Digital Commons Network^™

Reviewing The Current Methods Of Assessing Hydration In Athletes, Oliver R. Barley, Dale W. Chapman, Chris R. Abbiss

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background

Despite a substantial body of research, no clear best practice guidelines exist for the assessment of hydration in athletes. Body water is stored in and shifted between different sites throughout the body complicating hydration assessment. This review seeks to highlight the unique strengths and limitations of various hydration assessment methods described in the literature as well as providing best practice guidelines.

Main body

There is a plethora of methods that range in validity and reliability, including complicated and invasive methods (i.e. neutron activation analysis and stable isotope dilution), to moderately invasive blood, urine and salivary variables, progressing to non-invasive …

Mhd Heat Transfer In W-Shaped Inclined Cavity Containing A Porous Medium Saturated With Ag/Al2o3 Hybrid Nanofluid In The Presence Of Uniform Heat Generation/Absorption, Mohamed Dhia Massoudi, Mohamed Bechir Ben Hamida, Hussein A. Mohammed, Mohammed A. Almeshaal

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the Authors. In this paper, a 2D numerical study of natural convection heat transfer in a W-shaped inclined enclosure with a variable aspect ratio was performed. The enclosure contained a porous medium saturated with Ag/Al2O3 hybrid nanofluid in the presence of uniform heat generation or absorption under the effect of a uniform magnetic field. The vertical walls of the enclosure were heated differentially; however, the top and bottom walls were kept insulated. The governing equations were solved with numerical simulation software COMSOL Multiphysics which is based on the finite element method. The results showed that the convection …

Can Exercise Adaptations Be Maintained In Men With Prostate Cancer Following Supervised Programmes? Implications To The Covid-19 Landscape Of Urology And Clinical Exercise, Pedro Lopez, Dennis R. Taaffe, Robert U. Newton, Nigel Spry, Tom Shannon, Mark Frydenberg, Fred Saad, Daniel A. Galvão

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Author(s) In this brief correspondence, we evaluate the potential impact of pivoting from face-to-face supervised to unsupervised home-based exercise programmes to contextualise the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in prostate cancer patients. A meta-analysis was undertaken in fatigue, quality of life, and lean and fat mass outcomes in the four studies included. Our analysis indicates that unsupervised home-based exercise maintains patient-reported outcomes, except for fat mass. In summary, changing to unsupervised exercise is unlikely to provide further benefits on patient-reported and body composition outcomes, but may help maintain initial gains during physical distancing restrictions. Patient summary: We …

Basalt-Co2-Brine Wettability At Storage Conditions In Basaltic Formations, Stefan Iglauer, Ahmed Zarzor Al-Yaseri, Domenik Wolff-Boenisch

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd CO2 geo-storage in basaltic formations has recently been demonstrated as a viable solution to rapidly sequester and mineralize CO2. In case CO2 is injected into such basalt reservoirs in supercritical form, a two-phase system (reservoir brine and supercritical CO2) is created, and it is of key importance to specify the associated CO2-basalt wettability so that fluid distributions and CO2 flow through the reservoir can be predicted. However, there is a serious lack of data for basalt CO2-wettability. We therefore measured water contact angles on basalt substrates in CO2 atmosphere. The results indicate that at shallow depth …

Correlations Between Covid-19 Case Growth And Mental Health-Related Internet Search: An Unexpected Finding, Tenghao (Nick) Zhang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

At the time of writing, the number of global con-firmed COVID-19 cases has topped 18.8 million with over 707,000 deaths (1). The Internet plays a pivotal role during this unprecedented pandemic (2,3) in the way that people predominantly use the Internet to contact each other and acquire information due to sweeping stay-at-home orders and strict lockdown restrictions imposed by au-thorities around the world. Health-related mental health issues could lead to spikes in online infor-mation search (4, 5). Therefore, this letter aims to investigate whether the rise of regional COVID cases is correlated with the increase in residents’ online searches of …

Addressing The Confusion Within Periodization Research, W. Guy Hornsby, Andrew C. Fry, G. Gregory Haff, Michael H. Stone

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. In this editorial, we focus on recent problematic developments in sport science, and more specifically, problems related to periodization research. Primary areas discussed are (1) appreciation of history, (2) considerations for training studies, (3) the development of concepts, and (4) programming-driven training models.

Comparison And Verification Of Turbulence Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Closures To Model Spatially Varied Flows, Kudzai Chipongo, Mehdi Khiadani, Kaveh Sookhak Lari

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The robustness and accuracy of Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) models was investigated for complex turbulent flow in an open channel receiving lateral inflow, also known as spatially varied flow with increasing discharge (SVF). The three RANS turbulence models tested include realizable k–ε, shear stress transport k–ω and Reynolds stress model based on their prominence to model jets in crossflows. Results were compared to experimental laser Doppler velocimetry measurements from a previous study. RANS results in the uniform flow region and farther from the jet centreline were more accurate than within the lateral inflow region. On the …

Detection Of Braf Splicing Variants In Plasma-Derived Cell-Free Nucleic Acids And Extracellular Vesicles Of Melanoma Patients Failing Targeted Therapy Therapies, Michael E. Clark, Helen Rizos, Michelle Pereira, Ashleigh Mcevoy, Gabriela Marsavela, Leslie Calapre, Katie Meehan, Olivia Ruhen, Muhammad A. Khattak, Tarek M. Meniawy, Georgina Long, Matteo S. Carlino, Alexander M. Menzies, Michael Millward, Melanie Ziman, Elin S. Gray

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The analysis of plasma circulating tumour nucleic acids provides a non-invasive approach to assess disease burden and the genetic evolution of tumours in response to therapy. BRAF splicing variants are known to confer melanoma resistance to BRAF inhibitors. We developed a test to screen cell-free RNA (cfRNA) for the presence of BRAF splicing variants. Custom droplet digital PCR assays were designed for the detection of BRAF splicing variants p61, p55, p48 and p41 and then validated using RNA from cell lines carrying these variants. Evaluation of plasma from patients with reported objective response to BRAF/MEK inhibition followed by disease progression …

Stopping Targeted Therapy For Complete Responders In Advanced Braf Mutant Melanoma, Lydia Warburton, Tarek M. Meniawy, Leslie Calapre, Michelle Pereira, Ashleigh Mcevoy, Mel Ziman, Elin Gray, Michael Millward

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

BRAF inhibitors revolutionised the management of melanoma patients and although resistance occurs, there is a subgroup of patients who maintain durable disease control. For those cases with durable complete response (CR) it is not clear whether it is safe to cease therapy. Here we identified 13 patients treated with BRAF +/− MEK inhibitors, who cease therapy after prolonged CR (median = 34 months, range 20–74). Recurrence was observed in 3/13 (23%) patients. In the remaining 10 patients with sustained CR off therapy, the median follow up after discontinuation was 19 months (range 8–36). We retrospectively measured ctDNA levels using droplet …

Reversible And Irreversible Adsorption Of Bare And Hybrid Silica Nanoparticles Onto Carbonate Surface At Reservoir Condition, Zain-Ul-Abedin Arain, Sarmad Al-Anssari, Muhammad Ali, Shoaib Memon, Masood Ahmed Bhatti, Christopher Lagat, Mohammad Sarmadivaleh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 Southwest Petroleum University Realistic implementation of nanofluids in subsurface projects including carbon geosequestration and enhanced oil recovery requires full understanding of nanoparticles (NPs) adsorption behaviour in the porous media. The physicochemical interactions between NPs and between the NP and the porous media grain surface control the adsorption behavior of NPs. This study investigates the reversible and irreversible adsorption of silica NPs onto oil-wet and water-wet carbonate surfaces at reservoir conditions. Each carbonate sample was treated with different concentrations of silica nanofluid to investigate NP adsorption in terms of nanoparticles initial size and hydrophobicity at different temperatures, and pressures. …

“Fallen Through The Cracks”: Teachers’ Perceptions Of Barriers Faced By Struggling Literacy Learners In Secondary School, Margaret K. Merga

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Struggling literacy learners are typically low achievers with poor engagement in literacy learning, and the gap between struggling and capable students widens as children move through the years of schooling. Literacy research and interventions for struggling literacy learners typically focus on the primary school years. The 2019 Supporting Struggling Secondary Literacy Learners mixed-methods project collected qualitative data on teacher perceptions of the barriers experienced by their struggling literacy learners in Australian mainstream secondary English classrooms. Recurring barriers included literacy skill gaps and English as an …

We Have The Program, What Now? Development Of An Implementation Plan To Bridge The Research-Practice Gap Prevalent In Exercise Oncology, Mary A. Kennedy, Sara Bayes, Robert U. Newton, Yvonne Zissiadis, Nigel A. Spry, Dennis R. Taaffe, Nicolas H. Hart, Michael Davis, Aileen Eiszele, Daniel A. Galvão

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Author(s). Background: Exercise has emerged as a promising therapy for people with cancer. Novel programs have been developed to translate research into practice; however, implementation barriers have limited their success in part because successful translation of exercise oncology research into practice requires context-specific implementation plans. The aim of this study was to employ the implementation mapping protocol to develop an implementation plan to support programming of a co-located exercise clinic and cancer treatment center. Methods: The Implementation Mapping protocol, which consists of five specific iterative tasks, was used. A stakeholder advisory group advised throughout the process. Results: …

A Bitter Pill To Swallow: Registered Nurses And Medicines Regulation In Remote Australia, Katie R. Pennington, Kim D. Clark, Sabina Knight

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

INTRODUCTION: Access to essential medicines is a human right and an objective of the National Medicines Policy in Australia. Health workforce distribution characteristics in remote Australia implies registered nurses (RNs) may find themselves responsible for a broader range of activities in the medication management cycle than they would be elsewhere in the nation. The regulation of health professionals and their training requirements provides essential but complex protections for the public. These protections include the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for health practitioners and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Other levels of control or regulation are also exerted over health …

Personal Carbon Trading, Carbon-Knowledge Management And Their Influence On Environmental Sustainability In Thailand, Dadang Dally, Kurhayadi, Yeti Rohayati, Soheil Kazemian

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, Econjournals. All rights reserved. The relationship between personal carbon trading, carbon knowledge management and their impact on the environmental sustainability has got very little attention. Inspired from this gap in the literature, present research is exploring the relationship between carbon trading, carbon knowledge and their combine impact on sustainability of the natural environment in Thailand. A questionnaire is designed based on the various factors of both exogeneous and endogenous variables of the study. A sample of 251 respondents was collected for both measurement and structural equation models. Additionally, some descriptive measures are also calculated and presented which provide …

N Evolution And Physiochemical Structure Changes In Chars During Co-Pyrolysis: Effects Of Abundance Of Glucose In Fiberboard, Deliang Xu, Liu Yang, Ming Zhao, Yu Song, Karnowo, Hong Zhang, Xun Hu, Hongqi Sun, Shu Zhang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. The simple incineration of wood-based panels (WBPs) waste generates a significant amount of NOx, which has led to urgency in developing a new method for treating the N-containing biomass residues. This work aims to examine the N evolution and physiochemical structural changes during the co-pyrolysis of fiberboard and glucose, where the percentage of glucose in the feedstock was varied from 0% to 70%. It was found that N retention in chars was monotonically increased with increasing use of glucose, achieving ~60% N fixation when the glucose accounted for 70% in the mixture. Pyrrole-N (N-5) and …

Copper Toxicity Links To Pathogenesis Of Alzheimer’S Disease And Therapeutics Approaches, Hafza Wajeeha Ejaz, Wei Wang, Minglin Lang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible, age-related progressive neurological disorder, and the most common type of dementia in aged people. Neuropathological lesions of AD are neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), and senile plaques comprise the accumulated amyloid-beta (Aβ), loaded with metal ions including Cu, Fe, or Zn. Some reports have identified metal dyshomeostasis as a neurotoxic factor of AD, among which Cu ions seem to be a central cationic metal in the formation of plaque and soluble oligomers, and have an essential role in the AD pathology. Cu-Aβ complex catalyzes the generation of …

Interrelations Among Leadership Competencies Of Bim Leaders: A Fuzzy Dematel-Anp Approach, Seyed Armin Mirhosseini, Reza Kiani Mavi, Neda Kiani Mavi, Behzad Abbasnejad, Farzaneh Rayani

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. The use of new, digitally enabled innovations, such as building information modeling (BIM), raises issues such as the delineation of a competent leader. Even though BIM-based competency assessment models have become essential tools for maximizing the potential values of BIM implementation, the current competency models provide limited focus on leadership aspects that facilitate and enhance the BIM implementation efforts. This paper seeks to identify the specific competencies required for BIM implementation and examines the relationships between these competencies. Thirty-two experts from around the globe investigated a total of 15 leadership competencies under three categories pertaining …

Energy Engineering Approach For Rural Areas Cattle Farmers In Bangladesh To Reduce Covid-19 Impact On Food Safety, Mohammad Nur-E-Alam, Mohammad Nasirul Hoque, Soyed Mohiuddin Ahmed, Mohammad Khairul Basher, Narottam Das

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This paper reports on the optimization of thin-film coating-assisted, self-sustainable, off-grid hybrid power generation systems for cattle farming in rural areas of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a lower middle-income country with declining rates of poverty among its 160 million people due to persistent economic growth in conjunction with balanced agricultural improvements. Most of the rural households adopt a mixed farming system by cultivating crops and simultaneously rearing livestock. Among the animals raised, cattle are considered as the most valuable asset for the small-/medium-scale farmers in terms of their meat and milk production. …

Comparative Study Of Green And Synthetic Polymers For Enhanced Oil Recovery, Nasiru Salahu Muhammed, Md. Bashirul Haq, Dhafer Al-Shehri, Mohammad Mizanur Rahaman, Alireza Keshavarz, S. M. Zakir Hossain

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Several publications by authors in the field of petrochemical engineering have examined the use of chemically enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) technology, with a specific interest in polymer flooding. Most observations thus far in this field have been based on the application of certain chemicals and/or physical properties within this technique regarding the production of 50–60% trapped (residual) oil in a reservoir. However, there is limited information within the literature about the combined effects of this process on whole properties (physical and chemical). Accordingly, in this work, we present a clear distinction …

Do Schools And Alcohol Mix? Australian Parents' Perspectives, Conor Gilligan, Therese Shaw, Shelley Beatty, Laura Thomas, Karen Louise Lombardi, Robyn Susanne Johnston

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: Alcohol use by adults at school events and alcohol promotion through school fundraising activities is common, but little is known about secondary school parents' attitudes towards these practices. Parental attitudes may influence principals' decision-making on this topic, particularly in jurisdictions where education department guidance is limited. This study explored parents' attitudes towards the consumption or promotion of alcohol in schools or at school events. Design/methodology/approach: Parents (n = 298) from five non-government secondary schools in Western Australia completed an online survey and provided responses relating to the promotion and availability of alcohol through their …

Sequencing Effort Dictates Gene Discovery In Marine Microbial Metagenomes, Carlos M. Duarte, David K. Ngugi, Intikhab Alam, John Pearman, Allan Kamau, Victor M. Eguiluz, Takashi Gojobori, Silvia G. Acinas, Josep M. Gasol, Vladimir Bajic, Xabier Irigoien

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Authors. Environmental Microbiology published by Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Massive metagenomic sequencing combined with gene prediction methods were previously used to compile the gene catalogue of the ocean and host-associated microbes. Global expeditions conducted over the past 15 years have sampled the ocean to build a catalogue of genes from pelagic microbes. Here we undertook a large sequencing effort of a perturbed Red Sea plankton community to uncover that the rate of gene discovery increases continuously with sequencing effort, with no indication that the retrieved 2.83 million non-redundant (complete) genes predicted …

Psychological Symptoms In Chinese Nurses May Be Associated With Predisposition To Chronic Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study Of Suboptimal Health Status, Jinxiu Zhu, Wenjuan Ying, Li Zhang, Gangyi Peng, Weiju Chen, Enoch Odame Anto, Xueqing Wang, Nan Lu, Shanshan Gao, Guihai Wu, Jingyi Yan, Jianfeng Ye, Shenglin Wu, Chengzhi Yu, Minghui Yue, Xiru Huang, Nuo Xu, Pengxiang Ying, Yanhong Chen, Xuerui Tan, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). Background: Suboptimal health status (SHS) is a reversible state between ideal health and illness and it can be effectively reversed by risk prediction, disease prevention, and personalized medicine under the global background of predictive, preventive, and personalized medicine (PPPM) concepts. More and more Chinese nurses have been troubled by psychological symptoms (PS). The correlation between PS and SHS is unclear in nurses. The purpose of current study is to investigate the prevalence of SHS and PS in Chinese nurses and the relationship between SHS and PS along with predisposing factors as well as to discuss the …

The Global, Regional, And National Burden Of Oesophageal Cancer And Its Attributable Risk Factors In 195 Countries And Territories, 1990-2017: A Systematic Analysis For The Global Burden Of Disease Study 2017, Farin Kamangar, Dariush Nasrollahzadeh, Saeid Safiri, Sadaf G. Sepanlou, Christina Fitzmaurice, Kevin S. Ikuta, Catherine Bisignano, Farhad Islami, Gholamreza Roshandel, Stephen S. Lim, Hassan Abolhassani, Eman Abu-Gharbieh, Rufus Adesoji Adedoyin, Shailesh M. Advani, Muktar Beshir Ahmed, Miloud Taki Eddine Aichour, Tomi Akinyemiju, Chisom Joyqueenet Akunna, Fares Alahdab, Vahid Alipour, Amir Almasi-Hashiani, Abdulaziz M. Almulhim, Nahla Hamed Anber, Alireza Ansari-Moghaddam, Jalal Arabloo, Morteza Arab-Zozani, Atalel Fentahun Awedew, Alaa Badawi, Kathleen S. Sachiko Berfield, Kidanemaryam Berhe, Krittika Bhattacharyya, Antonio Biondi, Tone Bjørge, Antonio M. Borzì, Cristina Bosetti, Giulia Carreras, Felix Carvalho, Clara Castro, Dinh-Toi Chu, Vera Marisa Costa, Baye Dagnew, Jiregna Darega Gela, Ahmad Daryani, Feleke Mekonnen Demeke, Gebre Teklemariam Demoz, Mostafa Dianatinasab, Iffat Elbarazi, Mohammad Hassan Emamian, Arash Etemadi, Pawan Sirwan Faris, Eduarda Fernandes, Irina Filip, Florian Fischer, Mohamed M. Gad, Silvano Gallus, Abadi Kahsu Gebre, Tsegaye Tewelde Gebrehiwot, Gebreamlak Gebremedhn Gebremeskel, Begashaw Melaku Gebresillassie, Fatemah Ghasemi-Kebria, Ahmad Ghashghaee, Nermin Ghith, Mahaveer Golechha, Giuseppe Gorini, Rahul Gupta, Nima Hafezi-Nejad, Arvin Haj-Mirzaian, James D. Harvey, Maryam Hashemian, Hamid Yimam Hassen, Simon I. Hay, Andualem Henok, Chi Linh Hoang, H. Dean Hosgood, Mowafa Househ, Olayinka Stephen Ilesanmi, Milena D. Ilic, Seyed Sina Naghibi Irvani, Charvi Jain, Spencer L. James, Sun Ha Jee, Ravi Prakash Jha, Farahnaz Joukar, Ali Kabir, Amir Kasaeian, Mesfin Wudu Kassaw, Supreet Kaur, Andre Pascal Kengne, Esma Kerboua, Yousef Saleh Khader, Rovshan Khalilov, Ejaz Ahmad Khan, Abdullah T. Khoja, Jonathan M. Kocarnik, Hamidreza Komaki, Vivek Kumar, Carlo La Vecchia, Savita Lasrado, Bingyu Li, Alan D. Lopez, Azeem Majeed, Navid Manafi, Ana Laura Manda, Fariborz Mansour-Ghanaei, Manu Raj Mathur, Varshil Mehta, Dhruv Mehta, Walter Mendoza, Prasanna Mithra, Karzan Abdulmuhsin Mohammad, Abdollah Mohammadian-Hafshejani, Reza Mohammadpourhodki, Jemal Abdu Mohammed, Farnam Mohebi, Ali H. Mokdad, Lorenzo Monasta, Delaram Moosavi, Mahmood Moosazadeh, Ghobad Moradi, Farhad Moradpour, Rahmatollah Moradzadeh, Gurudatta Naik, Lonut Negoi, Haruna Asura Nggada, Huong Lan Thi Nguyen, Rajan Nikbakhsh, Molly R. Nixon, Andrew T. Olagunju, Jagadish Roa. Padubidri, Keyvan Pakshir, Shanti Patel, Mona Pathak, Hai Quang Pham, Akram Pourshams, Navid Rabiee, Mohammad Rabiee, Amir Radfar, Alireza Rafiei, Kiana Ramezanzadeh, Goura Kishor Rath, Priya Rathi, Salman Rawaf, David Laith Rawaf, Nima Rezaei, Elias Merdassa Roro, Anas M. Saad, Hamideh Salimzadeh, Abdallah M. Samy, Benn Sartorius, Arash Sarvaezad, Mario Sekerija, Feng Sha, Morteza Shamsizadeh, Sara Sheikhbahaei, Reza Shirkoohi, Sudeep K. Siddappa Malleshappa, Jasvinder A. Singh, Dhirendra Narain Sinha, Catalin-Gabriel Smarandache, Sergey Soshnikov, Hafiz Ansar Rasul Suleria, Degena Bahrey Tadesse, Berhe Etsay Tesfay, Bhaskar Thakur, Eugenio Traini, Khanh Bao Tran, Bach Xuan Tran, Irfan Ullah, Marco Vacante, Yousef Veisani, Isidora S. Vujcic, Girmay Teklay Weldesamuel, Rixing Xu, Vahid Yazdi-Feyzabadi, Deniz Yuce, Vesna Zadnik, Zoubida Zaidi, Zhi-Jiang Zhang, Reza Malekzadeh, Mohsen Naghavi, Gbd 2017 Oesophageal Cancer Collaborators

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Author(s). Background Oesophageal cancer is a common and often fatal cancer that has two main histological subtypes: oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma and oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Updated statistics on the incidence and mortality of oesophageal cancer, and on the disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) caused by the disease, can assist policy makers in allocating resources for prevention, treatment, and care of oesophageal cancer. We report the latest estimates of these statistics for 195 countries and territories between 1990 and 2017, by age, sex, and Socio-demographic Index (SDI), using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 …

Imputation Of Missing Data From Time-Lapse Cameras Used In Recreational Fishing Surveys, Ebenezer Afrifa-Yamoah, Stephen M. Taylor, Aiden Fisher, Ute Mueller

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

While remote camera surveys have the potential to improve the accuracy of recreational fishing estimates, missing data are common and require robust analytical techniques to impute. Time-lapse cameras are being used in Western Australia to monitor recreational boating activities, but outages have occurred. Generalized linear mixed effect models formulated in a fully conditional specification multiple imputation framework were used to reconstruct missing data, with climatic and some temporal classifications as covariates. Using a complete 12-month camera record of hourly counts of recreational powerboat retrievals, data were simulated based on ten observed camera outage patterns, with a missing proportion of between …

Circulating Tumour Dna In Advanced Melanoma Patients Ceasing Pd1 Inhibition In The Absence Of Disease Progression, Lydia Warburton, Leslie Calapre, Michelle Pereira, Anna Reid, Cleo Robinson, Benhur Amanuel, Mel Ziman, Michael Millward, Elin Gray

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Immunotherapy is an important and established treatment option for patients with advanced melanoma. Initial anti-PD1 trials arbitrarily defined a two-year treatment duration, but a shorter treatment duration may be appropriate. In this study, we retrospectively assessed 70 patients who stopped anti-PD1 therapy in the absence of progressive disease (PD) to determine clinical outcomes. In our cohort, the median time on treatment was 11.8 months. Complete response was attained at time of anti-PD1 discontinuation in 61 (87%). After a median follow up of 34.2 months (range: 2–70.8) post discontinuation, 81% remained disease free. Using ddPCR, we determine the utility of circulating …

Validation And Reliability Of The Alzheimer’S Disease-Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation Food Frequency Questionnaire, Samantha L. Gardener, Philippa Lyons-Wall, Ralph Martins, Stephanie Rainey-Smith

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Accuracy in measuring intake of dietary constituents is an important issue in studies reporting the associations between diet and chronic diseases. We modified a Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to include foods of interest in the field of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research. The aim of the current study was to determine the reliability and validity of the AD-CSIROFFQ in 148 cognitively normal older adults. The AD-CSIROFFQ was completed before and after completion of a four-day weighed food record. Of the 508 food and beverage items reported, 309 had sufficient consumption levels for analysis of …

Co-Occurrence Across Time And Space Of Drug- And Cannabinoid- Exposure And Adverse Mental Health Outcomes In The National Survey Of Drug Use And Health: Combined Geotemporospatial And Causal Inference Analysis, Albert Stuart Reece, Gary Hulse

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Whilst many studies have linked increased drug and cannabis exposure to adverse mental health (MH) outcomes their effects on whole populations and geotemporospatial relationships are not well understood.

Methods

Ecological cohort study of National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) geographically-linked substate-shapefiles 2010–2012 and 2014–2016 supplemented by five-year US American Community Survey. Drugs: cigarettes, alcohol abuse, last-month cannabis use and last-year cocaine use. MH: any mental illness, major depressive illness, serious mental illness and suicidal thinking. Data analysis: two-stage, geotemporospatial, robust generalized linear regression and causal inference methods in R.

Results

410,138 NSDUH respondents. Average response rate 76.7%. …

Structural Similarity Loss For Learning To Fuse Multi-Focus Images, Xiang Yan, Syed Zulqarnain Gilani, Hanlin Qin, Ajmal Mian

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Convolutional neural networks have recently been used for multi-focus image fusion. However, some existing methods have resorted to adding Gaussian blur to focused images, to simulate defocus, thereby generating data (with ground-truth) for supervised learning. Moreover, they classify pixels as ‘focused’ or ‘defocused’, and use the classified results to construct the fusion weight maps. This then necessitates a series of post-processing steps. In this paper, we present an end-to-end learning approach for directly predicting the fully focused output image from multi-focus input image pairs. The suggested approach uses a CNN architecture …

Are Heat Shock Proteins An Important Link Between Type 2 Diabetes And Alzheimer Disease?, Joanne Elizabeth Rowles, Kevin Noel Keane, Thiago Gomes Heck, Vinicius Cruzat, Giuseppe Verdile, Philip Newsholme

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are growing in prevalence worldwide. The development of T2D increases the risk of AD disease, while AD patients can show glucose imbalance due to an increased insulin resistance. T2D and AD share similar pathological features and underlying mechanisms, including the deposition of amyloidogenic peptides in pancreatic islets (i.e., islet amyloid polypeptide; IAPP) and brain (β-Amyloid; Aβ). Both IAPP and Aβ can undergo misfolding and aggregation and accumulate in the extracellular space of their respective tissues of origin. As a main response to protein …

In Situ Wettability Investigation Of Aging Of Sandstone Surface In Alkane Via X-Ray Microtomography, Nilesh Kumar Jha, Maxim Lebedev, Stefan Iglauer, Jitendra S. Sangwai, Mohammad Sarmadivaleh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Wettability of surfaces remains of paramount importance for understanding various natural and artificial colloidal and interfacial phenomena at various length and time scales. One of the problems discussed in this work is the wettability alteration of a three-phase system comprising high salinity brine as the aqueous phase, Doddington sandstone as porous rock, and decane as the nonaqueous phase liquid. The study utilizes the technique of in situ contact angle measurements of the several 2D projections of the identified 3D oil phase droplets from the 3D images of the saturated sandstone miniature …