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OBJECTIVE: The goal was to promote early diagnosis and referral of patients with depressive symptomology in the primary care setting using a biopsychosocial-informed risk stratification tool to prevent suicides. METHODS: A qualitative analysis of military suicides stationed at Fort Eustis, Virginia, using demographics from Fatality Review Boards (FRBs) of 10 cases assessing shared biopsychosocial stressors was conducted. The case reviews were used to assess the failure modes and effects analyses (FMEA), prompting the development of a performance improvement (PI) plan via a risk stratification scale that recognizes opportunities for intervention in the primary care and supervisor/peer settings to improve patient outcomes. RESULTS: FMEA revealed the presence and interplay of multiple biopsychosocial stressors specifically impacting relationships, occupational functioning, financial status, legal issues, and undiagnosed mental health conditions across the 10 suicides reviewed. Furthermore, the severity of each stressor was best examined from a dimensional perspective to gauge the impact on or impairment of the individual in the military setting. The dimensional use of biopsychosocial stressors is congruent with our hypothesis that an increase in duration and intensity of biopsychosocial stressors increases risk of suicide. CONCLUSION: This case series reveals a gap in suicide assessment and suggests the use of a dimensional approach to measure biopsychosocial stressors at the entry level, such as primary care settings, or in the case of the military, during routine counseling. Additionally, a risk stratification tool that crosses biopsychosocial domains could provide a more accurate assessment for self-harm, in turn enabling a timely referral to appropriate helping agencies, including nonclinical resources.

We describe a means of co-evolving parameters for procedural animation generation. Several experiments were completed in order to find an aesthetically pleasing animation mechanism, which could be modulated by music and have its parameters evolved over time. The selected music visualization is a set of vector fields for the purpose of moving particles whose paths create visual interest. To cause emergence of pleasing patterns in particle behaviour, several metrics were incorporated into the fitness function. To reflect the spatial characteristics of the vector fields a crossover operator was developed. The most critical aspect in creating a vector field which animates particle paths over time is that the vector field not allow the particles to become static or too tightly clustered, as either indicates the particles will no longer be circulating in interesting ways. We are interested in encouraging certain behaviours of the particles without doing so explicitly so that a local interaction approach allow for many aesthetically pleasing solutions to be reached, and rendered. This complex systems approach continues to work as interesting patterns emerge. We provide several examples with later generations creating more aesthetically complex renderings. Comparative visual aesthetics as a measure of such visual refinement is introduced. If pleasing patterns can be made implicitly with the vector fields in this specific audio-visual composition, it stands to reason that parameters for other visualizations may be evolved as well and this work serves as an argument for computer assisted comparative aesthetic refinement.

Growing evidence describes the global extent of human-induced environmental degradation. The Australian continent has suffered considerably, more so following European settlement just 200 years ago. Large expanses of the landmass have been cleared of native vegetation, animal habitats have been lost, soils degraded and waterways clogged with sediments and overloaded with nutrients from domestic, agricultural and industrial runoff. Despite being subjected to exploitation longer than any other Australian catchment, the Hawkesbury-Nepean contains significant areas which, due to their geography, represent remnants of near pre-contact landscapes. Whilst it is understood these ecosystems are worthy of preservation, little quantitative knowledge has been collected from them. Current management strategies have only been recently co-ordinated, and they are based on little scientific knowledge. This is of some concern given an increase in urban, agricultural, industrial and recreational pressures within the catchment today. This study aims to improve the management of ecosystems in the lower Hawkesbury River valley, by collecting quantitative information, to ensure the area's sustainability. The project concentrates on Mill Creek, a tributary of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, located 70 km north west of Sydney. During the late Holcene this area was inhabited by small numbers of Aboriginal people who utilised simple technologies to exploit terrestrial and aquatic resources. With European settlement, Aboriginal land management practices were disrupted. Broad-scale removal and alteration of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems ensued. Today this catchment forms part of Dharug National Park, yet it is influenced by land degradation and declining water quality in the greater Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment.