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In the first 27 years of the Central Australian Laboratory (CAL), to 1980, research focussed almost entirely on the needs of the pastoral industry. By the 1980s, ongoing campaigns for Aboriginal land rights and demands to conserve biodiversity plainly showed that there were other land uses deserving research attention. Initially CAL's research agenda expanded to include conservation in spinifex grasslands and grazing lands but remained biophysical in nature. It subsequently became clear that people's roles in decision-making about land use and management should be part of research. By the 2000s, scientists were able to build trusting relationships with Aboriginal people and organisations and undertake collaborative studies to improve livelihoods and wellbeing on country. Over the 38 years from 1980 to 2018, CAL's research activities responded to diverse societal expectations but it was not enough to prevent the laboratory's eventual closure as public investment in rangelands dwindled. The changing nature of research at CSIRO's Central Australian Laboratory over many decades reflected major shifts in societal expectations, the availability of new knowledge and enabling technologies and the particular skills of its staff. This paper follows the expansion of research from a pastoral focus into, initially, conservation and later into socio-ecological systems and Aboriginal livelihoods. Despite the relevance of the research to participating rangeland communities, the power of remote centralised decision-making led to the slow demise of the laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CSIRO's research in the arid zone was initiated after World War 2 when a strong push to develop the sparsely populated and isolated region of northern Australia was promoted as being in the national interest. This impetus had social and political origins but implementation depended on scientific insights into regional 'potential', which was couched at the time in terms of agronomic and pastoral use. Ray Perry was a key figure in early land resource surveys of the region and later a key motivator for, and supporter of, research in the arid and semi-arid rangelands of Australia. His commitment was fundamental to the establishment of CSIRO's Central Australian Laboratory. Pastoral land use and improving the land for that purpose were the primary concerns when CSIRO's presence in Alice Springs was established in 1953. From an initial focus on 'making the desert bloom', in particular making the vast spinifex grasslands more 'useful', the focus of research shifted to maintaining the productivity of country preferred by cattle and establishing methods for monitoring its health. It was not until the 1970s that Aboriginal and conservation land management appeared in the laboratory's research agenda, somewhat intermittently, in response to important social and political changes in the wider Australian community. When CSIRO's Arid Zone Unit was established in Alice Springs in 1953, the social and political imperative was to develop Australia's north and, more specifically, to make the vast interior more productive for pastoral and agronomic purposes. The research that followed showed the unreality of that goal and the need to nurture the land that cattle preferred to graze. Not until the 1970s were other values for land, such as Aboriginal and conservation uses, considered to be subjects for research, stimulated by social and political change in the wider Australian community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insectivorous bats make a significant contribution to mammalian diversity in central Australia, with 12 known extant species; however, little is known about their habitat preferences and how these interact with temporal patterns in their abundance and activity. Although most species forage widely and in a variety of habitats, we expected that woodlands associated with ephemeral rivers would constitute high-value habitat for bats because they provide tree hollows, suitable structural habitat for foraging, and canopies rich in invertebrate biomass. The aim of this research was to establish whether riparian woodlands were a focus of bat activity and to identify patterns in habitat use and whether these changed through time. We investigated the activity of bats in riparian woodlands and neighbouring vegetation over 2 years. Bat activity was higher in riparian woodland than in nearby vegetation, and this difference was most significant during a hot and dry summer. At the species level, body size and foraging guild were important factors explaining differences in activity, with larger 'open space' species more active in riparian woodland than adjacent habitat. In contrast, we did not detect significant differences in the activity of smaller vespertilionid species between habitats. Coinciding with patterns in invertebrate activity, bat activity was highest in summer and lowest in winter. Within river channels, canopy cover was important in explaining patterns in bat activity. There was also a significant location effect, with bat activity in some river systems much higher than in others. We propose that this is related to both regional variability in rainfall and productivity, in addition to topography. Our findings demonstrate the importance of riparian woodlands to bats in an arid environment, particularly during low-resource periods, and suggest that bats may be affected by future climate changes and degradation from fire impacts. Insectivorous bats make a significant contribution to mammalian diversity in central Australia, with 12 known extant species, yet little is known about their habitat preferences and how these interact with temporal patterns in their abundance and activity. We found that bat activity was higher in arid riparian woodland than in nearby vegetation, and this difference was most significant during a hot and dry summer. Our findings demonstrate the importance of riparian woodlands to bats in an arid environment, particularly during low-resource periods [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If, as Pheng Cheah has suggested, orature in non-European vernacular languages contains the potential to contest predominant conceptions of the world as a resource for capitalist modernity, the literary staging of orature in Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God tells another story about the world that questions and interrupts the temporality of capitalist modernity. It is the worldly implications of Achebe's act of storytelling with which this article is primarily concerned. Beginning with a critical assessment of different allegorical readings of Achebe's novel, this essay traces the articulation of a different conception of the world in Arrow of God that runs counter to such allegorical readings. Achebe's symbolic framing of orature and proverb as verbal art forms embedded in a specific social and cultural conception of the world that is organized around the time frame of an agricultural subsistence economy interrupts the temporality of capitalist modernity and the primitivist tropes of precapitalist societies on which it depends. If Achebe's novelistic framing of orature as part of a literary system of symbolic codes gestures toward a mode of agency that counters capital's mode of production narrative, such a mode is enabled by a way of knowing the world that disfigures the ethnographic logic of colonial allegory. This mode of understanding is further articulated in Achebe's temporal framing of the yam as a sacred object that also parodies the ethnographic framing of the commodity fetish. What links the ostensibly disparate rituals of the proverb and the festival of the yam, I suggest, is a counter-allegorical register that interrupts the temporal order of capitalist modernity. To elucidate the broader significance of this register for research in literary studies, the article also draws comparisons with the trope of the ticker tape in Frank Norris's novel The Octopus and the framing of oil fetishism in Helon Habila's Oil on Water. In so doing, the article also suggests that the symbolic codes of Achebe's novel de-fetishize the totalizing idea of capitalist modernity as a world-system in such a way that has profound and far-reaching implications for a wider understanding of the relationship between literature, empire, and the historical development of capitalism on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In what ways has the contemporary British novel served to contribute to the ethos of secular liberalism that underpins the ideology of the colonial present before and after the “War on Terror”? This article seeks to address this question through a rereading of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and its critical reception. Beginning with a discussion of the secularism/theology binary in Roland Barthes’ essay “The Death of the Author”, the paper considers how the ideology of secularism that Barthes attributes to the birth of the reader has shaped and influenced the public understanding of the Rushdie affair before and after 9/11. With close reference to Rushdie’s memoir, Joseph Anton, the essay proceeds to address how Rushdie’s own account of the production and reception of The Satanic Verses in Joseph Anton might be regarded as a particular form of secular misreading that calls the authority of the book’s implied author into question. By addressing questions such as these, this article suggests that Rushdie’s literary reworking of Islamic history in The Satanic Verses and his defence of this reworking in Joseph Anton demand a rethinking of the relationship between the ideology of secularism and postmodern theories of reading. Such a rethinking, I suggest, also demands a consideration of the ways in which the contemporary figure of the emancipated reader is implicated in the secularist ideology of the colonial present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Accumulation of Capital (1913), Rosa Luxemburg offers a sophisticated account of the foundational role of colonialism in the development and expansion of the capitalist world system. By interrogating the blind spots in Marx's account of capitalist political economy, Luxemburg emphasises the importance of 'non-capitalist strata and countries' in the production of surplus value. Crucial to Luxemburg's re-thinking of capitalist political economy, in other words, was the accumulation and dispossession of non-capitalist societies on the periphery of the world economy. Beginning with an assessment of Luxemburg's central thesis in The Accumulation of Capital, this article proceeds to suggest that Luxemburg's analysis of imperialism has important and far-reaching consequences for understanding contemporary formations of capital accumulation and debt colonialism in the postcolonial world. What's more, Luxemburg's reflections on primitive communism and the challenge this posed to the universalising historical narrative of bourgeois political economy offer an important counterpoint to the predominant conceptualisation of the world as an abstract space for the uneven and unequal circulation of capital and commodities. By reading Luxemburg's writings on primitive communism against the grain of her writings on imperialism and debt colonialism in The Accumulation of Capital, I suggest in conclusion that Luxemburg's writing offers a valuable contribution to contemporary accounts of the commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most striking legacies of the Subaltern Studies project has been the innovative methodologies and archives that it has mobilized to articulate the singular position of the subaltern outside the hegemonic terms of representation. Yet in its sweeping classification of non-hegemonic social groups and classes, Subaltern Studies has often tended to elide the precise economic determinants that define the subaltern as a class, and thereby foreclose the forms of agency that are available to people who occupy such singular positions of radical alterity that cannot be identified in hegemonic terms. Spivak’s deconstructive rethinking of the labour theory of value enables us to consider how the body of the gendered subaltern performs an important economic function in the contemporary global economy. But to what extent can such a theory account for the economic conditions of people dwelling in the slums and shantytowns of postcolonial cities, or what Michael Denning has aptly called the wageless life of the global poor? And how might we begin to address the gendered dynamics of wageless life? Through a reading of Abderrahmane Sissako’s filmBamako(2006), this essay considers how the film’s juxtaposition of a fictional courtroom narrative in which the World Bank is put on trial and the everyday lives of characters who populate the courtyard in which the courtroom is situated raise questions about the limitations of the law and civil society to alter the socio-economic conditions of wageless life. With reference to Gayatri Spivak’s reflections on the relationship between the subaltern and the economic policies of global financial institutions the essay suggests that the narrative structure andmise-en-scèneofBamakooffer a means of addressing the global economic conditions as well as the power relations that circumscribe the agency and voice of the subaltern. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Considerations of place and the local can help to shed light on the specific ways in which literature and culture have mediated the global process of accumulation and dispossession associated with the capitalist world-system. If social geography and world-systems analysis can help to map and historicize space and place in terms of a global history of capitalist expansion, literature can also help to make sense of how the unequal and uneven development of capitalist modernity is experienced, understood, and contested in specific locations. By situating the West Coast avant-garde poetics associated with the literary magazine Tish and the Kootenay School of Writing in relation to Vancouver's place in the changing global economic system, this essay considers how the local provides a provisional site for an anti-imperialist poetics that defamiliarizes global processes of capital accumulation and its economies of dispossession and exclusion. In so doing, it suggests that contemporary West Coast experimental writing can be read as a form of peripheral modernism that interrupts the uneven and unequal logic of capitalist modernity and invites readers to reflect on the historical forms of dispossession and exploitation associated with globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2000s, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (JCL) continued to provide a forum for the expansion, layering and critical self-examination of the transnational Anglophone literary/cultural and scholarly fields. During this period of expansion and growth JCL participated in the formation of an emergent postcolonial canon in which certain authors and texts have served to function as tropes for a certain idea of nations and regions in the postcolonial world. This article tracks those tendencies through a critical assessment of a range of exemplary essays, editorials, and surveys published in the journal during this decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect in the design of nanomaterials for delivery is an understanding of its uptake and ultimate release to the cytosol of target cells. Real-time chemical sensing using a nanoparticle-based platform affords exquisite insight into the trafficking of materials and their cargo into cells. This versatile and tunable technology provides a powerful tool to probe the mechanism of cellular entry and cytosolic delivery of a variety of materials, allowing for a simple and convenient means to screen materials towards efficient delivery of therapeutics such as nucleic acids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Translation of micelles from the laboratory to the clinic is limited by a poor understanding of their in vivo fate following administration. In this paper, we establish a robust approach to real-time monitoring of the in vivo stability of micelles using Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). This characterization method allows for exquisite insight into the fate of micellar constituents, affording the capabilities to rapidly and efficiently evaluate a library of synthetically derived micellar systems as new therapeutic platforms in vivo. FRET-enabled biological characterization further holds potential to tailor material systems being uniquely investigated across the delivery community towards the next generation of stable therapeutics for disease management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Layer-by-Layer (LbL) nanoparticles are an emerging class of therapeutic carriers that afford precise control over key design parameters that facilitate improved drug and carrier pharmacokinetics, and enhanced molecular-targeting capabilities. This paper advances the development of these systems by establishing them as drug carriers, with the means to control drug release in a systemic environment and retard particle clearance from circulation, promoting improved biodistribution of the drug-containing system. Using dual-fluorescent tracking in vivo, this work establishes a robust means of screening libraries of LbL systems generated, affording simultaneous resolution over persistence and biodistribution of both the drug and carrier following systemic administration of a single particle formulation. Employing a PLGA drug-containing core as a substrate for LbL deposition, a range of coated systems were fabricated to investigate the abilities of these films to stabilize drug for delivery as well as to improve the pharmacokinetics of both the drug and carrier. Significant reductions in liver accumulation were observed for different formulations of the layered architectures within the first 30 min of systemic circulation. LbL architectures diminished liver localization of the surrogate drug, cardiogreen, by 10–25% ID/g relative to native PLGA nanoparticles and modulated carrier accumulation in the liver >50% ID/g. Further, enhanced persistence of the drug was observed with the coated systems, significantly increasing the drug half-life from 2 to 3 min for free drug and 1.87 h for the uncoated core to 4.17 h and 4.54 h for the coated systems. These systems provide an exciting, modular platform that improves the pharmacokinetic properties of the therapeutic, reduces bolus release of drug from nanoparticles, and enhances the safety and circulation half-life of the drug in vivo, proving them to be highly clinically-relevant and a promising approach for future development of molecularly-targeted and combination therapeutics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the context of British colonial India in the early twentieth century, legal and literary narratives of sedition worked together – often in mutually reinforcing ways – to provide an important technique of power and control. In this respect, literary and legal representations of sedition as a form of criminality can tell us much about the relationship between the law and colonial governmentality. By tracing the ways in which India’s “revolutionary terrorists” were framed and criminalized in colonial novels of counter-insurgency, this essay suggests that a critical reading of the literary prose of counter-insurgency can raise important questions about the operation of colonial stereotypes and the limitations of colonial authority in legal narratives of counter-insurgency. It concludes with a brief assessment of the way in which transportation to the Cellular Jail at the Andaman Islands was figured as a form of punishment for anti-colonial resistance, and considers the significance of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s reflections on sedition in the context of colonial India. By returning to these records and narratives of colonial law and policing, and to narratives of anti-colonial insurgency, this essay suggests that there are parallels and continuities between colonial formations of counter-insurgency in early twentieth-century British India and techniques of counter-terrorism in the colonial present. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented regarding the views of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on aesthetic education. The author mentions his insights on western philosophical tradition, and in British colonial education policy in India. He also discusses the contents of the book "The Prison Notebooks," in subaltern's political and cultural movement, and Spivak's works on "The Postcolonial Criticism, Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues" on the British colonial sovereignty in education in India.

Hydrogen peroxide is a reactive oxygen species that is implicated in a number of neurological disease states and that selves a critical role in normal cell function. It is commonly exploited as a reporter molecule enabling the electrochemical detection of nonelectroactive molecules at electrodes modified with substrate-specific oxidative enzymes. We present the first voltainmetiic charactetization of rapid hydrogen peroxide fluctuations at an uncoated carbon fiber microelectrode, demonstrating unprecedented chemical and spatial resolution. The carbon surface was electrechemically conditioned on the anodic scan and the irreversible oxidation of peroxide was detected on the cathodic scan. The oxidation potential was dependent on scan rate, occurring at +1.2 VversusAg/AgCI at a scan rate of 400 Vs'. The relationship between peak oxidation current and concentration was linear across the physiological range tested, with deviation from linearity above 2 mM and a detection limit of 2 pM. Peroxide was distinguished from multiple inteiferents, both in vitro and in brain slices. The enzymatic degradation of peroxide was monitored, as was peroxide evolution in response to glucose at a glucose oxidase modified carbon fiber electrode. This novel approach provides the requisite sensitivity, selectivity, spatial and temporal resolution to study dynamic peroxide fluctuations in discrete biological locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses how diasporic writing has questioned claims of Canada's multicultural policies to recognize the history and culture of its diasporic citizens. A detailed reading of Roy Kiyooka's catalogue of poems and photographs, "StoneDGloves" is presented. Here, Kiyooka traces a history of race-labor in the Canadian nation's foundation and attempts to redress state policies of racial discrimination. The author suggests that texts like "StoneDGloves" and the novel "Salt Fish Girl" help in the formation of a diasporic counterpublic.

As a middle-class migrant writer, who is often associated with a western liberal ideology, and a secular Muslim, who was also the victim of the death sentence issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, Salman Rushdie occupies an ambivalent position in relation to the war on terror. But how is this ambivalent position registered in Shalimar the Clown, a novel that was published at the same time as Rushdie's call for a reformation of Islam? This article seeks to address this question by examining how Rushdie explodes the conventions of national allegory in Shalimar the Clown to represent the conflict in Kashmir, and its place in contemporary geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considers the artistic representation of sculptor-photographer Alia Hasan-Khan of the cultural, economic and geopolitical relationships between Pakistan and the U.S. Relation of Hasan-Khan's artworks to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City; Views of art theorist Miwon Kwon on the presence of site-specificity in artworks; Rhetorical characteristics of Hasan-Khan's artworks.

Annie Moore, the first immigrant to enter the USA through the Ellis island immigrant processing station, stands as an originary figure of the so-called golden age of European Immigration to the USA in the late nineteenth century. The contemporary archivization of the Irish immigrant Annie Moore in the Ellis Island Museum, New York and the Cobb Harbour Heritage Centre in County Cork, Ireland repeats the democratic rhetoric of immigration which underpins the foundation of the USA, as well as the national imaginary of Ireland. Yet in so doing, this archivization effaces the hierarchies of race and class that have historically underpinned the democratic rhetoric of immigration. With reference to Jacques Derrida's work on the archive and hospitality, this article expands on a performance-based critical art intervention into the archivization of Annie Moore entitled 'Calling Up Annie Moore'. Focusing on the blindspots, ellipses and discontinuities which the archive represses, the article traces the different histories and experiences of immigration which the art intervention disclosed. INSETS: Untitled;Untitled;Annie Moore (1887-1923). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how a double sense of commencement and legislation embedded in the word archive might be used to trace a different way of understanding the histories of Irish immigration and the moment of arrival in the so-called New World. After a chance encounter with the bronze portrait sculpture of Annie Moore, who was the first immigrant processed through the Ellis Island Immigration Station in New Jersey and New York, when it opened in 1892, a project was initially developed to trace some of the buried histories of immigration to the U.S. Extensive research into the life of Moore turned up archival documents, guidebooks, commemorative plaques and photo captions that endlessly restated the same facts of her arrival. The figure of Moore disappeared in a series of dead ends, gaps and ellipses within an archive that represents an Irish immigrant woman as an exemplary U.S. citizen. The tautological structure of the archive reinforces a systematic amnesia of the social and historical conditions that led to the arrival and eventual assimilation of Moore. Using several methods to call up Annie Moore, the radical discontinuities between early immigrant histories and the social conditions of non-European immigrants dwelling in the contemporary U.S. and Ireland have been traced.

This article examines Hardt and Negri's claim in Empire (2002) that the horizontal articulation of local social movements is anachronistic and therefore untenable. Starting with a discussion of what Hardt and Negri mean by the multitude, the article proceeds to examine how the vocabularies of proletarian internationalism are rethought as missed opportunities in the work of Slavoj Žižek and Robert Young. In response to this rethinking, the article considers whether Hardt and Negri's tendency to valorize mobile migrant labour as having a particularly powerful potential for political resistance in the smoothed spaces of global capitalism effectively (although perhaps not intentionally) constitutes the spectre of migrant labour as a coherent political subject in the multitude's struggle against 'Empire'. Focusing on David Riker's portrayal of the struggles of Latin immigrant workers in New York City in the film La Ciudad (1999), and the limitations of the anti-sweatshop movement, the article finally argues that the future potential of the multitude lies in the strategy of repeating and re-articulating the missed opportunities of proletarian internationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced staged high‐grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is the leading cause of gynecological cancer death in the developed world, with 5‐year survival rates of only 25–30% due to late‐stage diagnosis and the shortcomings of platinum‐based therapies. A Phase I clinical trial of a combination of free cisplatin and poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPis) showed therapeutic benefit for HGSOC. In this study, we address the challenge of resistance to platinum‐based therapy by developing a targeted delivery approach. Novel electrostatic layer‐by‐layer (LbL) liposomal nanoparticles (NPs) with a terminal hyaluronic acid layer that facilitates CD44 receptor targeting are designed for selective targeting of HGSOC cells; the liposomes can be formulated to contain both cisplatin and the PARPi drug within the liposomal core and bilayer. The therapeutic effectiveness of LbL NP‐encapsulated cisplatin and PARPi alone and in combination was compared with the corresponding free drugs in luciferase and CD44‐expressing OVCAR8 orthotopic xenografts in female nude mice. The NPs exhibited prolonged blood circulation half‐life, mechanistic staged drug release and targeted codelivery of the therapeutic agents to HGSOC cells. Moreover, compared to the free drugs, the NPs resulted in significantly reduced tumor metastasis, extended survival, and moderated systemic toxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including time of Umuaro from novel, "Arrow of God" by Chinua Achebe; canonical status of Chinua Achebe's realism; and the relationship between the fiction of Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Bird assemblages in arid Australia are often characterized as being highly variable through time in response to boom and bust dynamics, although the importance of habitat in structuring assemblages at a local‐scale is also recognized. We use a novel approach to investigate the importance of rainfall variability in structuring bird assemblages in a resource‐limited environment. Monthly bird surveys were conducted at ten plots for 8 years at a botanical and zoological park in central Australia, including five irrigated plots within a fenced area and five natural plots outside. Irrigation—used to promote growth, flowering, and fruiting of plants—created an artificial resource‐enhanced environment against which the response of birds to natural fluctuations in season and rainfall were compared. Species richness was generally maintained at a higher level in resource‐enhanced plots during dry times but was higher in natural plots when rainfall was high, mainly due to increases in granivores and insectivores. Honeyeaters were consistently more abundant at irrigated plots. Rainfall was important in structuring bird assemblages at all plots; however, assemblages were more stable in irrigated plots and did not respond as dramatically to a period of very high rainfall. The comparative smoothing of fluctuations in the composition and abundance of birds in irrigated areas highlights the importance of primary productivity, normally tied to rainfall, in driving temporal change in arid‐zone bird communities. There was also evidence that different plots in differing habitats supported distinct bird assemblages and that this spatial distinctiveness persisted irrespective of rainfall and determined, to some extent, the response to rainfall. Our study is one of few long‐term studies of arid bird assemblages and highlights the importance of both long‐term cycles of productivity driven by rain and season as well as site differences in the dynamics of arid‐zone bird communities. These insights are particularly valuable as climate change further exacerbates rainfall variability worldwide and initiatives to conserve avifauna in increasingly extreme environments may be required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

River red gum woodlands associated with ephemeral river channels in arid Australia are recognised as important habitat for a suite of bird species, due to their distinctive structure, large canopies and abundant tree hollows. We tested the proposition that river red gum woodlands harbour a distinctive bird assemblage that is relatively stable through time. We examined patterns of bird composition between habitats (riparian woodland versus neighbouring habitat) over multiple years (from 2016 to 2018) and locations (three catchments), and we assessed these patterns in the context of variable food resource availability. Assemblages in river red gum woodlands differed from those of adjacent vegetation, despite strong temporal variability caused by arrival of nomadic species in both habitat types following above‐average rainfall. Species richness was reduced in the drier periods, yet bird assemblages in river red gum woodlands retained their distinctiveness from adjacent habitat. Flowering and fruiting of shrubs and trees were largely stimulated by rainfall; in contrast, invertebrate abundance was driven more by temperature and was higher in river red gum woodlands. Our data did not imply that river red gum woodland acted as a refuge in drier times for species from neighbouring habitat. Our study supports the hypothesis that arid bird community composition is influenced more by habitat than by temporal resource variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a letter to the editor about the beauty of science.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the authors cite essays on and inspired by the work of political philosopher Hannah Arendt, including one by Dan Stone on the reasons for the revival of interest in Arendt's work in the new field of genocide studies, another by Simon Swift on Arendt's study of Adolf Eichmann and her representation of the fascist's weakness in character in relation to the literature and theory of affects, and another by Rei Terada on Arendt's low estimation of household and society in "The Human Condition."

Examines an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis associated with drinking water in Lancashire, England during March 2000. Rates of the attack for cryptosporidiosis; Facts on the environmental investigations on the water supply; Measures to control the outbreak of cryptosporidiosis.

Background Forty-three out of 53 of the WHO European Member States have set up political and institutional mechanisms to implement the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This includes governance and institutional mechanisms, engaging stakeholders, identifying targets and indicators, setting governmental and sectoral priorities for action and reporting progress regularly. Still, growing evidence suggests that there is room for advancing implementation of some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets at a higher pace in the WHO European Region. This article proposes the E4A approach to support WHO European Member States in their efforts to achieve the health-related SDG targets. Methods The E4A approach was developed through a 2-year, multi-stage process, starting with the endorsement of the SDG Roadmap by all WHO European Member States in 2017. This approach resulted from a mix of qualitative methods: a semi-structured desk review of existing committal documents and tools; in-country policy dialogs, interviews and reports; joint UN missions and discussion among multi-lateral organizations; consultation with an advisory group of academics and health policy experts across countries. Results The E—engage—functions as the driver and pace-maker; the 4 As—assess, align, accelerate and account—serve as building blocks composed of policies, processes, activities and interventions operating in continuous and synchronized action. Each of the building blocks is an essential part of the approach that can be applied across geographic and institutional levels. Conclusion While the E4A approach is being finalized, this article aims to generate debate and input to further refine and test this approach from a public health and user perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Up to 37 species of the birds and microbats inhabiting inland Australia are dependent on tree cavities for breeding or roosting. The river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), a well‐known hollow‐bearing tree species, occurs in linear semi‐arid woodland along thousands of kilometres of ephemeral river channels and is the only tree species that provides widespread, aggregated hollow resources across a landscape otherwise dominated by shrublands. Here we assess the type and quantity of hollows available along ephemeral rivers of the MacDonnell Ranges bioregion in central Australia and determine which characteristics of river red gums best predict the abundance and characteristics of different tree hollows, as first steps towards assessing the current availability of hollows in the region. Approximately a third of all river red gums sampled were hollow‐bearing, but individual trees with abundant hollows were rare. Further, 36% of hollows had an entrance ≤ 5 cm, and 37% had entrances which were 6–10 cm in diameter, whereas only 13% of hollows had an entrance diameter > 20 cm suitable for larger hollow‐using species. Large and high hollows only occurred on trees that did not display post‐disturbance resprouting. Trees with multiple and diverse hollows were rare and tended to be in advanced stages of senescence and had larger stems (82.3 ± 3.33 cm) and were taller (14.4 ± 0.53 m) compared to non‐hollow‐bearing trees (23.44 ± 1.68 cm, 8.0 ± 0.34 m). Further research is required to establish whether the current abundance of hollows and diversity of hollow types are limiting to cavity‐dependent wildlife, and to identify any threats to availability of hollows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We report a widespread foodborne outbreak of Cryptosporidium parvum in England and Scotland in May 2012. Cases were more common in female adults, and had no history of foreign travel. Over 300 excess cases were identified during the period of the outbreak. Speciation and microbiological typing revealed the outbreak strain to be C. parvum gp60 subtype IIaA15G2R1. Methods: Hypothesis generation questionnaires were administered and an unmatched case control study was undertaken to test the hypotheses raised. Cases and controls were interviewed by telephone. Controls were selected using sequential digit dialling. Information was gathered on demographics, foods consumed and retailers where foods were purchased. Results: Seventy-four laboratory confirmed cases and 74 controls were included in analyses. Infection was found to be strongly associated with the consumption of pre-cut mixed salad leaves sold by a single retailer. This is the largest documented outbreak of cryptosporidiosis attributed to a food vehicle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synthesis of polymer therapeutics capable of controlled loading and synchronized release of multiple therapeutic agents remains a formidable challenge in drug delivery and synthetic polymer chemistry. Herein, we report the synthesis of polymer nanoparticles (NPs) that carry precise molar ratios of doxorubicin, camptothecin, and cisplatin. To our knowledge, this work provides the first example of orthogonally triggered release of three drugs from single NPs. The highly convergent synthetic approach opens the door to new NP-based combination therapies for cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background/objectives: Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is among the most commonly performed heart surgical procedures. Saphenous vein graft failure due to stenosis impedes the longer-term success of CABG. A key cellular event in the process of vein graft stenosis is smooth muscle cell hyperplasia. In this study, we evaluated the effect of a DNAzyme (Dz13) targeting the transcription factor c-Jun in a rabbit model of vein graft stenosis in a cationic liposomal formulation containing 1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium propane (DOTAP)/1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DOPE). Dz13 in DOTAP/DOPE has undergone preclinical toxicological testing, and a Phase I clinical trial we recently conducted in basal cell carcinoma cancer patients demonstrates that it is safe and well tolerated after local administration. Methods: Effects of Dz13 in a formulation containing DOTAP/DOPE on smooth muscle cell (SMC) growth and c-Jun expression were assessed. Dz13 transfection was determined by cellular uptake of carboxyfluorescein-labeled Dz13. Autologous jugular vein to carotid artery transplantation was performed in New Zealand White rabbits to investigate the effect of the Dz13 in DOTAP/DOPE formulation on intimal hyperplasia. Results: Dz13/DOTAP/DOPE reduced SMC proliferation and c-Jun protein expression in vitro compared with an impotent form of Dz13 bearing a point mutation in its catalytic domain (Dz13.G>C). The Dz13(500μg)/DOTAP/DOPE formed lipoplexes that were colloidally stable for up to 1h on ice (0°C) and 30min at 37°C, allowing sufficient uptake by the veins. Dz13 (500μg) inhibited neointima formation 28d after end-to-side transplantation. Conclusions: This formulation applied to veins prior to transplantation may potentially be useful in efforts to reduce graft failure. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background The nuclear transcription factor c-Jun is preferentially expressed in basal-cell carcinoma. Dz13 is a deoxyribozyme that targets JUN messenger RNA and has inhibited the growth of a range of tumours in mice. We did a phase 1 study to assess safety and tolerability in human beings. Methods Adults with nodular basal-cell carcinoma were recruited from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia, between September, 2010, and October, 2011. Patients were assigned to receive one intratumoral injected dose of 10, 30, or 100 pg Dz13, in a 50 μL volume of lipid carder, and were assessed for adverse effects in the first 24 h then at 7, 14, and 28 days after injection. Treated tumours were surgically excised 14 days after injection and compared with the baseline biopsy samples for expression of c-Jun and tumorigenesis markers. Findings Nine patients were recruited, of whom three received each dose of Dz13. All patients completed the study with no drug-related serious adverse events. No systemic Dz13 exposure was detected, c-Jun expression was reduced in the excised tumours of all nine (100%) patients, compared with baseline, and histological tumour depth had decreased in five (56%) of nine. Proportions of cells positive for caspases 3, 8, and 9 and P53 were increased, but those of cells positive for Bd-2 and MMP-9 were decreased. Infiltration by inflammatory and immune cells was stimulated. Interpretation Dz13 was safe and well tolerated after single intratumoral injections at all doses. Funding Cancer Institute NSW, Cancer Council Australia, and National Health and Medical Research Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper uses 85 semistructured interviews with people with type 2 diabetes, and with the health professionals who deliver their diabetes care, to explore the issues that they perceive as central to effective management of diabetes, primarily within a primary care setting. Attention is especially focused on the nature of the patient–practitioner relationship, and on the implications of this for patient empowerment and the effective self-management of diabetes. The paper is organized around five key concepts identified in the qualitative analysis: the importance of having sufficient time for consultations, the significance of continuity of care through a named individual, the need for patients to have an opportunity to ask questions during a consultation, the extent to which patients feel that they are listened to by health professionals, and the variability of each patient’s individual experience of living with diabetes. In conclusion, these themes are briefly related to key issues in the geography of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• siRNA nanovehicles were micronized using supercritical CO 2 -assisted spray drying. • The siRNA integrity was preserved through the micronization process. • The ultrafine dry powders showed aerodynamic diameters of 3.5 μm and FPF above 40% • The micronized siRNA powders achieved 90% of silencing for the mutant KRAS gene. • Alveolar in vivo biodistribution was achieved in healthy mice following inhalation. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapy has significant potential for the treatment of myriad diseases, including cancer. While intravenous routes of delivery have been found to be effective for efficient targeting to the liver, achieving high accumulations selectively in other organs, including lung tissues, can be a challenge. We demonstrate the rational design and engineering of a layer-by-layer (LbL) nanoparticle-containing aerosol that is able to achieve efficient, multistage delivery of siRNA in vitro. For the purpose, LbL nanoparticles were, for the first time, encapsulated in composite porous micro scale particles using a supercritical CO2-assisted spray drying (SASD) apparatus using chitosan as an excipient. Such particles exhibited aerodynamic properties highly favorable for pulmonary administration, and effective silencing of mutant KRAS in lung cancer cells derived from tumors of a non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) autochthonous model. Furthermore, efficient alveolar accumulation following inhalation in healthy mice was also observed, corroborating in vitro aerodynamic results, and opening new perspectives for further studies of effective lung therapies These results show that multistage aerosols assembled by supercritical CO 2 -assisted spray drying can enable efficient RNA interference therapy of pulmonary diseases including lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]