Unlike for many other respiratory infections, the seasonality of pertussis is not well understood. While evidence of seasonal fluctuations in pertussis incidence has been noted in some countries, there have been conflicting findings including in the context of Australia. We investigated this issue by analysing the seasonality of pertussis notifications in Australia using monthly data from January 1991 to December 2016. Data were made available for all states and territories in Australia except for the Australian Capital Territory and were stratified into age groups. Using a time-series decomposition approach, we formulated a generalised additive model where seasonality is expressed using cosinor terms to estimate the amplitude and peak timing of pertussis notifications in Australia. We also compared these characteristics across different jurisdictions and age groups. We found evidence that pertussis notifications exhibit seasonality, with peaks observed during the spring and summer months (November–January) in Australia and across different states and territories. During peak months, notifications are expected to increase by about 15% compared with the yearly average. Peak notifications for children <5 years occurred 1–2 months later than the general population, which provides support to the theory that older household members remain an important source of pertussis infection for younger children. In addition, our results provide a more comprehensive spatial picture of seasonality in Australia, a feature lacking in previous studies. Finally, our findings suggest that seasonal forcing may be useful to consider in future population transmission models of pertussis.

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) results in substantial numbers of hospitalisations and deaths in older adults. There are known lifestyle and medical risk factors for pneumococcal disease but the magnitude of the additional risk is not well quantified in Australia. We used a large population-based prospective cohort study of older adults in the state of New South Wales (45 and Up Study) linked to cause-specific hospitalisations, disease notifications and death registrations from 2006 to 2015. We estimated the age-specific incidence of CAP hospitalisation (ICD-10 J12-18), invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) notification and presumptive non-invasive pneumococcal CAP hospitalisation (J13 + J18.1, excluding IPD), comparing those with at least one risk factor to those with no risk factors. The hospitalised case-fatality rate (CFR) included deaths in a 30-day window after hospitalisation. Among 266 951 participants followed for 1 850 000 person-years there were 8747 first hospitalisations for CAP, 157 IPD notifications and 305 non-invasive pneumococcal CAP hospitalisations. In persons 65–84 years, 54.7% had at least one identified risk factor, increasing to 57.0% in those ⩾85 years. The incidence of CAP hospitalisation in those ⩾65 years with at least one risk factor was twofold higher than in those without risk factors, 1091/100 000 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1060–1122) compared with 522/100 000 (95% CI 501–545) and IPD in equivalent groups was almost threefold higher (18.40/100 000 (95% CI 14.61–22.87) vs. 6.82/100 000 (95% CI 4.56–9.79)). The CFR increased with age but there were limited difference by risk status, except in those aged 45 to 64 years. Adults ⩾65 years with at least one risk factor have much higher rates of CAP and IPD suggesting that additional risk factor-based vaccination strategies may be cost-effective.

We investigated risk factors for severe acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) among hospitalised children <2 years, with a focus on the interactions between virus and age. Statistical interactions between age and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, adenovirus (ADV) and rhinovirus on the risk of ALRI outcomes were investigated. Of 1780 hospitalisations, 228 (12.8%) were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). The median (range) length of stay (LOS) in hospital was 3 (1–27) days. An increase of 1 month of age was associated with a decreased risk of ICU admission (rate ratio (RR) 0.94; 95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.91–0.98) and with a decrease in LOS (RR 0.96; 95% CI 0.95–0.97). Associations between RSV, influenza, ADV positivity and ICU admission and LOS were significantly modified by age. Children <5 months old were at the highest risk from RSV-associated severe outcomes, while children >8 months were at greater risk from influenza-associated ICU admissions and long hospital stay. Children with ADV had increased LOS across all ages. In the first 2 years of life, the effects of different viruses on ALRI severity varies with age. Our findings help to identify specific ages that would most benefit from virus-specific interventions such as vaccines and antivirals.

Livestock production under Northern European conditions can affect water, air and soil. Examples of the possible environmental effects on water are fish kills or microbial contamination, if solid manure, slurry, “dirty water” or silage effluent are collected, stored, handled or spread inappropriately. Examples of the possible environmental effects on air are emissions of ammonia (which can lead to acidification and, after subsequent deposition, to eutrophication), the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, odours and particulates.

In the case of water pollution, good management practices using existing technology are usually adequate for preventing most environmental impacts. This often requires storage during periods when conditions are unsuitable for spreading, followed by carefully controlled application. However, for relatively dilute effluents (such as dairy farm “dirty water”), it may be more cost-effective to use different approaches, such as waste minimisation and/or continuous treatment and land spreading. Recent research results are reviewed and compared in this paper, to identify ways in which farmers can prevent water pollution at least cost. The potential implications of such measures on further reductions in the annual numbers of pollution incidents are discussed in conjunction with the impacts of different regulatory and punitive approaches.

In the case of preventing air pollution, although good management can achieve much, there is a need for new technology to back it up. Existing ammonia abatement techniques are mostly expensive and farmer-unfriendly. In the longer term, changes to the animals' diet should hold the greater potential for abatement, not only of ammonia emissions but also of methane emissions. Reducing one form of pollution can often increase another, so an integrated approach to solving pollution problems is necessary.

The dairy industry has continued to innovate to meet the needs of the consumers' specification of milk at a low price, of good hygienic quality and with rising expectations of animal welfare. The introduction of robotic milking offers the opportunity for the cost effective deployment of novel sensors for a variety of milk analytes. Traditional methods of monitoring health changes in animals are based entirely on the human senses. However, in modern milking systems humans rarely have enough time to see the cows to observe for signs of ill health, the extreme case is that of robotic milking. Novel sensors will allow closed loop control systems where the early detection of deviations from optimal performance will enable the farm manager to make management decisions before damage to potential milk yields is irreversible. Where a biological model already exists, for example, in the prediction of ovulation with milk progesterone analysis, rapid progress is being made towards an automated prediction system. Integrated management systems for dairy cows will not only have the traditional goals of efficient milk production but can also be tuned to reduce polluting outputs of ammonia, phosphorus and methane. The main metabolic markers in milk to be monitored are urea, fat, ketones and protein. The detection of mastitis can be achieved by the development of sensor systems to detect enzyme markers of inflammatory response such as Nagase. Multi-disciplinary research is needed to develop integrated management systems drawing all the different elements of dairy cow management into a single system. The major cause of death in dairy cows is dystocia and monitoring systems are needed to ensure that parturition is better managed.

Nutritional management of pigs to optimise growth demands pig-specific, time-specific and place-specific determination and provision of nutritional requirement. These elements need to be incorporated into response prediction models that operate in a real-time (not retrospective) closed-loop control environment. This implies appropriate means for the on-line measurement of response to change in nutrient provision, and the simultaneous means for manipulation of feeding level and feed quality. The paper describes how response prediction modelling and response measurement may now be achieved. Optimisation may be pursued with mixed objectives, including those of production efficiency and environmental protection.

Technologies emerging from current bioengineering research areas may have a substantial impact on society and raise many ethical issues. Consequentially, there is a significant interest amongst public and private organisations to identify ethical issues, improve stakeholder participation, and develop frameworks and assessment procedures to aid decision-makers evaluate these complex issues. This paper explores a form of bioethical analysis that has been developed to aid decision-makers in the agricultural and food sectors. Two agricultural technologies will be used as case studies to examine the application of this form of bioethical analysis in technology assessment, viz automatic milking systems (AMS) and bovine somatotrophin (bST). The bioethical framework applied, the Ethical Matrix developed by Mepham (e.g. 1996; 2000), is based on a principled approach drawn from the concept of the ‘common morality’ where the ‘impacts’ of a technology are assessed in terms of respect for three ethical principles (wellbeing, autonomy and justice) as they apply to various interest groups.

To explore stakeholder issues raised by the technologies, two workshops and separate postal surveys of farmers, consumers and retailers were conducted to examine the attitudes to the two technologies. Each survey included matched questions, so that attitudes could be cross-compared, with the Ethical Matrix used as a guiding framework. The three surveys highlighted specific attitudes of consumers, farmers and retailers to bST and AMS (response rates were 19.3%, 27.3% and 69% respectively), as well as identifying general trends in attitudes to technological development. Consumers distinguished clearly between what they considered to be more acceptable (AMS was largely acceptable with some caveats) and less acceptable technologies (bST). bST use in the UK was unacceptable to the majority of UK farmers whereas AMS was accepted with caution. Retailers, overall, had a cautious but considered approach to the technologies, applying a precautionary approach in their policies.

Applying the Ethical Matrix aided the clarification of ethical issues which underlie differences in opinion on the acceptability and required legal control of the two technologies. In summary, bST supporters placed a greater emphasis on productivity and prosperity, whereas sceptics focused on perceived risks, and on producers' and consumers' lack of autonomy. Potential positive impacts of AMS were identified as improvements in dairy production efficiency and enhancement of dairy farmer and cow welfare, while concerns included impacts on rural employment, milk quality and the increasingly instrumental use of animals.

The incorporation of bioethical analysis into technology assessment, specifically in the form of the Ethical Matrix, was generally regarded as providing a useful and valuable tool, helping to clarifying issues and encourage dialogue. Individuals with contrasting worldviews can use it effectively, allowing any conflicts and consistencies of the arguments to be cross-compared. This is particularly important for policy makers who need to be explicit and transparent and to justify their decisions by reference to widely accepted ethical norms. At a simplistic level, this method may act merely as a comprehensive check-list, but when applied more comprehensively it can encourage stakeholder dialogue and clarify the interactions of scientific and ethical aspects of a particular issue.

A key to long-term sustainable enhancement of viable livestock production is the introduction of genetic traits that ensure that fertility and meat quality characteristics are compatible with farming environments and market needs. For example, the sheep industry could benefit if daughters of hill-breed ewes were of a crossbred genotype that enhances both carcass characteristics and fertility traits. Use of sires that confer better conformation is an option but does not significantly boost prolificacy. Introduction of the ‘Inverdale’ fecundity gene could change this. On a flock basis in the Romney breed, mean ovulation is increased by 1.0 and litter size by 0.6 in adult ewes carrying a single copy of this gene (designated as FecXI because it is on the X chromosome; Davis et al. 1992). Carrier males transmit it to all of their female offspring, these being heterozygous carriers of the gene unless it also is maternally inherited. In the latter instance, young would be infertile the homozygous genotype confers an undesirable ‘streak ovary’ phenotype. Although a number of sheep breeds world-wide exhibit significant ‘single gene’ effects on ovulation and litter size (Montgomery et al. 2001), Scottish hill sheep breeds show no evidence of this. Consequently, all ewe lambs generated by crossing these hill ewes with a ram carrying the Inverdale gene should be heterozygous. To ascertain whether such animals exhibit enhanced fecundity, an on-farm study investigated ovulation incidence in cyclic ewe lambs born to Cheviot or Scottish Blackface ewes that had been bred to Texel rams carrying a single copy of the ‘Inverdale’ gene.

We have obtained Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Planetary Camera (PC) images of a number of Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae. The objects, except for SMP 83 were observed as part of the Cycle I GO program. The observations were made in the [O III] λ5007Å line. The object SMP 83, was observed as part of the GTO program, and in this case observations were also made in the Hα line using the F650N filter. In order to characterise the point spread function, a star was placed at the same point on the chip as the PN. This allowed us to determine the diameters of barely resolved PN in an accurate manner, by convolving the PSF with a function until it matched the appearance of the PN image. The results are given in Table 1.

A legionellosis outbreak at an industrial site was investigated to identify and control the source. Cases were identified from disease notifications, workplace illness records, and from clinicians. Cases were interviewed for symptoms and risk factors and tested for legionellosis. Implicated environmental sources were sampled and tested for legionella. We identified six cases with Legionnaires’ disease and seven with Pontiac fever; all had been exposed to aerosols from the cooling towers on the site. Nine cases had evidence of infection with either Legionella pneumophila serogroup (sg) 1 or Legionella longbeachae sg1; these organisms were also isolated from the cooling towers. There was 100% DNA sequence homology between cooling tower and clinical isolates of L. pneumophila sg1 using sequence-based typing analysis; no clinical L. longbeachae isolates were available to compare with environmental isolates. Routine monitoring of the towers prior to the outbreak failed to detect any legionella. Data from this outbreak indicate that L. pneumophila sg1 transmission occurred from the cooling towers; in addition, L. longbeachae transmission was suggested but remains unproven. L. longbeachae detection in cooling towers has not been previously reported in association with legionellosis outbreaks. Waterborne transmission should not be discounted in investigations for the source of L. longbeachae infection.

The Antarctic Roadmap Challenges (ARC) project identified critical requirements to deliver high priority Antarctic research in the 21st century. The ARC project addressed the challenges of enabling technologies, facilitating access, providing logistics and infrastructure, and capitalizing on international co-operation. Technological requirements include: i) innovative automated in situ observing systems, sensors and interoperable platforms (including power demands), ii) realistic and holistic numerical models, iii) enhanced remote sensing and sensors, iv) expanded sample collection and retrieval technologies, and v) greater cyber-infrastructure to process ‘big data’ collection, transmission and analyses while promoting data accessibility. These technologies must be widely available, performance and reliability must be improved and technologies used elsewhere must be applied to the Antarctic. Considerable Antarctic research is field-based, making access to vital geographical targets essential. Future research will require continent- and ocean-wide environmentally responsible access to coastal and interior Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Year-round access is indispensable. The cost of future Antarctic science is great but there are opportunities for all to participate commensurate with national resources, expertise and interests. The scope of future Antarctic research will necessitate enhanced and inventive interdisciplinary and international collaborations. The full promise of Antarctic science will only be realized if nations act together.

During the laboratory pretreatment of samples for radiocarbon dating, small amounts of carbon may be added to a sample. Contamination can be incorporated at any stage: during chemical pretreatment, combustion to CO2, graphitization, or accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurement. Such carbon contamination is often modern in age, and so can have an especially severe effect on samples older than ∼25 ka BP. During the extraction of collagen from bone using the ultrafiltration protocol at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), small amounts of young carbon are added to the sample. Currently, this contamination is poorly characterized when less than 10 mg of collagen is extracted from a bone. Demand to date small collagen samples with 14C concentrations that approach the detection limit of AMS measurement has increased recently with the growing interest in, for example, directly dating Neanderthal remains and Upper Paleolithic bone artifacts. This paper aims to reduce the minimum collagen sample size required to produce a reliable date from 10 to 5 mg by re-examining the combustion background and subsequently the pretreatment background for bone. The average of 136 measurements of directly combusted nylon suggests that 0.0007 ± 0.001 mg of modern carbon is added to each sample, although the distribution is positively skewed. Regression analysis of the measurements of 52 collagen samples extracted from a bone of background age results in a background of just less than 50,000 BP for bone treated at ORAU.

Charcoal is the result of natural and anthropogenic burning events, when biomass is exposed to elevated temperatures under conditions of restricted oxygen. This process produces a range of materials, collectively known as pyrogenic carbon, the most inert fraction of which is known as black carbon (BC). BC degrades extremely slowly and is resistant to diagenetic alteration involving the addition of exogenous carbon, making it a useful target substance for radiocarbon dating particularly of more ancient samples, where contamination issues are critical. We present results of tests using a new method for the quantification and isolation of BC, known as hydropyrolysis (hypy). Results show controlled reductive removal of non-BC organic components in charcoal samples, including lignocellulosic and humic material. The process is reproducible and rapid, making hypy a promising new approach not only for isolation of purified BC for 14C measurement but also in quantification of different labile and resistant sample C fractions.

We present preliminary results of a long-term spectroscopic monitoring of a magnitude-limited (V < 7.5) sample of OB-supergiants (07.5-B9) aimed at establishing the incidence of co-rotating, large-scale wind structures. In the optical, this can be achieved by detecting rotationally modulated variability in Hα. Dramatic line-profile variations operating on a daily (and in some cases on a hourly) timescale are observed. Firm conclusions regarding the origin of the variability must, however, await a detailed period analysis. There is no clear evidence for a causal link between photospheric and wind activities.

We present the results of our major HST study of the evolution of PN in the Magellanic Clouds. This consists of imaging studies in [O III] and FOS UV spectroscopy. These data are then used in theoretical photoionisation models in conjuction with ground-based spectrophotometry, absolute flux and expansion velocity and density to derive self consistent diameters, ages, masses, and nebular abundances and to accurately place the central stars on the H-R Diagram. We find that observed sizes and ages can be reconciled with evolutionary theory provided that the He-burners outnumber the H-burners in the approximate ratio 2:1. For the LMC observed abundance patterns are qualitatively consistent with the (mass-dependent) operation of the various chemical dredge-up processes as predicted by theory. However, the observed dredge-up efficiencies do not agree with current theory. Finally, since core masses are determined with adequate precision, we are able to derive, for the first time, the metallicity age relation for of the LMC. We find that the base metallicity of the LMC rapidly increased ∼ 2 Gyr ago, consistent with the age of the burst of star formation inferred from field stars and clusters.

The spectral energy distributions of 16 AGB stars in the LMC are fitted. The 6 known oxygen-rich stars are well fitted with silicate dust. Due to the completely different absorption properties of silicate and carbonaceous dust we argue that of the 10 stars of unknown spectral type, 1 is probably O-rich while the other 9 are probably C-rich.

The Period-Luminosity relation is discussed. Both the O- and C-rich LPVs in this study appear to lie on extensions of P-L relations derived for stars with much shorter periods.

Introduction: Between 1980 and 2008, survival rates following an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) have remained unchanged, averaging 7.6%. Despite the use of new and emerging technologies, new medications, and automated external defibrillators, survival remains low. Recently, a new focus in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has shown dramatic improvements in survival post OHCA. This new model, called pit-crew CPR, focuses on minimizing interruptions in chest compressions and has each team member playing a specific role in the resuscitation, akin to the pit-crew of a car race. Certain districts in the United States and Canada have adopted the pit-crew, or a similar, high quality, maximum time-on-chest CPR model, with much success. We aim to determine whether the pit-crew model of CPR improves survival following OHCA in Saskatoon, SK. Methods: In Saskatoon, EMS and Fire crews respond to OHCAs and have been exclusively using the pit-crew model of CPR since Jan 1st, 2015. This study is a before and after retrospective chart analysis, comparing two groups - pre and post implementation of the pit-crew CPR model. The primary outcome is survival to hospital discharge post OHCA. Secondary outcomes include survival to admission and any return of spontaneous circulation (as per the Utstein definition). The inclusion criteria are patients >18 years old with a witnessed OHCA of presumed cardiac origin who receive CPR by EMS/Fire within the Saskatoon Ambulance service (MD Ambulance) catchment area. Patients were excluded if the OHCA was unwitnessed, or if there was a presumed non-cardiac cause for the arrest, e.g. trauma. Results: In the pre-pit-crew model cohort, between Jan 1st, 2011 and Sept 31st, 2014, 455 OHCAs were analyzed. In this cohort 10.5% survived to discharge, 31.9% survived to admission and ROSC was achieved in 39% of cases. The percentage of patients with initial rhythms of VF/VT, asystole or PEA were 28.5% (26%), 41.5% (1%) and 23.6% (10%) respectively, with survival to discharge shown in parentheses. The post-pit-crew cohort is still in the data collection phase. Conclusion: Our pre-pit crew cohort data has been collected and analyzed. With ongoing data acquisition for the post-pit crew cohort, we hope to have the full data set complete by the end of 2018. It will be at that time when we are able to determine whether the pit-crew model of CPR improves survival to discharge following OHCA in Saskatoon.

Introduction: Health promotion and disease prevention have been increasingly recognized as activities within the scope of emergency medicine. Exercise prescription by physicians has been shown to improve outcomes in obesity, cardiovascular disease, and many other diseases. An estimated 600,000 Canadians receive the majority of their care from emergency departments (ED), representing a substantial opportunity for health promotion. Our study examined the frequency of exercise prescription by emergency physicians (EPs) and determined factors that influence decisions to prescribe exercise. Methods: A national, confidential 22-item survey was distributed to Canadian EPs via email by the CAEP survey distribution protocol in November/December 2015. Demographics, exercise prescription rates and self-reported exercise habits were collected. Results: A total of 332 EPs responded. 92.4% of EPs reported being at least moderately active. 62.7% of EPs often or always council their patients about preventative medicine (smoking cessation, drug and alcohol use, diet and safe sex). However, only 23.8% often or always ask about their exercise habits. Even fewer (12.7%) often or always prescribe exercise. Training background significantly predicted level of comfort prescribing exercise. CCFP trained EPs were 5.1 (p = 0.001) times more likely than trained EPs to respond 'yes' they feel comfortable prescribing exercise, and 3.7 (p = .009) times more likely to respond 'sometimes'. CCFP (EM) trained EPs were 3.5 (p < 0.001) times more likely than trained EPs to respond 'yes' they feel comfortable prescribing exercise, and 2.0 (p = .031) times more likely to respond 'sometimes'. 76.1% of respondents believe that other EPs rarely or never prescribe exercise. Of respondents, only 36% feel comfortable prescribing exercise. The majority of EPs (73.4%) believe that the ED environment did not allow adequate time for exercise prescription. Conclusion: The majority of EPs council their patients regarding other forms of preventative medicine but few prescribe exercise to their patients. Available time in the ED was cited as a significant barrier to exercise prescription. CCFP trained EPs are more comfortable prescribing exercise, suggesting that their training may better educate and prepare them to council patients on exercise compared to trained EPs. Further education may be required to standardize an approach to prescribing exercise in the ED.