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Background:The scale of the 2022 global mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) outbreak has been unprecedented. In less than 6 months, non-endemic countries have reported more than 67 000 cases of a disease that had previously been rare outside of Africa. Mortality has been reported as rare but hospital admission has been relatively common. We aimed to describe the clinical and laboratory characteristics and outcomes of individuals admitted to hospital with mpox and associated complications, including tecovirimat recipients. Methods:In this cohort study, we undertook retrospective review of electronic clinical records and pathology data for all individuals admitted between May 6, and Aug 3, 2022, to 16 hospitals from the Specialist and High Consequence Infectious Diseases Network for Monkeypox. The hospitals were located in ten cities in England and Northern Ireland. Inclusion criteria were clinical signs consistent with mpox and MPXV DNA detected from at least one clinical sample by PCR testing. Patients admitted solely for isolation purposes were excluded from the study. Key outcomes included admission indication, complications (including pain, secondary infection, and mortality) and use of antibiotic and anti-viral treatments. Routine biochemistry, haematology, microbiology, and virology data were also collected. Outcomes were assessed in all patients with available data. Findings:156 individuals were admitted to hospital with complicated mpox during the study period. 153 (98%) were male and three (2%) were female, with a median age of 35 years (IQR 30–44). Gender data were collected from electronic patient records, which encompassed full formal review of clincian notes. The prespecified options for data collection for gender were male, female, trans, non-binary, or unknown. 105 (71%) of 148 participants with available ethnicity data were of White ethnicity and 47 (30%) of 155 were living with HIV with a median CD4 count of 510 cells per mm3(IQR 349–828). Rectal or perianal pain (including proctitis) was the most common indication for hospital admission (44 [28%] of 156). Severe pain was reported in 89 (57%) of 156, and secondary bacterial infection in 82 (58%) of 142 individuals with available data. Median admission duration was 5 days (IQR 2–9). Ten individuals required surgery and two cases of encephalitis were reported. 38 (24%) of the 156 individuals received tecovirimat with early cessation in four cases (two owing to hepatic transaminitis, one to rapid treatment response, and one to patient choice). No deaths occurred during the study period. Interpretation:Although life-threatening mpox appears rare in hospitalised populations during the current outbreak, severe mpox and associated complications can occur in immunocompetent individuals. Analgesia and management of superimposed bacterial infection are priorities for patients admitted to hospital.

Clinical practice-based training/work-integrated learning is an applied, social, and high-impact element of the veterinary curriculum. Within this context, students are learning on the job with clinician–educators who are carrying out their professional duties at the same time as supporting learning. To equip clinician–educators with role awareness and general teaching skills, it is recommended that all have access to basic teacher training. However, delivering this training can be challenging to organize and potentially costly when busy, time-poor clinician–educators are distributed across many geographical locations. This Teaching Tip shares our insights about developing and delivering a set of novel clinical teacher resources for veterinarians and veterinary nurses/technologists new to clinical teaching. The resources, underpinned by the principles of participatory design, integrate contemporary clinical educational theories with practical strategies and are interwoven with video clips capturing staff and student perspectives on key topics. While initially focused on creating just an online resource, we ultimately produced an A6 ring-bound booklet version and face-to-face workshops. In this article, we unpack considerations involved in committing to such a project and designing and creating the resources. We hope that this information may be of use to others when developing similar resources.

Background The objective of this review was to collate, summarise and report evidence on the use of VR as an interventional tool for pain and anxiety management during ED procedures. Methods Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) we searched Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus and PsychInfo databases, grey literature and reference lists of included studies. Results From 162 articles, 4 fulfilled the selection criteria and demonstrated VR was effective as an intervention for management of pain and anxiety during ED procedures. The level of evidence was variable: 2 randomised controlled trials (RCT); a descriptive study; and a commentary on a literature review. Participants were aged 4–17 years and the sample sizes were small (n = 20, 59, 64). One RCT compared efficacy of VR to 2 other standard of care (SOC) distractors while the other RCT assessed for VR efficacy and safety. All four articles cited benefits of VR distraction as a procedural intervention in ED. Conclusions A small number of studies involving children undergoing needle insertion in ED found VR to be a safe and effective means of managing procedural anxiety, providing a more effective strategy than standard care. Studies with larger samples, involving different procedures and across age groups are required.

Introduction Military personnel and veterans can have higher rates of mental health problems than the general population, but are no more likely to receive appropriate mental health care. A lack of experience among Australia’s mental health workforce in treating veteran-specific issues has been identified, pointing to a need for strategies to strengthen the workforce capacity. To this end, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs joined with the Mental Health Professionals Network (MHPN) to produce and deliver a series of veteran-specific webinars for health professionals working with military personnel, veterans and their families. Materials and Method Five webinars were produced and delivered between August 2016 and July 2017. Each involved a panel of health professionals with content expertise and was facilitated by a nationally recognized expert in veteran mental health. Each webinar was evaluated using an online survey to address whether learning needs were achieved, likely improvements to work practice, and improvements in knowledge of and confidence in treating veteran mental health issues. Results Of the 5,127 attendees across the five webinars, registration data was collected for 4,809 (94%) and post-webinar data for 3,334 (70%) of registrants. Of these, over 90% indicated that their learning objectives were achieved, that the content was relevant to their practice, and that their work practices would be improved as a result of their participation. Further, almost three quarters reported increased knowledge and skills, and two-thirds increased confidence in treating veterans’ mental health needs. Conclusions The Veterans’ webinar series was effective in engaging a large number and a wide range of professionals working in mental health care in Australia, underscoring the strength of MHPN’s initiatives in terms of scale and reach. With its emphasis on interdisciplinary practice and collaborative care, MHPN is well-placed to continue to support Australia’s mental health workforce.

Extensive research in the business and organisational literature links teamwork to enhanced productivity and employee job satisfaction. Good teamwork capability is also a highly regarded graduate attribute linked to employability. This study explored desirable teamwork attributes for veterinary technology graduates in Australia, by surveying veterinarians, veterinary technology graduates, veterinary nurses, clients and academics. Respondents highlighted the importance of seven attributes sourced from the cross-disciplinary teamwork literature-'flexibility' (in approach to work), 'agreeableness', being 'cooperative', 'socially sensitive and perceptive', 'conscientiousness', being 'accepting of others' and 'sharing professional values'. The majority in each stakeholder group viewed all attributes important for teamwork concurring with findings in other fields. Few differences were found between and within groups with veterinarians and academics rating 'conscientiousness' higher than others and female clients placing more importance on relational attributes compared to male clients. Thematic analysis of an open-ended item asking the veterinary health care groups, and veterinary academics, to define teamwork generated nine themes centred on: collaboration, goals and outcomes, sharing values, relationships, diversity, communication, task-orientation, personal attributes, and workplace culture. This study illuminates an interprofessional perspective on veterinary teamwork. Results will be useful for veterinary technology, veterinary nursing and veterinary educators when developing a curriculum for interprofessional teamwork to enhance team performance, employability and, ultimately, the quality of veterinary services.

As a public funder of health research, the Health Research Board (HRB) Ireland has an obligation to manage its funds well and to maximise the value of the research that it funds. Ways in which research funding can be wasted have been examined by researchers over the years, and a seminal series on research waste was published in the Lancet in 2014. The series systematically analysed every step of the funding lifecycle in five major stages and made recommendations to various actors including research funders. Prompted by its participation in the Ensuring Value in Research Funders’ Forum, between June and October 2019 the HRB undertook a self-audit against the 17 recommendations and 35 sub-recommendations identified in the Lancet series. Key HRB staff collated relevant policies and practices regarding each recommendation and sub-recommendation and assessed the HRB’s performance under each heading. The self-assessment reflects the state of HRB policies and practices in October 2019. Of the 17 recommendations, two were found not to apply to the HRB. Of the remaining 15 recommendations covering 33 sub-recommendations, five were found to be areas of strength and six were found to be areas of partial strength. These 11 recommendations encompass 22 sub-recommendations. Areas of strength reflect work over many years such as support for evidence synthesis, strong processes around award selection, driving research integrity and open data including an HRB-funded open publishing platform. Four recommendations were found to be areas for growth. These mostly revolve around real time reporting of study protocols and of ongoing funded research outside of clinical trials. Work is progressing to address some of these areas.

A literature review plus reference to case studies will form the basis of the chapter ent and modern racism?

In Australia, the inception of veterinary technology, as a higher education discipline underpinning an emerging, mid-tier paraveterinary field, reflected global trends for more highly educated veterinary paraprofessionals to meet changing societal demands. In this study, veterinary technology graduates were surveyed about their experiences in the workforce and reflections on their education. Seeking feedback on how well a new programme has prepared graduates for the workforce is a useful quality assurance tool. Clinical veterinary practice was the primary employment sector with the majority of respondents in full-time employment. Career advancement, professional recognition and salaries were identified as key career challenges. The important roles of the veterinary and veterinary nursing professions, the university, government and graduates in the development of this mid-tier, veterinary paraprofession were elucidated. Graduates’ feedback on criteria that underpinned ‘work-readiness’ revealed seven key domains: communication skills, research skills, knowledge, critical thinking/problem-solving, employability, practical skills and professionalism. Veterinary nursing skills, work placement, practice management and production animal health were flagged as areas for curricular improvement. This study illuminated facilitators and barriers critical to establishing a mid-tier veterinary paraprofession, bridging the divide between the vocational and higher education sectors in Australia. Abbreviations: AUD: Australian dollar; AVA: Australian Veterinary Association; AVBC: Australasian Veterinary Boards Council; AVMA: American Veterinary Medical Association; BVNA: British Veterinary Nursing Association; CSU: Charles Sturt University; DAF: Department of Agriculture and Fisheries; FWC: Fair Work Commission; GCA: Graduate Careers Australia; HE: Higher Education; NHMRC: National Health and Medical Research Council; QLD: Queensland; RCVS: Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons; UK: United Kingdom; UQ: University of Queensland; VN: Veterinary nursing; VNCA: Veterinary Nurses Council of Australia; VSB: Veterinary Surgeons Board; VT: Veterinary technology; WIL: Work-integrated learning.

This article documents, for a neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, India, what would be involved for current occupants to regularise tenure and register legal title. We show that the process of clearing title can be expensive, fraught with risks and perhaps impossible to complete for either the current occupants or the owners of record. Staying on the land in their current ambiguous status seems viable for now, but investing in further development is very risky. We discuss these findings in the context of the debate about providing secure tenure to slum dwellers from two perspectives: (a) the practicality of providing legal tenure as part of neighbourhood upgrading programmes; (b) the impacts on the real estate market of a system that leaves many private plots, in slums or elsewhere, in legal limbo and difficult to develop—in essence an anti-commons. Both issues are of critical interest as India faces the challenge of urbanisation. JEL: R310, O170

In Australasia, veterinary technology is a nascent, higher education discipline linked to an emergentparaprofession with graduates occupying a niche positioned between the veterinary sciencegraduate and the vocationally qualified veterinary nurse. Because of the discipline’s fledgling statusin academia, there is currently a paucity of literature to provide a framework within which toconsider its curriculum and pedagogy.The overarching aims of this thesis were to document the emergence of veterinary technology, andto report on and evaluate a framework for a curriculum and pedagogy underpinning its developmentas a paraprofession. A series of five studies were based on The University of Queensland’sbachelor’s degree from 2003 to 2010. The studies centred on developing a curriculum andpedagogical framework for ‘knowing’ (academisation), ‘doing’(vocationalism) and ways of ‘being’,that would prepare graduates for an emergent field in a world of uncertainty. Market influences andemployability were also important considerations. All studies were enriched with the researcher’sautoethnographic reflections. Study 1 documented the genesis of veterinary technology through across-sectional survey of the demographics and employment destinations of the first three graduatecohorts (2003-2005) (n = 69). This study gauged the success and scope of graduate employmentand placed it in a global context.Informed by Study 1, Study 2 focused on the pivotal task of academising the curriculum of a non-traditional higher education discipline. A pedagogical intervention was designed to engage studentsin the process of academic knowledge production, a form of ‘knowing’, for an emerging profession.Students worked in small groups to research and write scientific case reports linked to their clinicalpracticum—learning how to produce legitimate disciplinary knowledge. Concomitantly, studentswere professionalised through a pedagogy for ‘doing’ critical thinking, reflective practice andteamwork, and empowering them to publish after graduation.Study 3 involved mixed methods research exploring veterinary clients’ (n = 98) perceptions ofpersonal attributes and technical skills for graduates working in veterinary practices, the primaryemployment sector. The study examined the importance clients placed on emotional intelligence(personal) attributes, or graduates’ ways of ‘being’, in their clinical interactions. Findings revealedthat the graduates’ emotionality, self-control and self-motivation mattered to clients. However,hierarchical cluster analysis revealed groups of clients who differed in the emphasis they placed onemotional intelligence and technical skills thus having implications for developing a curriculum andpedagogy about veterinary technologists’ ways of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ to meet client needs.In Study 4, five stakeholder groups (veterinarians, veterinary technology graduates, veterinarynurses, clients and academics) evaluated the importance of personal attributes for graduatesworking in veterinary health care teams. Although all attributes studied were viewed as important,differences in emphasis were found between and within groups, such as veterinarians andacademics rating ’conscientiousness’ significantly higher than other groups. Thematic analysis ofveterinary health care team members’ and academics’ (n = 140) perspectives on teamworkgenerated nine themes integral to veterinary interprofessional teamwork including a more ‘fine-grained’ account of personal attributes in teamwork. Results highlighted important considerationswhen designing a curriculum to enhance graduates’ ‘being’ effective in teamwork, a core skill forgraduate employability.Study 5 provided a ‘stop, check and review’ for the veterinary technology programme andcurriculum. A timely impetus for a major curriculum review was provided by the relocation of theSchool of Veterinary Science in 2010 to the rural Gatton campus, with new ‘state-of the-art’facilities, and an opportunity to enhance the ‘doing’ dimension of curriculum via a dualqualification with the national vocational veterinary nursing certificate. This study gatheredgraduate (2003-2010) (n = 50) feedback via an online survey investigating their long-termexperiences in the workforce and reflections on their education. Graduates identified facilitators andbarriers to their success; key challenges recognised were lack of career advancement, poorrecognition by the veterinary and veterinary nursing professional bodies, and low salaries in clinicalpractice. The graduate voice emphasised the pivotal roles of professional bodies, the university,government, and graduates themselves in advancing veterinary technology through legislation,implementation of an employment award, and national registration. Importantly, graduates alsoprovided insights into their ‘work-readiness’, highlighting the need for additional emphasis on‘doing’, or vocationalism, in curriculum.This research makes a substantial contribution to the growing body of literature on veterinarytechnology in Australasia and other countries. It documents the discipline’s inception in Australianhigher education and highlights the importance of curricular and pedagogical initiatives essential tograduates of an emerging profession in a rapidly changing veterinary landscape. Strategies to meetstakeholder expectations in an era of marketisation, transferable to other disciplines, were alsoilluminated. Associated with this, the key role of higher education in reviewing policy around dualqualifications (vocationalism) and partnering with industry, government and professional bodies tolegitimise an emerging profession and assure graduate employability was underscored.

Background: Internationally, pressure ulcers remain a significant health care problem. This has prompted a growing interest in why pressure ulcer prevalence remains, and a desire to investigate why the prevention process continues to fail. Skin assessment is an essential component in pressure ulcer prevention. Evidence suggests that patients may not receive the correct level of care to maintain their skin integrity. Skin assessment is not the sole responsibility of the registered nurse. Home Support Workers are directly involved in patient care and they play a pivotal role in completing a comprehensive skin assessment. Therefore, all health care workers completing a comprehensive skin assessment require education in order to fulfil this role. Aim: To investigate the impact of an educational intervention on Community Home Support Workers’ ability to detect early pressure ulcer damage. Method: A repeated measure design was employed to quantify the effectiveness of an educational intervention, consisting of one pre-test and two post-tests. This was followed by a workshop tasked with reflecting on the educational intervention. Findings: Home Support Workers were asked to accurately classify 20 photographs of varying stages of skin severity at each measuring point. At the baseline, 58% of the photographs were classified correctly. In the post-test 1, the results were lower, with 55% of the photographs being correctly classified. In the post-test 2, correct classification increased to 58%, e.g. back to the original baseline scores. There was a moderate negative relationship between pre-training and post-test 2 scores (r=-.44; n=27; p=0.02). To capture the participants’ issues following the educational, words used by them were recorded, as they represented the terms and language that the participants placed on their main concerns and affirmations. Conclusion: The educational intervention has been shown not to have a statistical significant positive effect on Home Support Workers’ ability to detect early pressure ulcer damage. There was a negative correlation between pre-training and post-test 2 scores. The workshop group findings exposed the challenges which exist relating to difficulties understanding relevant theoretical health concepts. These issues are fundamentally related to a low health literacy among the study participants.

Serious concerns about the way research is organized collectively are increasingly being raised. They include the escalating costs of research and lower research productivity, low public trust in researchers to report the truth, lack of diversity, poor community engagement, ethical concerns over research practices, and irreproducibility. Open science (OS) collaborations comprise of a subset of open practices including open access publication, open data sharing and the absence of restrictive intellectual property rights with which institutions, firms, governments and communities are experimenting in order to overcome these concerns. We gathered two groups of international representatives from a large variety of stakeholders to construct a toolkit to guide and facilitate data collection about OS and non-OS collaborations. Ultimately, the toolkit will be used to assess and study the impact of OS collaborations on research and innovation. The toolkit contains the following four elements: 1) an annual report form of quantitative data to be completed by OS partnership administrators; 2) a series of semi-structured interview guides of stakeholders; 3) a survey form of participants in OS collaborations; and 4) a set of other quantitative measures best collected by other organizations, such as research foundations and governmental or intergovernmental agencies. We opened our toolkit to community comment and input. We present the resulting toolkit for use by government and philanthropic grantors, institutions, researchers and community organizations with the aim of measuring the implementation and impact of OS partnership across these organizations. We invite these and other stakeholders to not only measure, but to share the resulting data so that social scientists and policy makers can analyse the data across projects.

This article discusses the impact of The Australian on Canberra from its first issue on 15 July 1964 to the move to Sydney on 18 March 1967. It covers the acquisition of the Territorial; the change of ownership of Federal Capital Press to the Fairfax organisation; the battle with the Canberra Times for dominance in the local market; the impact of the influx of journalists on a previously static news scene; their impact on Press Gallery reporting; and the impact of more penetrating reporting on the public service. These themes are developed against the background of a city enjoying a burst of development. The article draws on the author's experience as a journalist with the ABC in the Press Gallery in Canberra in the 1960s, as a contributor to The Australian as a writer/editor for Maxwell Newton, as a citizen and as honorary secretary for the Canberra Day Celebrations 1964.

Client or service user perspectives are important when designing curricula for professional programs. In the case of veterinary technology, an emerging profession in the veterinary field in Australasia, client views on desirable graduate attributes, skills, and knowledge have not yet been explored. This study reports on a survey of 441 veterinary clients (with 104 responses) from four veterinary practices in Brisbane, Queensland, conducted between October 2008 and February 2009. The included veterinary practices provided clinical placements for veterinary technology undergraduates and employment for veterinary technology graduates (2003–2007). Client socio-demographic data along with ratings of the importance of a range of technical (veterinary nursing) skills, emotional intelligence, and professional attributes for veterinary technology graduates were collected and analyzed. Overall, the majority of clients viewed technical skills, emotional intelligence, and professional attributes as important in the clinical practice of veterinary technology graduates with whom they interacted in the veterinary practice. Client interviews (n=3) contextualized the survey data and also showed that clients attached importance to graduates demonstrating professional competence. Agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis revealed four distinct groupings of clients within the data based on their differing perceptions. Using a multivariable proportional-odds regression model, it was also found that some client differences were influenced by demographic factors such as gender, age, and number of visits annually. For example, the odds of female clients valuing emotionality and sociability were greater than males. These findings provide useful data for the design of a professionalizing and market-driven veterinary technology curriculum.

Barral Neto, Manoel. Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Goncalo Moniz. Salvador, BA, Brasil. “Documento produzido em parceria ou por autor vinculado a Fiocruz, mas nao consta a informacao no documento”. Centre for Intellectual Property and Policy (CIPP), Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 1W9, Canada Department of Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 0C7, Canada Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI), Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, Montreal, QC, H3A 2B4, Canada F1000, London, W1T 4LB, UK Diseases of the Developing World, Global Health R&D, GlaxoSmithKline, Madrid, Spain Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz - Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 21040-900, Brazil Wellcome Trust, London, NW1 2BE, UK Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, Montreal, QC, H3A 2B4, Canada US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Washington, DC, 20024, USA Health Research Board, Dublin, D02 H638, Ireland Arizona State University, Washington, DC, 20006, USA Sage Bionetworks, Seattle, WA, 98121, USA US National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, 20894, USA Research England, UK Research and Innovation, Bristol, BS34 8SR, UK Jisc, Bristol, BS2 0JA, UK Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia The Lens, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia African Academy of Sciences, Karen, Nairobi, 00502, Kenya Utrecht University Library, Utrecht, CX, 3584, The Netherlands Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 7DQ, UK Data Science Institute, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EA, UK Alkermes, Waltham, MA, 02451, USA Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4400, USA Center for Open Science, Charlottesville, VA, 22903-5083, USA Element AI, Montreal, QC, H2W 2R2, Canada GlaxoSmithKline, Stevenage, Herts, SG1 2NY, UK Warwick Research in Nursing, University of Warwick Warwick Research in Nursing, University of Warwick Medical School, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, WV1 1LY, UK

Veterinary technology is an emerging profession within the veterinary and allied animal health fields in Australia and affords graduates the opportunity to contribute to the small but growing body of literature within this discipline. This study describes the introduction of a contextualised assessment task to develop students’ research capability, competence and confidence in professional writing, and to engage them with the academic publishing process. Students worked in self-selected dyads to author a scientific case report, of publishable standard, based on authentic cases from their clinical practicum. Intrinsic to the task, students attended a series of workshops that explored topics such as critiquing the literature, professional writing styles and oral presentation skills. Assessment was multi-staged with progressive feedback, including peer review, and culminated with students presenting their abstracts at a mock conference. Students reported the task to be an enjoyable and valuable learning expe...

Effective communication skills are highly desirable attributes for veterinary support personnel. These skills can be developed through experiential learning activities. This study evaluated the impact of an experiential simulated client communication workshop on final year veterinary technology/veterinary nursing student perceptions of competence related to a variety of communication skills by administering a pre- and post-workshop questionnaire. In the workshop, students had the opportunity to interact with actors playing the roles of clients within the context of common veterinary practice scenarios. Each interaction was followed by personal reflection from the student and peer, actor and facilitator feedback based on a student-led agenda. Following completion, when compared with pre-workshop responses, students were significantly more confident that they could utilize a range of professional and relationship-centred communication skills of relevance to veterinary practice. Almost all respondents indicated that the workshop was an enjoyable and valuable learning experience that helped to prepare them for the ‘real world’ following graduation. Results from this study may be of interest to institutions developing or enhancing strategies used for client communication skills training for veterinary support personnel.

As with other practice-based professions, research is vitally important to the field of veterinary nursing. Professions have a responsibility to provide high-quality services that are beneficial to their clients, whether human or animal, based on systematic and ongoing research, providing evidence-based principles. Even though veterinary nurses work as members of a healthcare team, there are areas of their professional practice that are exclusively their domain, which warrant scientific investigation. Veterinary nursing research will not only assist veterinary patients and clients through improving nursing practices, but will also advance the development of veterinary nursing as a profession. Generating a unique body of knowledge is one of the criteria by which a profession is defined. This article examines what is research in veterinary nursing, why research is important to veterinary nursing professional practice and how scientific research can promote the development of the veterinary nursing profession.

This article examines the background to Australian government information or propaganda campaigns in the 1950s carried out by journalists employed in the Australian News and Information Bureau, the government's overseas publicity unit. It explores the demise of the Department of Information, its replacement by the Australian News and Information Bureau (ANIB), the threats to the existence of the organisation and its increasing relevance in publicising the government's policies arising from the need to counteract adverse publicity generated by the white Australia policy and to publicise the Colombo Plan. It evaluates these campaigns to the extent that surviving material allows, and advances reasons for their success. It draws on information in departmental files, studies of government information policies towards Asia and the personal experience of the writer, who was an ANIB journalist in the Melbourne and Canberra offices during the 1950s.

Professional competence for veterinary nurses today is not just a matter of being skilled in technical tasks such as processing a blood sample or placing an intravenous catheter. As members of a profession which is evolving rapidly in a changing world, it is vital that veterinary nurses also possess the personal attributes necessary for developing effective professional relationships. With the advances in veterinary medicine and its accompanying technology, educators too must not lose sight of the ‘human side’ of veterinary nursing; educating caring professionals as opposed to trained technicians. Therefore, it is important that a veterinary nurse model of professional competence emphasizes the emotional aspects of their practice as well as the technical skills and an ability to problem-solve. Veterinary nursing/veterinary technology curricula internationally have embraced this ethos. Hence the development of personal attributes such as empathy is regarded as pivotal in producing veterinary nurses who are able to meet the expectations of employers, clients and society today. This paper will explore some of the personal attributes that are integral to the veterinary nurses' professional competence and the implications this has for veterinary nursing curricula.

The mystery of the lack of a positive relationship between growth and urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa has been raised in a number of studies. A recent paper by Barrios et al. (Journal of Urban Economics 60:357–371, 2006) provides a compelling explanation for why this occurs. Exploiting a new data source, they show how climate change, specifically the reduction in rainfall, has driven people from the increasingly impoverished countryside to the city. They also show that while this is an important factor explaining urbanization in sub-Saharan African countries it does not affect urbanization elsewhere. Their explanation for this important difference is differences in the patterns of rainfall, as well as the composition of soil in most sub-Saharan countries. In a word, geographical factors have dominated the unusual pattern observed in the world’s most rapidly urbanizing continent. In this paper, we extend the work done by Barrios et al. to include more observations and more detailed geographic variables. We first replicate their results and extend the number of observations to more recent periods. Then we consider the effects of a range of specific country geographical characteristics, relying on data developed by other researchers. After discussing our results, we focus on the implications of our findings for policy formulation, particularly for sub-Saharan African countries. The results indicate that geographical circumstances place significantly more important constraints on maximization processes. In other words, urbanization in these countries takes place in a profoundly “second-best” world. We consider what this kind of context implies for the sequencing and implementation of economic reforms which would allow for an urbanization process that would be more conducive to economic growth.

There have been several anecdotal accounts of the literary scene in Brisbane during World War II and numerous references in more general works. In 2000,Queensland Reviewpublished some reminiscences of writers Estelle Runcie Pinney, Don Munro, Val Vallis and David Rowbotham, under the title ‘Writing in Brisbane during the Second World War’. Some of the more important general works include Judith Wright's ‘Brisbane in Wartime’, Lynne Strahan's history ofMeanjinand Judith Armstrong's biographical work on the Christesens,The Christesen Romance. My interest in this subject arose from editing Judith Wright's autobiography,Half a Lifetime, published in 1999, and recently in editing, with her daughter, letters between Judith Wright and Jack McKinney which were mainly written in Brisbane in the later years of the war and the immediate postwar period. Initially my purpose was to gather information to elucidate people or events mentioned in these writings, but my interest widened to embrace more general information about the period. My research led me to the conclusion thatMeanjinand its editor Clem Christesen were catalysts for many of the literary activities in Brisbane during World War II, not just among resident Australians, but among troops temporarily stationed in Brisbane — particularly Americans, whom Christesen cultivated and published. This article records a few glimpses of literary life in Brisbane, and incidentally in the rest of the country, during a period described by Patrick Buckridge as never having been researched ‘in enough detail’.

The British National Service Framework (NSF) for heart disease commended the 'Utstein style' for auditing out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. The NSF also set standards for pre-hospital treatment and response times. To increase the flexibility of Utstein, an 'event tree' technique is proposed as an audit tool. Event trees consist of nodes and branches on which numbers, percentages or probability values are entered.Using the London Ambulance Service's (LAS) 1997 database on 3,759 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, 2,772 arrests witnessed by lay bystanders or unwitnessed were analysed focusing on bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (BCPR) and response times.The Utstein template showed that witnessed arrests in ventricular fibrillation (VF) or ventricular tachycardia (VT) who had received BCPR achieved a return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) in the field significantly more often than non-BCPR recipients-26 versus 16% (P=0.006). But the likelihood of being admitted to a hospital bed, and discharged alive, was only marginally better for BCPR recipients. To examine the influence of BCPR on the presenting rhythm an event tree showed that in 48% of witnessed BCPR cases the presenting rhythm was VF/VT, whereas, for witnessed non-BCPR cases, 27% were in VF/VT (P0.0001). With unwitnessed arrests, 31% of BCPR cases were in VF/VT compared with 18% for non-BCPR cases (P0.0001). Call to scene time was less than 8 min for 66% of all VF/VT arrests.The event trees, when combined with the Utstein template, demonstrated the importance of examining comprehensively datasets for both witnessed and unwitnessed cardiac arrests when monitoring performance standards. The analyses also emphasised the relevance of community programmes in Greater London for teaching basic life saving skills.

This paper pilots an approach to identifying, categorizing, and mapping public land owned by the central, state, and local government in urban developed areas of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The methodology uses information on plot sizes, location, and ownership that is publicly available for all areas covered by town planning schemes. The study examines the extent of unutilized and underutilized public land, which excludes all cemeteries, parks and gardens, heritage buildings, slums, utilities, infrastructure land, and industrial estates. Unused land already earmarked for public purposes were also excluded from the valuation exercise. The potentially marketable land so identified was valued at both official rates and estimated market rates. The value of potentially marketable excess land is significant -- in per capita terms, the high-value scenario substantially exceeds the estimate of total infrastructure investment needs for the next 20 years prepared by an expert committee of the Ministry of Urban Development of the Government of India.

Novelist Rosa Praed's portrayal of colonial Queensland in her fiction was influenced by her social position as the daughter of a squatter and conservative Cabinet Minister, Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, and limited by the fact that she lived in Australia for much less than one-third of her life. After she left Australia in 1876, she recharged her imagination, during her long novel-writing career in England, by seeking specific information through family letters and reminiscences, copies of Hansard and newspapers. As the decades went by and she remained in England, the social and political dynamics of colonial society changed. Remarkably, she remained able to tum sparse sources into in-depth portrayals of aspects of colonial life.