of collision avoidance in the immediate space surrounding the platform. This paper presents a framework capable of providing active short-term navigation, combining the intelligence of active assistance with the freedom of location independence. Demonstration data from an able expert while driving the mobility aid in a standard indoor setting is used off-line to learn reference behavioral models of navigation given perceptual information from the platform surroundings and the input controls exerted by the user while navigating. These serve as the foundation for on-line probabilistic short-term destination inference using the instantaneously available data from the user and on-board sensors. This is coupled with a real-time stochastic optimal path generation able to exploit the same short term demonstration paths from the expert with the belief they capture both the driver's awareness of the platform's physical geometry and appropriate behaviors for their surroundings. Experimental results with users of varying proficiency in a setting unvisited in training data show promise in using the framework in assisting users experiencing difficulty in safe power mobility aid use.

Qin, M, Jin, D, He, D, Gabrys, B & Musial, K 1970, 'Adaptive Community Detection Incorporating Topology and Content in Social Networks', Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining 2017, ASONAM '17: Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining 2017, ACM, pp. 675-682.
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In social network analysis, community detection is a basic step to understand the structure, function and semantics of networks. Some conventional community detection methods may have limited performance because they merely focus on topological structure of networks. In addition to topology, content information is another significant aspect of social networks. Some state-of-the-art methods started to combine these two aspects of information, but they often assume that topology and content share the same characteristics. However, for some examples of social networks, content may mismatch with topological structure. In order to better cope with such situations, we introduce a novel community detection method under the framework of nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF). Our proposed method integrates topology and content of networks, and introduces a novel adaptive parameter for controlling the contribution of content with respect to the identified mismatch degree between the topological and content information. The case study using real social networks show that our new method can simultaneously obtain community partition and the corresponding semantic descriptions. Experiments on both artificial networks and real social networks further indicate that our method outperforms some state-of-the-art methods while exhibiting more robust behaviour when the mismatch topological and content information is observed.

Rana, MM, Li, L & Su, SW 1970, 'Distributed State Estimation for Interconnected Synchronous Generators', IFAC-PapersOnLine, IFAC World Congress, Elsevier BV, Toulouse, France, pp. 5418-5423.
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© 2017 In contrast to the traditional centralised power system state estimation methods, this paper investigates the optimal filtering problem for distributed dynamic systems. Specifically, the interconnected synchronous generators are modelled as a state-space linear equation where sensors are deployed to obtain measurements. As the synchronous generator states are unknown, the estimation is required to know the overall operating conditions of large-scale complex power networks. Basically, the proposed algorithm is based on the minimization of the mean squared estimation error, and the optimal gain is computed by exchanging information with their neighboring estimators. Afterwards, the convergence of the developed algorithm is proved so that it can be applied to real-time applications in modern smart grids. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the developed approach.

Rana, MM, Li, L & Su, SW 1970, 'Distributed State Estimation for Microgrids', IFAC-PapersOnLine, the 20th IFAC World Congress, Elsevier BV, Toulouse, France, pp. 10202-10207.
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© 2017 This paper proposes a novel distributed consensus filter based dynamic state estimation algorithm with its convergence analysis for modern power systems. The novelty of the scheme is that the algorithm is designed based on the mean squared error and semidefinite programming approaches. Specifically, the optimal local gain is computed after minimizing the mean squared error between the true and estimated states. The consensus gain is determined by a convex optimization process with a given sub-optimal local gain. Furthermore, the convergence of the proposed schemed is analysed after stacking all the estimation error dynamics. The Laplacian operator is used to represent the interconnected filter structure as a compact error dynamic for deriving the convergence condition of the algorithm. The developed approach is verified by using the mathematical dynamic model of the renewable microgrid. It shows that the proposed distributed scheme is effective to properly estimate the system states.

Rihari-Thomas, J, DiGiacomo, M, Phillips, J, Newton, P & Davidson, PM 1970, 'Physicians’ and Nurses’ Perspectives of a Rapid Response System in an Academic Health Centre: A Focus Group Study', 13th International Conference on Rapid Response Systems and Medical Emergency Teams, International Society for Rapid Response Systems (iSSRS), Chicago.

Rodgers, K, Chan, S & Steele, J 1970, 'Administration of L-tyrosine with levodopa could be neuroprotective in Parkinson's disease', JOURNAL OF NEUROCHEMISTRY, Biennial Meeting of the International-Society-for-Neurochemistry and European-Society-for-Neurochemistry (ISN-ESN), WILEY, Paris, FRANCE, pp. 245-245.

Rodgers, K, Steele, J & Padula, M 1970, 'A novel approach to detect the presence of levodopa (lDOPA) in the polypeptide chains of proteins', JOURNAL OF NEUROCHEMISTRY, Biennial Meeting of the International-Society-for-Neurochemistry and European-Society-for-Neurochemistry (ISN-ESN), WILEY, Paris, FRANCE, pp. 164-164.

Roxby, DN, Ting, SRS & Nguyen, HT 1970, 'Polypyrrole RVC biofuel cells for powering medical implants', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Seogwipo, South Korea, pp. 779-782.
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© 2017 IEEE. Batteries for implanted medical devices such as pacemakers typically require surgical replacement every 5 to 10 years causing stress to the patient and their families. A Biofuel cell uses two electrodes with enzymes embedded to convert sugar into electricity. To evaluate the power producing capabilities of biofuel cells to replace battery technology, polypyrrole electrodes were fabricated by compression with Glucose oxidase and Laccase. Vitreous carbon was added to increase the conductivity, whilst glutaraldehyde acted as a crosslinking molecule. A maximum open circuit potential of 558.7 mV, short circuit current of 1.09 mA and maximum power of 0.127 mW was obtained from the fuel cells. This was able to turn on a medical thermometer through a TI BQ25504 energy harvesting circuit, hence showing the powering potential for biomedical devices.

Rutting, S, Wood, L, Hansbro, P & Oliver, B 1970, 'INTERACTION OF DIETARY FATTY ACIDS WITH OBESITY-INDUCED CYTOKINES IN PRIMARY PULMONARY FIBROBLASTS', RESPIROLOGY, WILEY, pp. 40-40.

Rutting, S, Xenaki, D, Ge, Q, Wood, L, Hansbro, P & Oliver, B 1970, 'DIETARY OMEGA‐6, BUT NOT OMEGA‐3 POLYUNSATURATED OR SATURATED FATTY ACIDS INCREASE INFLAMMATION IN HUMAN PULMONARY FIBROBLASTS', Respirology, Wiley, pp. 17-17.
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Salvador, MM, Budka, M & Gabrys, B 1970, 'Modelling multi-component predictive systems as petri nets', 15th International Industrial Simulation Conference 2017, ISC 2017, pp. 17-23.
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Building reliable data-driven predictive systems requires a considerable amount of human effort, especially in the data preparation and cleaning phase. In many application domains, multiple preprocessing steps need to be applied in sequence, constituting a 'workflow' and facilitating reproducibility. The concatenation of such workflow with a predictive model forms a Multi-Component Predictive System (MCPS). Automatic MCPS composition can speed up this process by taking the human out of the loop, at the cost of model transparency (i.e. not being comprehensible by human experts). In this paper, we adopt and suitably re-define the Well-handled with Regular Iterations Work Flow (WRI-WF) Petri nets to represent MCPSs. The use of such WRI-WF nets helps to increase the transparency of MCPSs required in industrial applications and make it possible to automatically verify the composed workflows. We also present our experience and results of applying this representation to model soft sensors in chemical production plants.

Sharma, P, McAlinden, K, Chan, Y, Kota, A, Komalla, V, Chen, H & Oliver, B 1970, 'Maternal eCigarette vaping enhances Th2 driven asthma in the offspring', Airway Pharmacology and Treatment, ERS International Congress 2017 abstracts, European Respiratory Society, Milan, ITALY.
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Shi, L, Valls Miro, J, Vidal Calleja, T, Vitanage, D & Rajalingam, J 1970, 'Innovative Data-driven “along-the-pipe” Condition Assessment for Critical Water Mains', OZWATER’17 Australia’s International Water Conference & Exhibition, OzWater’17 Australia’s International Water Conference & Exhibition, Australian Water Association, Sydney, pp. 1-8.
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Recent research findings on remaining life prediction for older Cast Iron critical water mains suggest increasing reliability by calculating stress concentration factors from the corrosion patch geometries expected to be present in the asset, not just extreme pitting as is generally carried out within the industry. This study proposes an innovative data-driven “along-the-pipe” framework able to utilise local inspection results further by capturing data correlations present in the remaining wall thickness measurement. This knowledge can in turn be utilised to produce estimates for “along-the-pipe” patch geometry predictions, hence remaining life. Results from inspections in a real pipeline in the Sydney Water network are compared to conventional Extreme Value Analysis (EVA) to validate the improvements of the proposed strategy.

Stephenson, RM, Naik, GR & Chai, R 1970, 'A system for accelerometer-based gesture classification using artificial neural networks', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju island, Korea, pp. 4187-4190.
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A great many people suffer from neurological movement disorders that render typical hardware interface devices ineffective. A need exists for a universal interface device that can be trained to accept a wide range of inputs across varying types and severities of movement disorders. In this regard, this paper details the design, testing and optimization of an accelerometer-based gesture identification system. A Bluetooth-enabled IMU mounted on the wrist provides hand motion trajectory information to a local terminal. Several techniques are applied to decrease the intra-class variance and reduce classifier complexity including filtering, segmentation and temporal scaling. Datasets consisted of 520 training samples, 260 validation samples and a further 520 testing samples. A multi-layer feed forward artificial neural network (ML-FFNN) was used to classify the input space into 26 different classes. Initial system accuracy, using arbitrary hyperparameters was 77.69% with final optimized accuracy at 99.42%.

Stevens, C, Parker, D, Watson, K, Leahy, A & Pieper, D 1970, 'Using Google Liquid Galaxy to travel through time as a reminiscence therapy', Reframing dementia as a social and cultural experience, Sydney.

Stone, E, Rankin, N, Bewes, T, Kerr, S, Phillips, J, Fong, K, Currow, D & Shaw, T 1970, 'MDT V NON-MDT CARE IN LUNG CANCER: DOES CO-MORBIDITY STATUS HAVE AN IMPACT?', RESPIROLOGY, WILEY, pp. 29-29.

Stone, E, Rankin, N, Phillips, J, Fong, K, Miller, A, Largey, G, Zielinski, R, Flynn, P, Currow, D & Shaw, T 1970, 'AMDAT Lung, An Ideal Lung Cancer MDT Dataset', JOURNAL OF THORACIC ONCOLOGY, ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, pp. S1442-S1442.
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Su, D, Vidal-Calleja, T & Miro, JV 1970, 'Towards real-time 3D sound sources mapping with linear microphone arrays', 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Singapore, Singapore, pp. 1662-1668.
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© 2017 IEEE. In this paper, we present a method for real-time 3D sound sources mapping using an off-the-shelf robotic perception sensor equipped with a linear microphone array. Conventional approaches to map sound sources in 3D scenarios use dedicated 3D microphone arrays, as this type of arrays provide two degrees of freedom (DOF) observations. Our method addresses the problem of 3D sound sources mapping using a linear microphone array, which only provides one DOF observations making the estimation of the sound sources location more challenging. In the proposed method, multi hypotheses tracking is combined with a new sound source parametrisation to provide with a good initial guess for an online optimisation strategy. A joint optimisation is carried out to estimate 6 DOF sensor poses and 3 DOF landmarks together with the sound sources locations. Additionally, a dedicated sensor model is proposed to accurately model the noise of the Direction of Arrival (DOA) observation when using a linear microphone array. Comprehensive simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. In addition, a real-time implementation of our method has been made available as open source software for the benefit of the community.

Sun, L, Vidal-Calleja, T & Miro, JV 1970, 'Coupling conditionally independent submaps for large-scale 2.5D mapping with Gaussian Markov Random Fields', 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Singapore, Singapore, pp. 3131-3137.
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© 2017 IEEE. Building large-scale 2.5D maps when spatial correlations are considered can be quite expensive, but there are clear advantages when fusing data. While optimal submapping strategies have been explored previously in covariance-form using Gaussian Process for large-scale mapping, this paper focuses on transferring such concepts into information form. By exploiting the conditional independence property of the Gaussian Markov Random Field (GMRF) models, we propose a submapping approach to build a nearly optimal global 2.5D map. In the proposed approach data is fused by first fitting a GMRF to one sensor dataset; then conditional independent submaps are inferred using this model and updated individually with new data arrives. Finally, the information is propagated from submap to submap to later recover the fully updated map. This is efficiently achieved by exploiting the inherent structure of the GMRF, fusion and propagation all in information form. The key contribution of this paper is the derivation of the algorithm to optimally propagate information through submaps by only updating the common parts between submaps. Our results show the proposed method reduces the computational complexity of the full mapping process while maintaining the accuracy. The performance is evaluated on synthetic data from the Canadian Digital Elevation Data.

Turturice, BA, McGee, H, Oliver, BG, Baraket, M, Ascoli, C, Ranjan, R, Perkins, DL & Finn, PW 1970, 'Genetically Encoded Metabolic Pathways In Airway Microbiota As Mediators Of Airway Inflammation In Asthma', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Ulapane, N, Nguyen, L, Miro, JV, Alempijevic, A & Dissanayake, G 1970, 'Designing a pulsed eddy current sensing set-up for cast iron thickness assessment', 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), IEEE, Siem Reap, Cambodia, pp. 901-906.
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© 2017 IEEE. Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC) sensors possess proven functionality in measuring ferromagnetic material thickness. However, most commercial PEC service providers as well as researchers have investigated and claim functionality of sensors on homogeneous structural steels (steel grade Q235 for example). In this paper, we present design steps for a PEC sensing set-up to measure thickness of cast iron, which is unlike steel, is a highly inhomogeneous and non-linear ferromagnetic material. The setup includes a PEC sensor, sensor excitation and reception circuits, and a unique signal processing method. The signal processing method yields a signal feature which behaves as a function of thickness. The signal feature has a desirable characteristic of being lowly influenced by lift-off. Experimental results show that the set-up is usable for Non-destructive Evaluation (NDE) applications such as cast iron water pipe assessment.

Viney, RC, Mulhern, B, Norman, R & De Abreu Lourenco, R 1970, 'Investigating the relative value of health and social care related quality of life using discrete choice experiments [Conference Presentation]', iHEA Boston World Congress, Boston, USA.

Vongmany, J, Luckett, T, Lam, L & Phillips, JL 1970, 'Family Behaviours that Impact on the Capacity of Adults Living with Type 2 Diabetes to Adhere to Their Self-Management Plan: A Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis', DIABETES, 77th Scientific Sessions of the American-Diabetes-Association, AMER DIABETES ASSOC, San Diego, CA, pp. A221-A221.

Wang, J, Ge, Q, Oliver, BG, Ashton, A, Dong, L & Burgess, J 1970, 'Runt-Related Transcription Factor 2 (runx2) Is A Potential Regulator Of Connective Tissue Growth Facor (ctgf) In Asthmatic Airway Smooth Muscle', AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, International Conference of the American-Thoracic-Society (ATS), AMER THORACIC SOC, Washington, DC.

Wang, M, Su, D, Shi, L, Liu, Y & Miro, JV 1970, 'Real-time 3D Human Tracking for Mobile Robots with Multisensors', Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 5081-5087.
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Acquiring the accurate 3-D position of a target person around a robotprovides fundamental and valuable information that is applicable to a widerange of robotic tasks, including home service, navigation and entertainment.This paper presents a real-time robotic 3-D human tracking system whichcombines a monocular camera with an ultrasonic sensor by the extended Kalmanfilter (EKF). The proposed system consists of three sub-modules: monocularcamera sensor tracking model, ultrasonic sensor tracking model and multi-sensorfusion. An improved visual tracking algorithm is presented to provide partiallocation estimation (2-D). The algorithm is designed to overcome severeocclusions, scale variation, target missing and achieve robust re-detection.The scale accuracy is further enhanced by the estimated 3-D information. Anultrasonic sensor array is employed to provide the range information from thetarget person to the robot and Gaussian Process Regression is used for partiallocation estimation (2-D). EKF is adopted to sequentially process multiple,heterogeneous measurements arriving in an asynchronous order from the visionsensor and the ultrasonic sensor separately. In the experiments, the proposedtracking system is tested in both simulation platform and actual mobile robotfor various indoor and outdoor scenes. The experimental results show thesuperior performance of the 3-D tracking system in terms of both the accuracyand robustness.

White, K, De Abreu Lourenco, R, Kenny, P, Lehane, L & D'Abrew, N 1970, 'Dollars and Sense: Exploring the Financial Impact of Cancer for Australian Patients and their Families', MAS-C/ISOO Annual Meeting on Supportive Care in Cancer, Washington, USA.

Wong, S, Chen, L, Oliver, B, Padula, M & Sukkar, M 1970, 'SPARC EXPRESSION IN AIRWAY SMOOTH MUSCLE CELLS IS REGULATED BY THE UNFOLDED PROTEIN RESPONSE AND MAY BE DIMINISHED IN CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE', Respirology, Wiley, pp. 31-32.
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Xu, X, Luckett, T, Wang, AY, Lovell, M & Phillips, JL 1970, 'Cancer Pain Management Needs and Perspectives of Patients from Chinese Backgrounds: A Systematic Review of the Chinese and English Literature', ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, WILEY, pp. 220-221.

Ye, L, Argha, A, Celler, BG, Zhang, Y, Nguyen, HT & Su, SW 1970, 'Nonparametric modelling of VO<inf>2</inf> response to exercise', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Jeju Island, Korea, pp. 1525-1528.
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This paper investigates the modelling of oxygen consumption (VO2) response to jogging exercise on treadmill. Unlike most of the previous methods, which often use simple parametric models, e.g., first order linear time invariant model, this study applied a nonparametric kernel based regularised method to estimate VO2 to address the ill-conditioned modelling problem and achieve accurate estimation. In particular, it is worthy to be noted that the selection of kernels will affect the results for different modelling scenarios. Therefore, in this research, both radial basis kernel and stable spline kernel were selected for testing. In order to select the favourable kernel for this system, a simulation related to VO2-jogging speed was carried out. The results of simulation indicated that spline kernel can achieve higher accuracy comparing to radial basis function kernel. Experimentally, the kernel based estimation method and spline kernel were tested using six participants. From the results, an average impulse response is obtained. It showed the VO2 estimation, based on the average finite impulse response, is fitted well to the six observations collected from the participants.

Yee, J, Davis, GM, Hackett, D, Beith, JM, Wilcken, N, Currow, D, Emery, J, Phillips, J, Martin, A, Hui, R, Harrison, M, Segelov, E & Kilbreath, SL 1970, 'Physical Activity for Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer: A Pilot RCT', ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, WILEY, pp. 223-224.

Zakarya, R, Chen, H, Brandsma, C-A, Adcock, IM & Oliver, BGG 1970, 'Epigenetic control of TGFβ induced fibrosis in COPD', Molecular Pathology and Functional Genomics, ERS International Congress 2017 abstracts, European Respiratory Society, Milan, ITALY.
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Zhang, M, Li, H & Su, SW 1970, 'An evolutionary algorithm with 2-D encoding for image segmentation', 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), 2017 12th IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA), IEEE, Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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This paper presents an evolutionary approach which treats the image segmentation as a graph partitioning problem. An image is described as a weighted undirected graph where pixels correspond to nodes, and those pixels with similar values and positions are connected by edges. The weighted normalized cut criterion (WNcut) is used in this paper for this graph partitioning problem to measures both the dissimilarity between different partitions and the total similarity within the groups. This paper adopts a 2-dimensional representation of chromosome to directly present an image segmentation which is beneficial both to the genetic operators in the evolutionary process and to efficiently reduce the running time. In addition, the proposed evolutionary algorithm uses prior user's preference information to control the segments of the image through a random walker approach to initialize population. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm is able to efficiently handle segmentation cases that segments images into several partitions based on human visual perception. The statistical results of entropy-based evaluation also suggest that our approach could achieve a more accurate segmentation.

Zhang, W, Szymanski, J, Chiu, C, Chaczko, Z, Su, S & Zhou, J 1970, 'How the Internet of Things is Changing Teaching of Technical Subjects at UTS', 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer-Aided System Engineering, Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer Aided System Engineering, APCASE Foundation, Guilin, Guangxi, China, pp. 71-77.

Zhang, Y, Su, S, Xu, P & Yao, D 1970, 'Performance evaluation of Noise-Assisted Multivariate Empirical Mode Decomposition and its application to multichannel EMG signals', 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), IEEE, Seogwipo, South Korea, pp. 3457-3460.
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© 2017 IEEE. The use of the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) for nonlinear signal processing has been popularized in the recent years. However, its utility for the processing of multichannel Electromyography (EMG) signals is still limited. This paper investigates the decomposition performance of multichannel EMGs by using the EMD-based approaches, Ensemble EMD (EEMD), Multivariate EMD (MEMD), and Noise-Assisted MEMD (NA-MEMD). In the experiment, 11 male subjects undergo three exercise programs, leg extension from a sitting position, flexion of the leg up, and gait, while electrodes are placed on the muscle groups, biceps femoris, vastus medialis, rectus femoris, and semitendinosus. The outcomes are then quantitatively estimated on the basis of three criterions, the number of Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs), mode-alignment and mode-mixing. Results show both MEMD and NA-MEMD can guarantee equal numbers of IMFs, whereas for mode-alignment and mode-mixing, NA-MEMD is optimal compared with MEMD and EEMD, and MEMD is merely better than EEMD. This finding implies that NA-MEMD is effective for simultaneously analyzing IMFs based frequency bands. It has a vital clinical implication in exploring the neuromuscular patterns that enable the multiple muscle groups to coordinate while performing functional activities of daily living.

Zheng, Y, Ghosh, S & Li, J 1970, 'An Optimized Drug Similarity Framework for Side-effect Prediction', Computing in Cardiology Conference (CinC), 2017 Computing in Cardiology Conference, Computing in Cardiology, Rennes, France, pp. 1-4.
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© 2017 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved. Drug side-effects are crucial issues in both the pre-market drug developing process and post-market drug clinical applications. They contribute to one-third of drug failures and cause significant fatality and severe morbidity. Thus the early identification of potential drug side-effects is of great interests. Most existing methods essentially rely on leveraging few drug similarities directly for side-effect predictions, ignoring the performance improvement by drug similarity integration and optimization. In this study, we proposed an optimized drug similarity framework (ODSF) to improve the performance of side-effect predictions. First, this framework integrates four different drug similarities into a comprehensive similarity. Next, the comprehensive similarity is optimized via clustering and then enhanced by indirect drug similarity. Finally, the optimized drug similarity is employed for side-effect predictions. The performance of ODSF was evaluated on simulative side-effect predictions of 917 drugs from the DrugBank. Extensive comparison experiments demonstrate that ODSF is competent to capture drug features from diverse perspectives and the prediction performance is significantly improved owing to the optimized drug similarity.

Zhou, Z, Xu, G, Zhu, W, Li, J & Zhang, W 1970, 'Structure embedding for knowledge base completion and analytics', 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), IEEE, Anchorage, Alaska, USA.
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To explore the latent information of Human Knowledge, the analysis for Knowledge Bases (KBs) (e.g. WordNet, Freebase) is essential. Some previous KB element embedding frameworks are used for KBs structure analysis and completion. These embedding frameworks use low-dimensional vector space representation for large scale of entities and relations in KB. Based on that, the vector space representation of entities and relations which are not contained by KB can be measured. The embedding idea is reasonable, while the current embedding methods have some issues to get proper embeddings for KB elements. The embedding methods use entity-relation-entity triplet, contained by most of current KB, as training data to output the embedding representation of entities and relations. To measure the truth of one triplet (The knowledge represented by triplet is true or false), some current embedding methods such as Structured Embedding (SE) project entity vectors into subspace, the meaning of such subspace is not clear for knowledge reasoning. Some other embedding methods such as TransE use simple linear vector transform to represent relation (such as vector add or minus), which can't deal with the multiple relations match or multiple entities match problem. For example, there are multiple relations between two entities, or there are multiple entities have same relation with one entity. Insipred by previous KB element structured embedding methods, we propose a new method, Bipartite Graph Network Structured Embedding (BGNSE). BGNSE combines the current KB embedding methods with bipartite graph network model, which is widely used in many fields including image data compression, collaborative filtering. BGNSE embeds each entity-relation-entity KB triplet into a bipartite graph network structure model, represents each entity by one bipartite graph layer, represents relation by link weights matrix of bipartite graph network. Based on bipartite graph model, our proposed method has followi...

Bray, K, Cheung, L, Aharonovich, I, Valenzuela, SM & Shimoni, O 2017, 'Versatile Multicolor Nanodiamond Probes for Intracellular Imaging and Targeted Labeling', Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
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AbstractDiamond nanoparticles that host bright luminescent centers are attracting attention for applications in bio-labeling and bio-sensing. Beyond their unsurpassed photostability, diamond can host multiple color centers, from the blue to the near infra-red spectral range. While nanodiamonds hosting nitrogen vacancy defects have been widely employed as bio-imaging probes, production and fabrication of nanodiamonds with other color centers is a challenge. In this work, a large scale production of fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) containing a near infrared (NIR) color center – namely the silicon vacancy (SiV) defect, is reported. More importantly, a concept of application of different color centers for multi-color bio-imaging to investigate intercellular processes is demonstrated. Furthermore, two types of FNDs within cells can be easily resolved by their specific spectral properties, where data shows that SiV FNDs initially dispersed throughout the cell interior while NV FNDs localized in a close proximity to nucleus. The reported results are the first demonstration of multi-color labeling with FNDs that can pave the way for the wide-ranging use of FNDs in applications, including bio-sensing, bio-imaging and drug delivery applications.

Capistrano, SJ, Zakarya, R, Chen, H & Oliver, BG 2017, 'BIOMASS SMOKE EXPOSURE ENHANCES RHINOVIRUS-INDUCED INFLAMMATION', WILEY, pp. 122-122.

Darcy, S, Frawley, S & Adair, D 2017, 'Managing the Paralympics', Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, pp. 1-302.
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© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. This book critically examines the planning, management, and operations of the world's premier event for Para sport athletes. Noting a lack of research into how these games are planned and managed, the authors of this contributed volume discuss how the Paralympics are essentially different to the Olympics and what this means for their management. Managing the Paralympics explores how the organizers and connected stakeholders effectively organize and deliver the Paralympics, taking into account what has been learned from previous events. Including emergent models of best practice from event management, project management and sport management literature, the book gives an insight into the planning of one of the world's biggest sporting events that encompasses ten impairment types and multiple sport classes within sports.

De Abreu Lourenço, R & De Abreu Lourenco, R 2017, 'More than Health: the Role and Value of Meta-Health Effects in Health Care Decisions'.

Eager, D, Chapman, C & White, E 2017, 'Reducing playground injuries by increasing HIC sampling rate from 8 kHz to 20 kHz'.
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Impact attenuating surface (IAS) materials are used in children's playgrounds to limit the potential impact hazard presented to a child when falling from playground equipment; the largest hazard being head impact injuries. The head injury criterion (HIC) is used to measure the IAS around the world.Australia adopted a sampling rate of 8 kHz for playground IAS testing in 1996 from automotive industry testing for measurement of the HIC.Data acquisition has improved since 1996 and it is important that the performance of the IAS is measured accurately.An investigation into the effects of sampling rate on the HIC value was undertaken. A variety of IAS samples were impact tested at sampling rates ranging from 8 kHz to 80 kHz using a calibrated hemispherical headform fitted with a tri-axial accelerometer.The results of this testing will be presented. The testing confirmed that a sampling rate of 8 kHz under reported the HIC particularly at the critical fall height of IAS. Australia adopted a sampling rate of 20 kHz on the 23 November 2016 when they published AS 4422:2016.

Mitchell, AB, Mourad, B, Malouf, MA, Benzimra, M, Morgan, LC, Oliver, BG & Glanville, AR 2017, 'TRANSPLANTING THE HUMAN RESPIRATORY VIROME', WILEY, pp. 93-93.

Reyna, J, Meier, P, Hanham, J, Vlachopoulos, P & Rodgers, K 2017, 'LEARNER-GENERATED DIGITAL MEDIA (LGDM) FRAMEWORK'.
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Learner-Generated Digital Media (LGDM) has been incorporated as a tool to assess students in K-12 and higher education in the last decade. There are frameworks developed for video making in the classroom that considers technical know-how and a model that incorporate pedagogies. However, there is the absence of a practical framework to inform academics and students on the implementation of digital presentations as an assessment tool in the curricula. The aim of this poster is to propose a model for how to design, implement and evaluate LGDM as assessment tools in tertiary education. This evidence-based framework considers the following elements: (1) pedagogy; (2) student training; (3) hosting of videos; (4) marking schemes; (5) group contribution; (6) feedback; (7) reflection, and; (8) evaluation. The model serves as a conduit between theory and good practice.

Sharma, P, Yi, R, Nayak, AP, Wang, N, Tang, F, Knight, MJ, Pan, S, Oliver, B & Deshpande, DA 2017, 'Bitter Taste Receptor Agonists Mitigate Features of Allergic Asthma in Mice', Springer Science and Business Media LLC.
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AbstractAsthma is characterized by airway inflammation, mucus secretion, remodeling and hyperresponsiveness (AHR). Recent research has established the bronchodilatory effect of bitter taste receptor (TAS2R) agonists in various models. Comprehensive pre-clinical studies aimed at establishing effectiveness of TAS2R agonists in disease models are lacking. Here we aimed to determine the effect of TAS2R agonists on features of asthma. Further, we elucidated a mechanism by which TAS2R agonists mitigate features of asthma. Asthma was induced in mice using intranasal house dust mite or aerosol ova-albumin challenge, and chloroquine or quinine were tested in both prophylactic and treatment models. Allergen challenge resulted in airway inflammation as evidenced by increased immune cells infiltration and release of cytokines and chemokines in the lungs, which were significantly attenuated in TAS2R agonists treated mice. TAS2R agonists attenuated features of airway remodeling including smooth muscle mass, extracellular matrix deposition and pro-fibrotic signaling, and also prevented mucus accumulation and development of AHR in mice. Mechanistic studies using human neutrophils demonstrated that inhibition of immune cell chemotaxis is a key mechanism by which TAS2R agonists blocked allergic airway inflammation and exerted anti-asthma effects. Our comprehensive studies establish the effectiveness of TAS2R agonists in mitigating multiple features of allergic asthma.

Vine, M, Lees, T, Nassif, N, Simpson, A & Lal, S 2017, 'Investigating the associations between ADHD symptomology and chronic illness: cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus'.

Wu, P-J, Kabakova, I, Ruberti, J, Sherwood, JM, Dunlop, IE, Paterson, C, Török, P & Overby, DR 2017, 'Brillouin microscopy, what is it really measuring?'.
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Brillouin microscopy measures compressibility, but is being increasingly usedto assess stiffness of cells and tissues. Using hydrogels with tunableproperties, we demonstrate that Brillouin microscopy is insensitive tostiffness of hydrated materials, but depends strongly on water content,consistent with a theoretical model of biphasic compressibility. Empiricalcorrelations between Brillouin measurements and stiffness arise due to theirmutual dependence on water content, but correlations vanish once hydration iscontrolled.