'Walking the journey' with pregnant and birthing women from remote Australian First Nations communities: A qualitative study in the Top End of the Northern Territory.

Problem/background: Australian First Nations people experience disproportionate burdens of poor outcomes compared to non-First Nations people. Further, women living in remote communities face more barriers to care-seeking in pregnancy. Despite work being done in some remote communities, there is limited data exploring women's experiences of pregnancy care, thus a limited understanding of specific barriers and enablers to care-seeking for these women.

Experiences of children with bronchiectasis and their parents in a novel play-based therapeutic exercise programme: a qualitative analysis.

Objectives: To explore the experiences and perceptions of children with bronchiectasis and their parents regarding an 8-week play-based therapeutic exercise programme.

Design: Qualitative study with inductive content analysis.

Setting: Individual semistructured interviews were conducted.

Twenty-four Month Outcomes of Extended- Versus Standard-course Antibiotic Therapy in Children Hospitalized With Pneumonia in High-risk Settings: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) can lead to long-term respiratory sequelae, including bronchiectasis. We determined if an extended (13-14 days) versus standard (5-6 days) antibiotic course improves long-term outcomes in children hospitalized with CAP from populations at high risk of chronic respiratory disease.

Methods: We undertook a multicenter, double-blind, superiority, randomized controlled trial involving 7 Australian, New Zealand, and Malaysian hospitals.

Estimated summer abundance and krill consumption of fin whales throughout the Scotia Sea during the 2018/2019 summer season.

Among large cetaceans in the Southern Hemisphere, fin whales were the most heavily exploited in terms of numbers taken during the period of intense industrial whaling. Recent studies suggest that, whilst some humpback whale populations in the Southern Hemisphere appears to have almost completely recovered to their estimated pre-whaling abundance, much less is known about the status of Southern Hemisphere fin whales. Circumpolar estimates in the 1990s suggest an abundance of about 5500 animals south of 60° S, while the IDCR/SOWER-2000 survey for the Scotia Sea and Antarctic Peninsula areas estimated 4670 fin whales within this region in the year 2000.

Improving the Diagnosis and Treatment of Paediatric Bronchiectasis Through Research and Translation.

Bronchiectasis, particularly in children, is an increasingly recognised yet neglected chronic lung disorder affecting individuals in both low-to-middle and high-income countries. It has a high disease burden and there is substantial inequity within and between settings. Furthermore, compared with other chronic lung diseases, considerably fewer resources are available for children with bronchiectasis.

Neural recordings can differentiate between spontaneously metastasizing melanomas and melanomas with low metastatic potential.

Multiple studies report that melanomas are innervated tumors with sensory and sympathetic fibers where these neural fibers play crucial functional roles in tumor growth and metastasis with branch specificity. Yet there is no study which reports the direct neural recording and its pattern during in-vivo progression of the cancer. We performed daily neural recordings from male and female mice bearing orthotopic metastasizing- melanomas and melanomas with low metastatic poential, derived from B16-F10 and B16-F1 cells, respectively.

Bronchiectasis among Indigenous adults in the Top End of the Northern Territory, 2011-2020: a retrospective cohort study.

Objectives: To assess the prevalence of bronchiectasis among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) adults in the Top End of the Northern Territory, and mortality among Indigenous adults with bronchiectasis.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting, Participants: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults (18 years or older) living in the Top End Health Service region of the NT in whom bronchiectasis was confirmed by chest computed tomography (CT) during 1 January 2011 - 31 December 2020.

Enzyme Self-Selection Using Molecular Programs.

Directed evolution provides a powerful route for enzyme engineering. State-of-the-art techniques functionally screen up to millions of enzyme variants using high throughput microfluidic sorters, whose operation remains technically challenging. Alternatively, self-selection methods, analogous to complementation strategies, open the way to even higher throughputs, but have been demonstrated only for a few specific activities.

Selective chronic recording in small nerve fascicles of sciatic nerve with carbon nanotube yarns in rats.

. The primary challenge faced in the field of neural rehabilitation engineering is the limited advancement in nerve interface technology, which currently fails to match the mechanical properties of small-diameter nerve fascicles. Novel developments are necessary to enable long-term, chronic recording from a multitude of small fascicles, allowing for the recovery of motor intent and sensory signals.

Physiotherapy management of first nations children with bronchiectasis from remote top end communities of the northern territory: a retrospective chart audit.

Background: Bronchiectasis is a chronic pulmonary disorder which is prevalent among Australian First Nations people in the Northern Territory (NT). Current guidelines recommend physiotherapy as part of multi-disciplinary management of children with bronchiectasis, however in our setting, involvement of physiotherapy remains unknown. We thus undertook a retrospective chart audit to examine physiotherapy management of First Nations children (<18 years) from remote First Nations communities in the Top End of the NT at the index bronchiectasis diagnosis and 12 months following diagnosis.

The gut microbiota and its biogeography.

Biogeography is the study of species distribution and diversity within an ecosystem and is at the core of how we understand ecosystem dynamics and interactions at the macroscale. In gut microbial communities, a historical reliance on bulk sequencing to probe community composition and dynamics has overlooked critical processes whereby microscale interactions affect systems-level microbiota function and the relationship with the host. In recent years, higher-resolution sequencing and novel single-cell level data have uncovered an incredible heterogeneity in microbial composition and have enabled a more nuanced spatial understanding of the gut microbiota.

Measuring prion propagation in single bacteria elucidates a mechanism of loss.

Prions are self-propagating protein aggregates formed by specific proteins that can adopt alternative folds. Prions were discovered as the cause of the fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in mammals, but prions can also constitute nontoxic protein-based elements of inheritance in fungi and other species. Prion propagation has recently been shown to occur in bacteria for more than a hundred cell divisions, yet a fraction of cells in these lineages lost the prion through an unknown mechanism.

An Automated Broncho-Arterial (BA) Pair Segmentation Process and Assessment of BA Ratios in Children with Bronchiectasis Using Lung HRCT Scans: A Pilot Study.

Bronchiectasis in children can progress to a severe lung condition if not diagnosed and treated early. The radiological diagnostic criteria for the diagnosis of bronchiectasis is an increased broncho-arterial (BA) ratio. From high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scans, the BA pairs must be detected first to derive the BA ratio.

Noise reduction strategies in metagenomic chromosome confirmation capture to link antibiotic resistance genes to microbial hosts.

The gut microbiota is a reservoir for antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs). With current sequencing methods, it is difficult to assign ARGs to their microbial hosts, particularly if these ARGs are located on plasmids. Metagenomic chromosome conformation capture approaches (meta3C and Hi-C) have recently been developed to link bacterial genes to phylogenetic markers, thus potentially allowing the assignment of ARGs to their hosts on a microbiome-wide scale.

Listening to First Nations women's voices, hearing requests for continuity of carer, trusted knowledge and family involvement: A qualitative study in urban Darwin.

Problem: Australian First Nations women are more likely to commence care later in pregnancy and underutilise maternal health services than non-First Nations women.

Background: Disrespectful maternity care is a major barrier to care-seeking in pregnancy, often resulting in later commencement and underutilisation of care.

Aim: We aimed to identify barriers and enablers to pregnancy-related care-seeking for Australian First Nations women living in the Darwin region through yarning about their experiences of pregnancy care.

Transition of pediatric patients with bronchiectasis to adult medical care in the Northern Territory: A retrospective chart audit.

Background: Bronchiectasis is increasingly being recognized to exist in all settings with a high burden of disease seen in First Nations populations. With increasing numbers of pediatric patients with chronic illnesses surviving into adulthood, there is more awareness on examining the transition from pediatric to adult medical care services. We undertook a retrospective medical chart audit to describe what processes, timeframes, and supports were in place for the transition of young people (≥14 years) with bronchiectasis from pediatric to adult services in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia.

Interventions to improve enablers and/or overcome barriers to seeking care during pregnancy, birthing and postnatal period for women living with vulnerabilities in high-income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: To reduce maternal morbidity and mortality, World Health Organization recommendations include: commencing pregnancy care before 12-weeks', at least eight antenatal and four postnatal visits, and attendance of skilled care at birthing. While lower adherence to the recommendation predominates in low- and middle-income countries, it also occurs in some settings in high-income countries. Globally, various strategies are used to optimise maternity care, in line with these recommendations.

Measuring prion propagation in single bacteria elucidates mechanism of loss.

Prions are self-propagating protein aggregates formed by specific proteins that can adopt alternative folds. Prions were discovered as the cause of the fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in mammals, but prions can also constitute non-toxic protein-based elements of inheritance in fungi and other species. Prion propagation has recently been shown to occur in bacteria for more than a hundred cell divisions, yet a fraction of cells in these lineages lost the prion through an unknown mechanism.

Change in health outcomes for First Nations children with chronic wet cough: rationale and study protocol for a multi-centre implementation science study.

Background: In children, chronic wet cough may be a sign of underlying lung disease, including protracted bacterial bronchitis (PBB) and bronchiectasis. Chronic (> 4 weeks in duration) wet cough (without indicators pointing to alternative causes) that responds to antibiotic treatment is diagnostic of PBB. Timely recognition and management of PBB can prevent disease progression to irreversible bronchiectasis with lifelong consequences.

Real world impact of 13vPCV in preventing invasive pneumococcal pneumonia in Australian children: A national study.

Background: We aimed to assess the direct protective effect of 13 valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (13vPCV) against invasive pneumococcal pneumonia (IPP; including pneumonia and empyema) in children using a nation-wide case-control study across 11 paediatric tertiary hospitals in Australia.

Methods: Children < 18 years old admitted with pneumonia were eligible for enrolment. IPP was defined as Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP) cultured or detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from blood or pleural fluid.

Multi-lingual "Asthma APP" improves health knowledge of asthma among Australian First Nations carers of children with asthma.

Background: Among Australian First Nations people, asthma is associated with worse morbidity and mortality than non-First Nations people. Improving the delivery of health education that is innovative and culturally relevant to linguistically diverse populations is needed. Digital platforms, such as mobile applications (APP), have the potential to improve evidence-based health education, particularly in settings where access to specialist services is limited and turnover of staff is high, such as in remote Australia.