Moving from features to functions: Bridging disciplinary understandings of urban environments to support healthy people and ecosystems.

Contact with nature can contribute to health and wellbeing, but knowledge gaps persist regarding the environmental characteristics that promote these benefits. Understanding and maximising these benefits is particularly important in urban areas, where opportunities for such contact is limited. At the same time, we are facing climate and ecological crises which require policy and practice to support ecosystem functioning.

Incidence and prevalence of idiopathic inflammatory myopathies in South Australia: a 30-year epidemiologic study of histology-proven cases.

Aim: To describe the epidemiology of biopsy-proven idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) in South Australia (SA).

Methods: Cases of IIM were ascertained by review of all muscle biopsy reports from the Neuropathology Laboratory, Hanson Institute (wherein all adult muscle biopsies in SA are reported) from 1980 to 2009. Clinical correlation of these patients by review of medical records was undertaken.

A three-way interplay of DR4, autoantibodies and synovitis in biopsy-proven idiopathic inflammatory myositis.

The aim of this study was to determine the HLA and autoantibody associations of patients with histologically confirmed idiopathic inflammatory myositis (IIM). Serum and DNA were archived from South Australian patients with biopsy-proven dermatomyositis (DM), polymyositis (PM) and inclusion body myositis (IBM). HLA typing for Class I and II alleles was performed by serology and DNA-based technology, respectively, for 133 myositis patients and 166 Caucasian population-based controls.

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies: diagnostic criteria, classification and epidemiological features.

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) are a group of rare autoimmune disorders characterized by muscle inflammation and progressive weakness. The cause of IIM is unclear but it is believed that disease expression may be triggered by unknown factors in genetically predisposed individuals. Diagnosis is based on a combination of clinical, laboratory and electromyography findings.

Diagnostic utility of anti-Ro52 detection in systemic autoimmunity.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence and diagnostic utility of monospecific anti-Ro52 (defined as an immune response against Ro-52 antigen in the absence of reactivity to Ro-60 antigen) reactivity in selected autoimmune diseases.

Study Design: Stored diagnostic non-consecutive serum samples obtained from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS), systemic sclerosis, idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM), rheumatoid arthritis, primary biliary cirrhosis and mixed essential cryoglobulinaemia were analysed by line immunoassay to detect the presence of anti-Ro52 and other autoantibodies.

Results: Monospecific anti-Ro52 reactivity was found in 51 (12.

Variability in depression prevalence in early rheumatoid arthritis: a comparison of the CES-D and HAD-D Scales.

Background: Depression is common in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), however reported prevalence varies considerably. Two frequently used instruments to identify depression are the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The objectives of this study were to test if the CES-D and HADS-D (a) satisfy current modern psychometric standards for unidimensional measurement in an early RA sample; (b) measure the same construct (i.

Goal neglect and Spearman's g: competing parts of a complex task.

In goal neglect, a person ignores some task requirement though being able to describe it. Goal neglect is closely related to general intelligence or C. Spearman's (1904) g (J.

Aspects of early arthritis. Biological therapy in early arthritis--overtreatment or the way to go?

The availability of newer, and more expensive, therapies for patients with rheumatoid arthritis has changed treatment beyond recognition. Disease remission is the goal for all new patients. Studies have shown that a combination of tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-blocking drugs and methotrexate produces superior outcomes over monotherapy alone; however, use is limited by cost and potential side-effects.

Use of prognostic markers in early rheumatoid arthritis to identify patients at risk of destructive disease.

As the benefits of early aggressive treatment of rheumatoid arthritis have become clear, and with the availability of newer (and more expensive) therapies, we need to be able to identify which patients are most at risk of destructive disease and poorer outcomes, and therefore, pinpoint which patients are most likely to benefit from intensive intervention at an early stage. A need for reliable prognostic markers is paramount in identifying these patients. Anticyclic citrullinated peptide antibody and serum inflammatory markers can precede the onset of disease by months and aid in both diagnosis and prognosis.

The evidence for early intervention.

It is believed that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common, potentially treatable cause of disability in the Western world. A commonsense approach to the management of a persistent, progressive, damaging condition such as RA would seem to be intervention before the onset of damage, at a stage when disease still may be reversible. Such a phase of disease has been described as a "window of opportunity" for intervention.

Antinuclear antibody testing in a regional immunopathology laboratory.

A systematic review has been undertaken of antinuclear antibody testing over a 6-year period in a regional immunotherapy laboratory servicing a population of 400 000. Twenty-eight per cent of the 20 205 antinuclear antibody tests performed on a hyperexpressing Ro transfected cellular substrate were positive (titre >/= 1 : 80) with the most common immunofluorescent patterns being homogeneous (39%), speckled (20%), mixed (17%), nucleolar (8%), Ro (7%) and centromere (4%). Ro antibody as detected by immunofluorescence was strongly concordant with anti-Ro detected by counter immunoelectrophoresis precipitation; of 261 anti-Ro counter immunoelectrophoresis precipitation positive patients surveyed, only 15 were missed and 20 masked (with homogenous pattern) by immunofluorescence.

Second level nurses.

I became an EN in the hope of becoming a respected team member, more interested in bedside nursing than management nursing. I truly believed all nurses to be equal, with a different role to play, as this was the image portrayed in informative papers produced for would be nurses.