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In this paper, I analyse the campaign communications of three of the four major parties who contested the 2013 Australian federal elections: the Australian Labor Party (Labor), and the conservative Coalition consisting of the Liberal Party of Australia (the Liberals) and the National Party of Australia (The Nationals). I pay special attention to the message and image strategies of the leaders of Labor and the Coalition, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. I discuss campaign slogans in four overlapping debates, which, at least for Labor, were critical to the election result: (1) the carbon tax, (2) asylum seekers, (3) party reform, and (4) economic management. I arrive at three major conclusions. First, the 2013 elections narrowed the bipartisan language and thinking in which the differences between the rivals, except perhaps on carbon pricing, were fewer than they wanted the voters to believe. Second, the language of electioneering moved from long-term policies in the plural to short-term politics in the singular. And, third, the increasingly irrational discourse of the election period has not dissolved, but rather hardened following the election of the new Abbott government. Today it is affecting many areas of political life, including those that were not contested subjects in 2013, such as international, regional and interethnic relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children Out of Detention, or ChilOut, is one of the most successful advocates against the Australian federal government's policy of mandatory detention from 2001 to 2005. In this paper, I analyse its most successful strategies and tactics, such as positioning in the market as 'Middle Australians' issue preferences reframing, and 'reality kids' versus ideology codes. In the conclusion, I use the theory of media capital to draft a communication strategy for nonprofit organisations. I highlight the volunteers' qualification as a source to subsidise news. Wherever possible, advocacy groups have to shift from interest-centred to issue-centred messages. They also have to realise the rising importance of activists as mediums. To position themselves better in the political marketplace, advocacy organisations have to consider the choice between message reinforcement and reframing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To determine if novel measures of cardiovascular health are associated with prevalence or progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD)., Methods: Measures of the cardiovascular system: included intima media thickness (IMT), pulse wave velocity (PWV), systemic arterial compliance (SAC), carotid augmentation index (AI). For the prevalence study, hospital-based AMD cases and population-based age- and gender-matched controls with no signs of AMD in either eye were enrolled. For the progression component, participants with early AMD were recruited from two previous studies; cases were defined as progression in one or both eyes and controls were defined as no progression in either eye., Results: 160 cases and 160 controls were included in the prevalence component. The upper two quartiles of SAC, implying good cardiovascular health, were significantly associated with increased risk of AMD (OR = 2.54, 95% CL = 1.29, 4.99). High PWV was associated with increased prevalent AMD. Progression was observed in 82 (32.3%) of the 254 subjects recruited for the progression component. Higher AI (worse cardiovascular function) was protective for AMD progression (OR = 0.30, 95%CL = 0.13, 0.69). Higher aortic PWV was associated with increased risk of AMD progression; the highest risk was seen with the second lowest velocity (OR = 6.22, 95% CL = 2.35, 16.46)., Conclusion: The results were unexpected in that better cardiovascular health was associated with increased risk of prevalent AMD and progression. Inconsistent findings between the prevalence and progression components could be due to truly different disease etiologies or to spurious findings, as can occur with inherent biases in case control studies of prevalence. Further investigation of these non-invasive methods of characterizing the cardiovascular system should be undertaken as they may help to further elucidate the role of the cardiovascular system in the etiology of prevalent AMD and progression.