Flinders University

About: Flinders University is a education organization based out in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 12033 authors who have published 32831 publications receiving 973172 citations. The organization is also known as: Flinders University of South Australia.

Quality of Life: Its Application to Persons With Intellectual Disabilities and Their Families—Introduction and Overview

Abstract: The authors provide an overview of quality of life (QoL) conceptualization in the field of intellectual disabilities (ID), provide background information, and set an organizing framework for presenting concepts and concrete ideas for applying QoL. This framework is useful for three broad categories of application in the field of ID that form the application of QoL to individuals, groups of individuals, and to families. QoL thus can be used as a sensitizing notion that gives a sense of reference and guidance from the individual's perspective, focusing on the person and the individual's environment and provides a framework for conceptualizing, measuring, and applying the QoL construct. The applications also frame evaluation strategies for QoL research. The authors conclude that there is a need to identify relevant QoL evidence from the literature in a proactive way, and to ensure that it is methodologically sound, provides both quantitative and qualitative data, represents inter- and intra-individual variability, and illustrates changes over both the lifespan and across cultural settings.

Leptin treatment: Facts and expectations

Abstract: Our work has been funded by The Australian National University institutional grants, and NIH grants RR-16996, HG-002500, DK- 58851, RR-017611, and K24-RR-016996 to J. Licinio.

Hydrogeologic controls on disconnection between surface water and groundwater

Abstract: [1] Understanding how changes in the groundwater table affect surface water resources is of fundamental importance in quantitative hydrology. If the groundwater table below a stream is sufficiently deep, changes in the groundwater table position effectively do not alter the infiltration rate. This is referred to as a disconnected system. Previous authors noted that a low-conductivity layer below the surface water body is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for disconnection to occur. We develop a precise criterion that allows an assessment of whether surface water-groundwater systems can disconnect or not. We further demonstrate that a disconnected system can be conceptualized by a saturated groundwater mound and the development of a capillary zone above this mound. This conceptualization is used to determine the critical water table position at the point where full disconnection is reached. A comparison of this calculated critical water table position with a measurement of the water table depth in a borehole allows the assessment of the disconnection status. A sensitivity analysis of this critical water table showed that for a given aquifer thickness and river width, the depth to groundwater where the system disconnects is approximately proportional to the stream depth and the hydraulic conductivity of the streambed sediments and inversely proportional to the thickness of these sediments and the hydraulic conductivity of the aquifer. The conceptualization also allows the disconnection problem to be analyzed using both variably saturated and fully saturated groundwater models and provides guidance for numerical and analytical approaches.

Pathways for the permeation of Na+ and Cl− into protoplasts derived from the cortex of wheat roots

Abstract: Sodium permeation into cortex cells of wheat roots was examined under conditions of high external NaCI and low Ca 2+ Two types of K + inward rectifier were observed in some cells The time-dependent K + inward rectifier was Ca 2+ -sensitive, increasing in magnitude as external Ca 2+ was decreased from 10 mM to 01 mM, but did not show significant permeability to Na + However, the spiky inward rectifier showed significant Na + permeation at Ca 2+ concentrations of 1 and 10 mM In cells that initially did not show K + inward rectifier channels, fast and sometimes slowly activating whole-cell inward currents were induced at membrane potentials negative of zero with high external Na + and low Ca 2+ concentrations With 1 mM Ca 2+ in the external solution, large inward currents were carried by Rb + , Cs + , K + , Li + , and Na + The permeability sequence shows that K + , Rb + and Cs + are all more permeant than Na + , which is about equally as permeant as Li + When some K + was present with high concentrations of Na + the inward currents were larger than with K + or Na + alone About 60% of the inward current was reversibly blocked when the external Ca 2+ activity was increased from 003 mM to 27mM (half inhibition at 031mM Ca 2+ activity) Changes in the characteristics of the current noise indicated that increased Ca 2+ reduced the apparent single channel amplitude In outside-out patches inward currents were observed at membrane potentials more positive than the equilibrium potentials for K + and Cl - when the external Na + concentration was high These channels were difficult to analyse but three analysis methods yielded similar conductances of about 30 pS

Quality assessment of ophthalmic questionnaires: review and recommendations.

Abstract: Purpose. The aim of this article was to systematically review all the available ophthalmic patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments (questionnaires) that demonstrated interval measurement properties to identify the instruments with the highest psychometric quality for use in different eye diseases and conditions. Methods. An extensive literature review was carried out to identify all existing ophthalmic PRO instruments. Instruments were then excluded if they did not have demonstrable interval measurement properties; the remaining instruments were reviewed. The quality of the following psychometric properties was assessed: content development (initial item development process), performance of the response scale, dimensionality (whether the instrument measures a single construct), measurement precision, validity (convergent, concurrent, discriminant, and known groups), reliability (test-retest), targeting (whether the items are appropriate [e.g., difficulty level] for the population), differential item functioning (whether subgroups of people respond differently to an item), and responsiveness. Results. The search identified 48 PRO instruments that demonstrated interval measurement properties, and these were relevant to nine applications: glaucoma, dry eye, refractive errors, cataract, amblyopia and strabismus, macular diseases, adult low vision, children low vision, and others. These instruments were evaluated against the psychometric property quality criteria and were rated for quality based on the number of criteria met. Conclusions. This review provides a descriptive catalog of ophthalmic PRO instruments to inform researchers and clinicians on the choice of the highest-quality PRO instrument suitable for their purpose. (Optom Vis Sci 2013;90:720Y744)