Title: Social networks, patient work and resources for the management of long-term conditions: a framework and implications for health policy.

Speaker: Professor Anne Rogers, University of Manchester

RSVP by 25 January toMier Chan

Hosted by the Menzies Centre for Health Policy

Following the very successful England tour in June 2011, the Australian Transplant Cricket Club (all transplant recipients) who returned home with the David Hookes Memorial Trophy, will play a T20 game against an Indian community team in order to promote the success of transplantation to the younger Indian community generations.

Presenter: Dr Masaomi Kato, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, USA

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Cash donations may be any amount and all proceeds will go to the Typhoon Washi project of Inahan sa Kinabuhi (Mother of Life) College Seminary, an Iligan-based institution that has been actively providing direct support and on the ground aid to communities devastated by Typhoon Washi.

Donations may also be dropped off to Room 328, Level 3, Edward Ford Building A27

Presenter: Professor Michael McHeyzer-Williams, Department of Immunology & Microbial Science, The Scripps Research Institute, California, USA

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter: Dr Jeff Wickens, Principal Investigator, Neurobiology Research Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.

Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is the most widely used and effective treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Methylphenidate has a known cocaine-like pharmacological action on the dopamine transporter, but its therapeutic mechanism in ADHD is not completely understood. Many pieces of evidence indicate that there is altered processing of reward in ADHD, with increased sensitivity to delay of reward and a greater than normal preference for immediate over delayed rewards. Since dopamine is a key neurotransmitter in reward processing, modulation of reward processes by an action on dopamine is a possible mechanism for the effects of methylphenidate. Here we show that dopamine release in response to a classically conditioned cue that precedes reward is deficient in an ADHD model, and that methylphenidate specifically rescues this anticipatory dopamine release, at doses commonly used in treatment of ADHD. This specific action of methylphenidate provides a novel basis for its therapeutic action, in which facilitated release of dopamine by cues that predict reward is expected to bridge delays between actions and rewarding outcomes. We propose that by increasing the anticipatory release of dopamine, methylphenidate enhances the ability to stay on task when reward is delayed.

Hosted by the Brain and Mind Research Institute as part of the SciNaPPS (Science, Neurology and Psychiatry/ Psychology Seminars) series

Full title: Cost-effectiveness of monitoring renal function for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes in the United Kingdom

Speaker: Tom Lung, School of Public Health

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of alternative monitoring programmes for renal function in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes in a UK context. A discrete-event simulation model was developed for people with type 1 diabetes and an existing type 2 diabetes simulation model was adapted to estimate mean life expectancy and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) over a lifetime associated with various renal screening programmes.
Methods: We synthesized evidence on type 1 diabetes patients using several published sources. The simulation model was based on eleven equations to estimate transitions between health states. We adapted an existing diabetes simulation model (UKPDS Outcomes Model) for type 2 diabetes using literature on the stratification of cardiovascular and mortality risk by renal function levels. Monitoring intervals were varied to 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 yearly intervals and compared to the baseline case of annual screening (current UK guidelines). Outcomes were expressed in quality adjusted life years to capture both increases in life expectancy and improved quality of life. QALYs from different diabetes complications were obtained from a meta-analysis. Costs were included in the analysis. Costs of the monitoring program and treatment were provided from the UK guidelines, and hospitalisation from diabetes-related complications was obtained from a recent UK study. Results were presented as incremental cost-effectiveness analyses for both type 1 and type 2 simulation models. 1000 patients were simulated for 85 and 30 years for type 1 and type 2 diabetes, respectively.
Results: When comparing annual screening to biennial screening, both costs and QALYs were reduced from the base case, showing an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of £9,718 per QALY and £512 per QALY for type 1 and type 2 diabetes, respectively. Increasing the screening interval up to 5 yearly intervals will see reductions in both costs and QALYs in both groups, at an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio well within NICE's recommended cost per QALY threshold. The sensitivity analyses showed that universal treatment had better survival rates than annual screening.
Conclusions: Renal screening for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes is cost-effective in the UK context compared to other funded health interventions. Further research is required to determine whether universal treatment is a policy that is worth pursuing in the long term.

Hosted by Screening & Test Evaluation Program (STEP), School of Public Health

Full title: Do clinicians use the concepts of biological variation and reference change values (critical differences) when monitoring patients with laboratory tests?

Speaker: Adjunct Professor Sverre Sandberg, University of Bergen, Norway, Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry, Haukeland University Hospital and Norwegian Quality Improvement of Primary Care Laboratories

Abstract

Background The majority of laboratory tests are requested to monitor patients' condition and response to treatment. Laboratory monitoring can be performed using test results from a central laboratory, from instruments on wards, outpatient clinics, at the general practitioners' office or in the hands of the patients, e.g. self-monitoring of blood glucose, measurement of HbA1c or PT-INR monitoring. When patients are monitored a key clinical question is: Is this patient stable; i.e. does the test result reflect that no fundamental change has taken place in the patients´ condition or does the test result indicate a clinically significant change that needs to be acted upon? Laboratory tests requested for monitoring purposes should be able to help clinicians answering these fundamental questions and guide management actions and treatment accordingly.

Interpretation of monitoring test results can be performed by use of the 'reference change value' (RCV) or critical difference concept which takes into account both the analytical and within-subject biological variation of the test. This presentation will focus on how clinicians monitor patients with different clinical conditions using laboratory tests, and to what extent they follow the concepts of reference change values (RCV) when making decisions about patient management.

Methods We circulated questionnaires (between 4 000 - 10 000) containing case histories to clinicians in Norway and in different European and non-European countries, including Australia. The case histories mimicked common clinical scenarios in general practice and investigated the interpretation of HbA1c, Hb, INR and urinary albumin (micro-albuminuria). We also estimated the within-subject variation for these constituents in healthy and diseased persons and compared these findings with the results from the questionnaires. Each participant received a feedback report where their own results were compared to that of their peers. In addition, to support evidence-based best practice some advice on how to monitor these conditions was given.

Results and Discussion Our international survey revealed that there is great variation in what critical differences (RCVs) physicians will react upon. We found that GPs usually react and make medical decisions on smaller changes than what one would expect if the RCV concept, based on analytical and biological variation, was used. A discussion about the clinical utility of the RCV concept and its limitations will be given as well as how RCV can be calculated in an unstable situation (e.g. pregnancy). A model for how the RCV concept can be expanded using likelihood ratios and post-test probabilities will be presented.

Hosted by Screening & Test Evaluation Program (STEP), School of Public Health

Full title: How big are the mortality reductions produced by cancer screening? Why do so many trials report only 20%?

Speaker:Professor James Hanley, McGill University

Abstract

Influential reports on the reductions produced by screening for cancers of the prostate, colon and lung have appeared recently. The reported reductions in these randomized trials have been modest, and smaller than expected. But even more surprisingly, all three figures are very similar. I explain why these figures are underestimates and why the seemingly-universal 20% reduction is an artifact of the prevailing data-analysis methods and stopping rules. A different approach to the analysis of data from cancer screening trials is called for.

For more details, see the Reprints/talks tab in the presenter's homepage

http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/

Hosted by Screening & Test Evaluation Program (STEP), School of Public Health

In 2011, NHMRC and A*STAR decided to promote and encourage research and development activities amongst researchers from Singapore and Australia. Under this agreement, collaborations will be facilitated through the joint organisation of symposia and a joint grant. Registration is now open for the first symposium on Combating Emerging Infectious Diseases through Integrative Technology Approaches

Presenter: Professor Miles Davenport, Head of Complex Systems in Biology Group, Centre for Vascular Research UNSW

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter: Dr Kristen Radford, Cancer Immunotherapies Group Leader, Mater Medical Research Institute, QLD

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter: Professor Colin Espie, University of Glasgow

Hosted by the Centre for Integrated Research and Understanding of Sleep (CIRUS).

Full title: Vulnerability and risk: managing tensions inherent in the support of people with intellectual disabilities

Speaker:ProfessorTomHolland, Cambridge University

Hosted by the Centre for Disability Studies

Speaker:Dr Kouichi Hasegawa, Kyoto University, Japan

Decision of self-renewal or differentiation in stem cells in vitro culture and in vivo is controlled by extrinsic factors such as signaling molecules. The extrinsic factors regulating human pluripotent stem cell (iPS cells or ES cells) self-renewal and early differentiation events seem to differ from mouse pluripotent stem cell and to date are incompletely understood, but activation of bFGF and TGFβ/activin/Nodal signaling form the cornerstone of most systems for human ES cell propagation. The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway plays an important role in mouse ES cell self-renewal in LIF-independent culture but it is dispensable in LIF-dependent culture. In human pluripotent stem cells, the role of Wnt/β-catenin signaling is still poorly understood and controversial because of the dichotomous behavior of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in proliferation and differentiation. While investigating small molecule chemical compounds that could segregate the dual role of Wnt signaling, we have identified a compound that could modulate Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway and support Wnt-induced human ES cell self-renewal without affecting differentiation. Utilizing Wnt and the compound, we have developed a novel and simple chemically defined xeno-free culture system that allows for long-term expansion of human pluripotent stem cells without FGF or TGFβ supplementation. These culture conditions do not include xenobiotic supplements, serum, serum replacement or albumin. Using this culture system, we have shown that several human pluripotent cell lines maintained pluripotency (>20 passages) and a normal karyotype, and still retained the ability to differentiate into derivatives of all three germ layers. This Wnt-dependent and bFGF/TGFβ-independent culture system would provide a platform for complete replacement of growth factors with chemical compounds.

Hosted by the Children's Medical Research Institute

Hosted by the Australia Paediatric Surveillance Unit

Ajoint University of Sydney and Médecins Sans Frontières forum, coinciding with International Women's Day, looking at the maternal health challenges faced in resource-poor settings such as Kenya, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea.

Hosted by the Sydney Health Policy Network & the Prevention Research Collaboration

Speaker:Professor Antony Braithwaite, Children's Medical Research Institute, Westmead

Hosted by the School of Medical Sciences and the Bosch Institute

Presenter: Associate Professor Benoit Liquet, French National Institute of Health (INSERM)

Abstract:
The multistate models have become increasingly used to describe the occurrence of nosocomial infection in intensive care unit (ICU). In this presentation, we focus on the analysis of ventilator-associated pneumonia infections (VAP) in ICU by multistate models and suggest two novel approaches. We first interest on the estimation of the attributable mortality of VAP in a large multi-center cohort. Recently, a multistate model has been developed in order to take into consideration both the time-dependency of the risk factor (e.g., VAP) and the presence of competing risks (e.g., death and discharge) at each time point. However, this approach does not take into account the possible heterogeneity of the study population. We here extend the model including fixed covariates in the definition of attributable mortality. The methodology developed is applied to data on ventilator-associated pneumonia in 12 French intensive care units. Then, we propose a multistate frailty model to take into account that data come from different ICUs. The hypothesis of independent outcomes when observations are clustered into groups (or units) is not obvious, thus a flexible multi-state model with random effects is needed to obtain valid estimates. We show that the analysis of dependent survival data using a multi-state model without frailty terms may underestimate the variance of regression coefficients specific to each group, leading to incorrect inferences. Some factors were wrongly significantly associated based on the model without frailty terms. This result was confirmed by a short simulation study. We also present individual predictions of VAP underlining the usefulness of dynamic prognostic tools that can take into account the clustering of observations. Finally, we suggest a method that gives accurate estimates and enables inference for any parameter or predictive quantity of interest.

About the speaker: Benoit Liquet is an Associate Professor at INSERM (the French national institute of health) in Bordeaux. His PhD in 2002 was on semi-parametric model selection. His personal research interests include model Selection, dimension reduction and semi-parametric models, multi-state and survival models, and multiple testing.

Hosted by The George Institute for International Health

This is the third annual symposium, bringing together Australia Pancreatic Cancer Genome Initiative collaborators and team members from across Australia in an information packed weekend. This symposium is open to scientists, healthcare professionals and members of the public who are interested in pancreatic cancer research.

Presenter: Professor Berit Heitmann, Research Unit for Dietary Studies, Institute of Preventive Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Professor Heitmann's major research interests include identifying the determinants and consequences of obesity, with particular focus on the dietary determinants of obesity, and she achieved her PhD on the basis of a detailed study of measurement of the body composition using the so called bio-impedance method from the Research Department of Human Nutrition at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University of Denmark.

Hosted by The Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders

Presenter: Associate Professor Lars Ittner, Head of Alzheimer's & Parkinson's Disease Laboratory, Brain & Mind Research Institute

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter: Professor Veronica van Heyningen, MRC Human Genetics Unit, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Over the years we identified PAX6, SOX2 and OTX2 as genes mutated in human eye malformations. These are transcription factors with multiple roles in eye and brain development. They are flanked by complex genomic regulatory domains that function as enhancers, driven by regulators. Together they constitute networks required for robust eye development and some components have emerged as additional disease genes.

Hosted by the Brain and Mind Research Institute as part of the SciNaPPS (Science, Neurology and Psychiatry/ Psychology Seminars) series

Full title: Cancer cachexia: Tumokines, malignant inflammation and dysregulated metabolism in Liver, White Adipose Tissue and BAT

Speaker:Dr Graham Robertson, ANZAC Research Institute, Concord

Hosted by the School of Medical Sciences and the Bosch Institute

Speaker:Charlotte Smith (final PhD talk), Children's Medical Research Institute

Hosted by the Children's Medical Research Institute

Presenter: Associate Professor Oliver Rackham, ARC Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter: Professor Aleksandra Filipovska, ARC Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Full title: The changing landscape of academic publishing: Sharing science, open access mandates, corporate boycotts, and your CV

Presenter: Associate Professor Alex Holcombe, School of Psychology

Hosted by the Centre for Integrated Research and Understanding of Sleep (CIRUS).

The focus of the symposium will be the issue of uncertainty in medicine, and how clinicians can become more competent at reducing uncertainty, and being more comfortable in addressing it.

Speaker:Professor David Vaux, Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne

Hosted by the School of Medical Sciences and the Bosch Institute

Leading international and local researchers will present on the most pressing issues in endothelium diseases and research.

Lunch and refreshments provided.

To register,email: reception@centenary.org.au
(Places limited to the first 100 registrants)

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter: Dr Rebecca Robillard, Brain & Mind Research Institute

Hosted by the Centre for Integrated Research and Understanding of Sleep (CIRUS).

RSVP to Monica Cooper

Optimising the Impact of your Research at 9am

Promoting Research Data Collections at 10.30am

Keeping Current at 11.30am

Hosted by the University Library

Hosted by the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre

Speaker:Professor Ian Curthoys, School of Psychology

Hosted by the School of Medical Sciences and the Bosch Institute

Presenter: Professor Georges Grau, Department of Pathology, Bosch Institute

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

RSVP to Monica Cooper

Best Practice - clinical decision support at 12pm

Introduction to Endnote at 1.30pm

Endnote Web at 3.30pm

Hosted by the University Library

Presenter: Professor Paul Klenerman, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, University of Oxford, UK

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Join us in celebrating and acknowledging the unique ways in which women have changed the way medicine is practiced. This is also a great opportunity to mingle with medical students and other doctors in the community.

A discussion panel with several prominent women physicians will give you an opportunity to discuss important issues, hear personal stories and get inspired!

Price includes a three-course dinner, beverages (beer and wine included) and amazing company!

Contact Leanna to register.

Full title: Penalized likelihood estimation of baseline hazard and regression coefficients in proportional hazard models: Application to SAFE TBI data

Presenter: Associate Professor Jun Ma, Statistics Department, Macquarie University


Abstract:
In this talk we will discuss an alternative method to fit the proportional hazard model from independent survival times subject to right censoring. Different from the traditional Cox's partial likelihood method, our approach is based on maximizing directly the penalized log-likelihood function. We first adopt an approximation (such as discretization) to the baseline hazard function, and then estimate this approximated baseline hazard and the regression coefficients simultaneously. A simulation study reveals that this method can be more efficient than the partial likelihood, particularly for small to moderate samples. In addition, the new estimator is substantially less biased under informative censoring. We will also apply this method to the Traumatic Brain Injury Study (SAFE TBI study).

About the speaker: Jun Ma received the B.Sc. degree in Mathematics from Anhui University, China, in 1983, and the PhD degree from Macquarie University in statistics in 1996. He is currently an Associate Professor in Statistics Department at Macquarie University, Australia. His research interests include medical imaging, image restoration, density estimation and biostatistics.

Hosted by The George Institute for International Health

Presenter: Dr Greg Neely, Group Leader, Pain Research Group, Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Full title: From COX to NOS to NOX: A Pharmacological Odyssey of the Vascular Endothelium or How to Grow Heart from Stem Cells!

Presenter: Professor Greg Dusting, Executive Director Research and Professorial Fellow University of Melbourne

Hosted by theKolling Institute

Presenter: Professor Melissa Little, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland

Lunch for all attendees will be provided after the seminar

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter: Dr Kyra Sim, Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise and Eating Disorders

Kyra Sim is an accredited practicing dietitian and recently completed her PhD at the University of Sydney. Her doctorate investigated the effects of a weight loss program on pregnancy rates in obese women undertaking assisted reproductive technology. She is employed at the Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders as a research assistant to both Professor Stephen Colagiuri and Dr Michael Skilton. Her work with Professor Colagiuri comprises of developing evidence-based guidelines relating to the many aspects of diabetes identification, prevention, and management for both the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization. The research with Dr Skilton focuses upon risk factors for cardiovascular disease related to obesity, nutrition, pregnancy, and Indigenous health.

RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by theBoden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise and Eating Disorders

The University of Sydney Medical Library, in collaboration with the Douglas Piper Library, Royal North Shore Hospital, invite University of Sydney students, staff and affiliated teaching and research staff to attend any or all of the sessions listed below. Registration not required.

Optimising the Impact of your Research: citation metrics with Web of Science, Scopus, and Journal Citation Reports
9am - 10.30am

This seminar will introduce searching in 2 key citation databases to answer questions such as: How many times has a paper been cited? Who has cited it? What are the key papers in a subject area? What is the 'H' index and how to find it? Which journals have the highest impact factors?

Promoting Research Data Collections @ University of Sydney
10.30am - 11am

Seeding the Commons is a federally funded project to increase researcher profile, reduce risks of research data loss, and prepare for ERA rewards through data citation. This session will introduce projects at the University of Sydney Library to help you promote, manage and store your research data, increase researcher impact and explore collaboration opportunities.

Endnote Web

11.30am - 1pm

This seminar will demonstrate how to use the web version of Endnote to use and share your citations anywhere. Learn how to collect, organise, share, and insert citations into your Word document as well as transfer citations between the web and desktop versions of Endnote.

Best Practice

2pm - 3pm

Best Practice, developed by BMJ, offers evidence based decision support at the point-of-care. Assess conditions by symptom with step by step guidance for history and examination, lab testing and differential diagnosis. Find evidence-based treatment and follow up guidelines. Learn how to use Best Practice on your smart phone, iPhone or iPad.

Keeping Current

3.30pm - 5pm

This seminar explores how you can use Google Reader to keep current with the latest research using RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, journal table of contents alerts and database search alerts.

For more information about any of these sessions please direct enquiries to elizabeth.pigott@sydney.edu.au or monica.cooper@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the University Library

Presenter: Sander Begeer, MRC Human Genetics Unit, School of Psychology at the University of Sydney


Deficient empathic skills are a core diagnostic feature of ASD. However, the instruments for measuring empathy in normally intelligent individuals with ASD are limited. Various new instruments and approaches will be discussed, that also highlight the need to specify the definition of empathy.

Hosted by the Brain and Mind Research Institute as part of the SciNaPPS (Science, Neurology and Psychiatry/ Psychology Seminars) series

The armed forces have a strong culture of leadership. When a crisis occurs or when plans have to be made, the chain of command is clear and effective. Are there lessons from the military which can help develop leadership skills in the medical profession? This panel will comprise medical graduates and medical students who also have experience of working in the armed forces. If the military has anything to teach us, they should know.

Chair: A/Professor John H. Overton
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Reade, Defence Professor of Military Medicine & Surgery, University of Queensland
Dr Andrew Ellis, Orthopaedic Surgeon, RNSH, & Military Reserve
Josie Bourne, Medical student, University of Notre Dame (Captain in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps)
Bob Worswick, Sydney Medical School student

A career in medicine is demanding, busy and often urgent. Family life sometimes suffers. It can be particularly hard for women who also have a commitment to raising a family. Hear from established and potentially future women leaders in medicine about how they have managed juggling family with a successful career.

Chair: Dr. Clara Chow, Head of the Cardiac Program at George Institute for Global Health
Dr Rosyln Crampton, Emergency Physician and Director, Postgraduate Medical Education, Westmead Hospital
A/Professor Margaret Schnitzler, Colorectal Surgeon, Northern Clinical School
A/Professor Gemma Figtree, RNSH
Dr Amanda Stephens, Registrar Emergency Medicine, Westmead Hospital

Speakers: KatyBell, University of Sydney and Andrew Hayen, University of New South Wales

Abstract

Clinicians are encouraged to start blood pressure and lipid lowering treatment on the basis of an individual's overall risk of a cardiovascular event, rather than the blood pressure or lipid level alone. However there is uncertainty as to when we should re-measure an individual's risk if treatment isn't needed. We used data from the Tokyo Health Check-up Study (n=13758) and the Framingham Study (n=3855) to estimate the probability of becoming high risk among individuals not on treatment after increasing intervals of follow up. We also examined the probability of changes in risk on re-measurement after only a few weeks, using data in the NHANES Study. We will present the results of these analyses and discuss implications for how cardiovascular risk may be monitored among individuals initially not at high risk.

Hosted by Screening & Test Evaluation Program (STEP), School of Public Health

Full title: Did emergency department visits and hospital admissions in Sydney increase during the 2009 dust storm?

Presenter: Dr Alistair Merrifield, Research Fellow, School of Public Health

Abstract:
A large growing body of literature supports the association between exposure to particulate air pollution and adverse health outcomes. During September 2009, a rare large dust storm event was experienced in Sydney, NSW, Australia. Extremely high levels of respirable particles were recorded. We conducted an analysis to determine whether the dust storm was associated with increases in all-cause, cardiovascular, respiratory and asthma-related ED presentations and hospital admissions. We used statistical models to model the ED presentations and hospital admissions and adjust for pollutants, humidity, temperature and day of week effects to obtain estimates of relative risks (RR), 95% confidence intervals and p-values associated with the dust storm.
The dust storm period was associated with large significant increases in asthma ED visits (RR 1.33, 95% CI 1.23-1.44, p<0.001) and asthma hospital admissions (RR 1.14, 95% CI 1.03-1.27, p=0.012); and to a lesser extent, all ED visits (RR 1.10, 95% CI 1.09-1.11, p<0.01), all-cause hospital admissions (RR 1.04, 95% CI 1.03-1.05, p<0.01) and respiratory ED visits (RR 1.12, 95% CI 1.09-1.16, p<0.01). There was no significant increase in cardiovascular ED visits (p=0.97) or cardiovascular hospital admissions (p=0.30). Age-specific analyses showed the dust storm wasn't associated with increases in cardiovascular or respiratory ED visits in the 65+ year age group; the 5 years and younger group had higher risks of respiratory and asthma-related ED presentations. We recommend public health measures, especially targeting asthmatics, should be implemented during future dust storm events.

About the speaker: Alistair Merrifield is currently in the third year of the Biostatistical Officer Training program at NSW Health. He started his statistical life at Victoria University of Wellington in NZ, being involved in earthquake prediction. He came to the University of Sydney to complete a PhD in mathematical biology (group behaviour of animals, particularly honeybees). Since then, he has become more involved in medical related work. He has worked at Melbourne University on cell migrations in developing embryos, clinical trials at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre and on end stage kidney disease at the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney. This work was done during his placement in the Environmental Health Branch of NSW Health.

Hosted by The George Institute for International Health

Speaker: Dr Michael Skilton from theBoden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders

Dr Skilton is a vascular physiologist at the Boden Institute, and is currently the recipient of a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship. He has published 33 scientific papers, in high ranking journals including the Lancet, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Biological Psychiatry, Neurology, ATVB, and Stroke. He is a member of the American Heart Association (AHA), the International Atherosclerosis Society (IAS), and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ). He is currently a Chief Investigator on research grants totalling over $1.8m, and has ongoing collaborations with research teams in France, Finland, Melbourne, Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin.
Dr Skilton's research focuses on the development and refinement of techniques for assessing early vascular disease, and cross-disciplinary application of these techniques to identify novel cardiovascular risk factors and individuals at risk of having heart attacks and strokes.

RSVPcrystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders

Biography

Shelley Gorman is a BrightSpark Foundation post-doctoral research fellow working to improve the lives of all Australians. Shelley obtained her PhD from the Microbiology Department at the University of Western Australia in 2004. She investigates the effects of sunlight on immune responses, in particular focusing upon the effects of vitamin D, the sunlight hormone. UV radiation, present in sunlight, is an important environmental agent, which is plentiful in our sun-soaked country. However, with our increasingly indoor lifestyles, our exposure to UV radiation is changing, and we are more likely to experience vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is also used to treat clinical conditions including inflammatory skin conditions such as psoriasis.

It is important for us to better understand the influence that vitamin D and UV radiation has on our immune health (both the good and the bad). Shelley manages several research projects all with a focus on the role that vitamin D has in modulating immunity. To fund her research, Shelley has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Cancer Council of Western Australia, the Asthma Foundation of Western Australia, the Raine Foundation, the University of Western Australia, the Department of Health of Western Australia and the BrightSpark Foundation.

More information on Dr Gorman

Hosted by the Central Clinical School

A qualification in medicine opens up exciting possibilities for international work helping to provide services for some of the world's most needy populations. But if we do this, does our career suffer?

Do we miss opportunities? How can we pay the mortgage? Here is a chance to ask people who have done it. Hear from graduates about the opportunities and experiences they have had. And come with your questions.

Chair: Dr John Whitehall, University of Western Sydney
Professor Bob Cumming, Professor of Epidemiology, Sydney School of Public Health
Dr James Thompson, UNSW graduate and current Urology registrar
Dr Phoebe Williams, recent SMS graduate, Founder of Hands of Help
Dr Chris Dwyer, recent SMS graduate

Medicine may be very different in 2030. What will the doctor's role be? Are other professions more suitable to take the lead in some circumstances? Are we really team players or does it only work when we are in charge. Hear perspectives of medical students who have worked as health professionals in other disciplines and from professionals from Allied Health and Medicine who have a broad perspective on teamwork.

Chair: Professor Bruce Robinson, Dean, Sydney Medical School
Professor Mary Chiarella, Professor of Nursing, Sydney Nursing School. Former Chief Nurse, NSW Health
Ms Kerry Stevenson, Allied Health, Central Coast
Dr Andrew McDonald, MP, NSW Shadow Minister for Health
Blair Rasmussen, medical student
Hannah Lorking, medical student

The University of Sydney Medical Library, in collaboration with the Nepean Hospital Library, invite University of Sydney students, staff and affiliated teaching and research staff to attend any or all of the sessions listed below. To register for any of these hands-on sessions, please email either elizabeth.pigott@sydney.edu.au or monica.cooper@sydney.edu.au listing sessions of interest.

Optimising the Impact of your Research
9am - 10.30am

This hands-on session will introduce searching in 2 key citation databases to answer questions such as: How many times has a paper been cited? Who has cited it? What are the key papers in a subject area? What is the 'H' index and how to find it? Which journals have the highest impact factors?

Endnote Extras (Advanced)
10.30am - 12pm

This hands-on session explores advanced functions of Endnote. Learn how to change display fields in your Endnote library, copy references between 2 libraries, customise an output style, view, annotate and search PDF attachments, use journal terms lists, insert citations into multi-section documents and convert your citations and bibliography for submission/publication.

Best Practice
12pm - 1pm

Best Practice, developed by BMJ, offers evidence based decision support at the point-of-care. Assess conditions by symptom with step by step guidance for history and examination, lab testing and differential diagnosis. Find evidence-based treatment and follow up guidelines. Learn how to use Best Practice on your smart phone, iPhone or iPad.

Endnote Web
2pm - 3.30pm

This hands-on session will explore how to use the web version of Endnote to use and share your citations anywhere. Learn how to collect, organise, share, and insert citations into your Word document as well as transfer citations between the web and desktop versions of Endnote.

Keeping Current
3.30pm - 5pm

This hands-on session explores using Google Reader to keep current with the latest research using RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, journal table of contents alerts and database search alerts.

For more information about any of these sessions please direct enquiries to elizabeth.pigott@sydney.edu.au or monica.cooper@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the University Library

Who was it that said "Climate change is the great moral dilemma of our time"? Is it? Should doctors become involved? What are the medical challenges of climate change? Discuss with medical graduates who have become involved in climate change about why they have done it and how climate change can influence health and disease.

Chair: Professor Michael Frommer, Associate Dean (Learning & Teaching), SMS
Dr Graeme Horton, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle
Dr Stephen Lightfoot, Specialist Anaesthetist
Dr Ben Ticehurst, NSW Representative for Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA)
Peter Sainsbury, Director, Population Health, Sydney and South Western Sydney Local Health Districts; Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney

Speaker: Associate Professor Andrew Holmes, School of Molecular Biosciences

Associate Professor Andrew Holmes, a microbial ecologist in the School of Molecular Biosciences, with expertise in the description of microbial communities, and the linkage between the microbial communities in the gut and health.
The aim of Associate Professor Holmes' research is to develop tests based on analysis of the microbial composition of fecal samples that will enable improved clinical management of patients with health conditions that are influenced by the microbial communities in the gut. These conditions include obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

RSVPcrystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders

11:00 - 11:45 "Clinical research in China - Present and Future"
11:45 - 12:00 General discussion/questions
12:00 - 12:30 Presentation by Louise Freckelton from Office for Global Health Communications

Lunch will be served after the presentations.

For catering purpose, please RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Yanfang Wang, is a Professor and Assistant Director of the Peking University Clinical Research Institute (PUCRI), a comprehensive research center for all clinical research in Peking University Health Science Center (PUHSC). Dr. Wang joined the Institute in 2008 after working in the United States for 22 years, and was the first full time employee in the institute.

Dr. Wang obtained both her Master and PhD degrees from the Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, United States with the United Nations University Fellowship Award. She was awarded NIH Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA) for her postdoctoral research at Cornell University and Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Wang attended the Clinical Research Training Program (CRTP) at Clinical Research Institute, Duke Medical Center (DCRI) while working at Duke Medical Center, and obtained the degree on Master of Health Sciences (MHSc) in 2004.

Dr. Wang currently is working on several research projects including PUHSC-Duke collaboration study focusing on "Weight loss using new media strategies among adults in Beijing". She is taking a role of team leader on collaboration research projects between PUCRI and PUHSC hospitals. She also plays a coordinator role in the collaboration between Peking University Health Sciences Center (PUHSC) and Michigan Medical Center of the United States. For the past 4 years, she had been managing the "Chinese Course on Drug Development and Regulatory Sciences", which is a training program collaborating with University of Basel, Switzerland, and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF).

Dr. Wang is experienced in population epidemiological studies and clinical trials; and has been working in several large population epidemiological studies and clinical epidemiological study, such as China-Cornell-Oxford Environmental and Health Study (China Study); 1995 China National Diabetes Survey; "The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension" (DASH) Trial; and the "Premier Study", a clinical trial using comprehensive lifestyle modification for blood pressure control.

Hosted by The Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders

Family members, friends and allies of a person with an intellectual disability who are thinking about developing, creating or enhancing the personal support network of a person with an intellectual disability or creating a circle of support to promote opportunities and relationships are invited to attend this seminar.

Flyer

Registration form

Hosted by the Centre for Disability Studies

Presenter: Dr Angela Woods, Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University
Angela Woods is a researcher in medical humanities and co-director of 'Hearing the Voice', a large interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award. She has a PhD in literary and cultural studies from the University of Melbourne, and her first book The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory was published as part of OUP's 'International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry' series in 2011.

Schizophrenia has been psychiatry's most consistently and perhaps most passionately contested diagnostic category. One hundred years after Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler proposed 'schizophrenia' as a replacement for the cumbersome 'dementia praecox,' there is still no consensus over whether it is best seen as a 'disabling and baffling brain disease', a 'multidimensional psychotic syndrome', or a scientific fiction and stigmatising label. The launch in the last ten months of not one but two independent investigations - the Schizophrenia Commission and the Inquiry into the 'Schizophrenia' Label - show that these debates, at least in the UK, show no signs of disappearing.

The aim of Dr Woods' talk is neither to inflame nor to resolve the many controversies surrounding schizophrenia, but to shed some light on how and why they developed. As well as naming some extreme forms of human suffering, schizophrenia, Dr Woods will argue, schizophrenia was positioned over the course of the twentieth century as an object of growing clinical, scientific, political and cultural fascination. What was it that so compelled 'our' attention? And what, if anything, has changed?

Places are limited. If you wish to attend, please register by email: lindy.gaze@sydney.edu.au

Sponsored by: Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine
Organised by: Dr Estelle Noonan, Co-ordinator, Medical Humanities Program

Presenter: Dr Damien Belobrajdic from CSIRO, Adelaide

Dr Damien Belobrajdic completed his PhD at CSIRO Human Nutrition in 2003 and was awarded the ASMR(SA) Holden Young Investigator that year. Since completing his PhD he has worked with Professor Graeme Young at Flinders Medical Centre and Dr Leah Cosgrove at CSIRO P-health flagship. Damien is currently a Research Scientist in the CSIRO Food Futures Flagship and he is interested in the role of wholegrains and dietary fibre on reducing the development of metabolic syndrome and type-2 diabetes. His research focuses on how dietary fibre effects glucose control during the postprandial period, day long energy balance and adiposity.

RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute

Presenter: Dr Laura K Barger, Harvard Medical School

Laura K. Barger, Ph.D. is an Instructor in Medicine in the Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School and an Associate Physiologist in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She is a founding member of the Harvard Work Hours, Health and Safety Group. Her research has focused on the health and safety risks associated with the work hours of various occupational groups, including medical residents, police officers, firefighters, flight controllers and federal air marshals. She has directed NASA-sponsored research projects examining the sleep of astronauts on Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions as well as the sleep of scientists and engineers living on the Mars sol (24.6 hr days) in support of the Mars Phoenix Lander.

Dr. Barger received her undergraduate training at Michigan State University. She received an M.S. in Exercise Physiology at California State University, Sacramento, a Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of California, Davis and an M.M.Sc. in Clinical Science from Harvard Medical School.

Additionally, Dr. Barger is a retired Lieutenant Colonel having spent 20 years in the United States Air Force Reserve with over 10 years of operational aviation experience as a navigator on the KC-135 Stratotanker. Her last assignment was at Headquarters Air Combat Command (ACC) where she was responsible for development and analysis of fatigue countermeasures for ACC pilots.

Hosted by the Woolwock Institute of Medical Research

Full title: Modelling step-wedge designs using interrupted time series/segmented regression to evaluate prevention and control of infection in hospital units

Presenter: Professor Val Gebski, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre

Abstract:
Common methods for evaluating interventions to reduce the rate of new Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in hospitals use segmented regression or interrupted time-series analysis. Approaches to evaluating interventions introduced in different healthcare units at different times are developed. We compare fitting a segmented Poisson regression in each hospital unit with pooling the individual estimates by inverse variance. An extension of this approach to accommodate potential heterogeneity allows estimates to be calculated from a single statistical model: a 'stacked' model. It can be used to ascertain whether transmission rates before the intervention have the same slope in all units, whether the immediate impact of the intervention is the same in all units, and whether transmission rates have the same slope after the intervention.
The methods are illustrated by analyses of data from a study at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Both approaches yielded consistent results. The methods presented are easily implemented in standard statistical packages and yield measures of effect which are clinically interpretable by health care professionals.

About the speaker: Val Gebski is the Professor of Biostatistics & Research Methodology at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre where he leads a team of 12 biostatisticians of aspects of clinical trials design, conduct, analysis and interpretation. He is the Group statistician for 4 collaborative cancer trials groups (ANZBCTG, AGITG, ANZUP and TROG) as well as co-directing the Masters of Clinical Trials course at Univ. of Sydney. He is a fellow of the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Radiologists.

Hosted by The George Institute for International Health

Presenter: Dr Namson Lau

Dr Namson Lau is an endocrinologist with his clinical practice in Royal Prince Alfred and Liverpool Hospitals. He is completing his PhD with the Boden Institute, where he also works with the Clinical Trials Unit as their in-house Medical Officer. His current research interests are centered on the role of macronutrients in the development of obesity and the neuroendocrine regulation of appetite and satiety.

RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute

The University of Sydney Medical Library, in collaboration with the Concord Hospital Medical Library, invite University of Sydney students, staff and affiliated teaching and research staff to attend any or all of the sessions listed below. To register for a session, please email jeremy.cullis@sydney.edu.auor vicky.skleparis@sydney.edu.au listing sessions of interest.

Introduction to Endnote
9.30am - 11am

This hands‐on session explores the basic functions of Endnote. Learn how to create an Endnote library, add references and import/export references into EndNote from database searches or the library catalogue. Use Cite While You Write to insert citations and references into Microsoft Word documents.

Endnote Extras (Advanced)
11am - 12.30pm

This hands‐on session explores advanced functions of Endnote. Learn how to
change display fields in your Endnote library, copy references between 2 libraries, customise an output style, view, annotate and search PDF attachments, use journal terms lists, insert citations into multi‐section documents and convert your citations and bibliography for submission/publication.

The University of Sydney Medical Library, in collaboration with the Concord Hospital Medical Library, invite University of Sydney students, staff and affiliated teaching and research staff to attend any or all of the sessions listed below. To register for a session, please email jeremy.cullis@sydney.edu.auor vicky.skleparis@sydney.edu.au listing sessions of interest.

Searching the Medical Literature
9.30am - 11am

This hands-on session introduces the key medical databases. Bring your research topic along to learn the best sources and search techniques for finding the latest research/information in your subject area.

Optimising the Impact of Your Research
11am - 12.30pm

In this hands-on session, learn to search in 2 key citation databases to answer questions such as: How many times has a paper been cited? Who has cited it? What are the key papers in a subject area? What is the 'H' index and how to find it? Which journals have the highest impact factors?

Non-surgical obesity treatments are ineffective for most, in part due to adaptive responses to energy restriction that increase appetite & reduce metabolic rate. Not only do these adaptations oppose ongoing weight loss, they may also adversely affect body composition via hormonal changes that favor abdominal fat accretion with loss of muscle mass and bone. Thus, current obesity treatments may inadvertently increase the risk of metabolic diseases such as atherosclerosis, as well as that of structural diseases such as sarcopenia and osteoporosis. This talk examines potential new strategies for reducing the adaptive responses to energy restriction through use of ketogenic diets or intermittent energy restriction. The potential is to provide both more effective methods of weight management for immediate use, as well as to obtain the necessary mechanistic insights to further improve the approach.

Presenter: Associate Professor Amanda Sainsbury-Salis

With a BSc (Hons) from the University of Western Australia and a PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, Amanda Sainsbury-Salis leads a research team at The Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders that aims to help people to attain and maintain an optimum body weight and composition. Adept in translating novel research findings into human benefits, Amanda's NHMRC-funded research into hypothalamic control of energy homeostasis spans studies with conditional transgenic mice to randomized controlled clinical trials in humans.

RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute

The current heated political discourse surrounding refugees often seem out of place for a country that has benefited so greatly from work that migrants have provided over the years. Too much emotion and not enough facts often get in the way of sensible debate on refugee arrivals in Australia.

On Monday, July 23rd at 1pm in the Footbridge Theatre, the Sydney Medical School will host the final 2012 Leadership seminar (one in a series of six) titled "Refugees - we know the problems, what are the solutions?". An expert panel of three will share their views based on data regarding refugees in Australia, as well as provide solutions to the problem. Audience participation will be greatly encouraged to ensure a lively debate.

These seminars are aimed primarily at medical students to help broaden their horizons by stimulating discussion amongst them, as well as preparing them for a role as future leaders in Australian medicine. Chaired by Professor Kim Oates, the expert panel consists of:

Mr John Menadue, A.O., Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, who has had a distinguished career both in the private sector and in the Public Service. From 1980 to 1983, John was Head of the Department of Immigration. In 1985, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for public service. In 2003 he was awarded the Centenary Medal 'for service to Australian society through public service leadership'. In 1997, he received the Japanese Imperial Award, The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure (Kun-itto Zuiho-sho), the highest honour awarded to foreigners who are not head of state or head of government.

Dr Tanveer Ahmed, based in Sydney, is an appointee to the Australian Multicultural Council. He treats refugees both in western Sydney and rural New South Wales. He is also a psychiatrist and opinion columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald. He has a unique range of Board, management and political experience. He is a Governor of the Smith Family, and is also a former national representative for junior doctors within the Australian Medical Association. Dr Ahmed is a regular commentator on social, economic and political matters throughout the entire spectrum of media and has appeared on a range of television and radio programs. He was chosen by a PM's committee as one of a hundred future leaders of Australia and twice as one of 50 "young men of influence" by a popular men's magazine.

Mr Quang Luu AO, Board Director of ActionAid Australia (formerly Austcare) since 2007. Quang Luu was Head of SBS Radio (1989-2006). In 2002, he was named on Australia Day by the Prime Minister, an Australian Achiever of the Year, and was appointed on the Queen's Birthday, an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to the development of multicultural broadcasting and social harmony. He was also awarded a Centenary Medal. Quang came to resettle in Australia as a refugee from Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon in 1975.

No RSVP is necessary. Any enquiries should be directed to Rebecca Mann at r.mann@sydney.edu.au or by phone on 9036 3159.

Presenter: Dr Radhika Seimon

Radhika Seimon recently completed her PhD at the University of Adelaide. Her doctorate investigated oral and small intestinal sensitivity to fats in lean and obese humans and implications of energy intake regulation in obesity, during which she collaborated with CSIRO, Human Nutrition and Deakin University, School of Exercise & Nutrition Sciences. She is currently employed at the Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders as a Postdoctoral Research Associate to A/Professor Amanda Sainsbury-Salis where she is primarily running a clinical trial looking at the effects of very low calorie diets versus conventional diets on body composition.

RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute

Presenter: Dr Ben Colagiuri

Biography
Dr Colagiuri completed his PhD in the School of Psychology, University of Sydney in 2009. Since then, he has worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre for Complementary Medicine Research, University of Western Sydney and a Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Psychology, University of New South Wales. He recently rejoined the University of Sydney as Lecturer in the School of Psychology. The majority of Dr Colagiuri's research focuses on the placebo effect, with a particular interest in placebo effects in clinical trials.

Abstract
Participant blinding is an integral part of double-blind randomised placebo-controlled trials. When successful, it indicates that any differences between treatment groups are unlikely to result from participant expectancies. There is, however, increasing evidence suggesting that blinding often fails. This has led some researchers to question the validity of testing for blinding, given that it is difficult to separate guesses about treatment allocation from actual treatment responses. Notably, in light of these concerns the latest CONSORT statement removed a previous item suggesting that trialists should report the results of tests of blinding. In this talk, I will present experimental evidence indicating a bi-directional relationship between guesses about treatment allocation and treatment responses, which suggests that participants do base their guesses about treatment allocation on whether or not they observe improvement, but that these guesses about treatment allocation can also affect their treatment response via the placebo effect. On this basis, I will argue that testing for blinding does provide important information about the possibility of bias in a trial and that trialists should discuss the success or failure of blinding when reporting the results of a trial.

Light refreshments served afterwards.

Hosted by the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre

Presenter: Dr Andrew Hoy

Dr Hoy currently holds an NHMRC Biomedical Australia training Fellowship. He received his PhD training at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research within the Diabetes and Obesity Research Program. Following this he did his Post-Doctoral training in the laboratory of A/Prof Matthew Watt at Monash University which has lead to his current research interest in lipid metabolism and how it is perturbed in obesity, diabetes and potentially cancer.

Dr Hoy is currently an active member of Australian Diabetes Society (since 2006), Australian and New Zealand Obesity Society (since 2009), Australian Physiological Society (since 2001), Australian Society of Medical Research (since 2007), Endocrine Society of Australia (since 2009), and American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (since 2011). He also holds an Honorary Associate position with the Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders

RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute

Sleep Apnea/Sleep Disordered Breathing: a Potential In Vivo Model of Ischemic Preconditioning presented by Dr Lena Lavie

and

The Future of Sleep Medicine presented by Professor Peretz Lavie

Hosted by the Discipline of Sleep Medicine

Presenter: Associate Professor Sallie-Anne Pearson, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney and Chair, NSW Population & Health Services Research Ethics Committee

The Health Data Linkage Special Interest Group, University of Sydney aims to: facilitate communication between people who have an interest in using record linkage in their research; create a forum to enhance focused discussion; promote collaboration between researchers and clinicians; and expand your knowledge of relevant methodologies.

All levels of data linkage experience and interests are welcome.
Come and hear of the possibilities for your research area.

No cost but RSVP essential to nadine.caisley@sydney.edu.au by Friday 3rd August for catering purposes.

There is room for another presenter if you have a topic you would like to discuss please email samantha.lain@sydney.edu.au

Supported by the Cancer Research Network

SydReN, University of Sydney's primary care Research based Network, is a collaboration between the Sydney School of Public Health and NSW GPs. SydReN provides primary care practitioners with opportunities to engage in relevant high quality research that positively impacts on practice, public health, and policy.

Sponsored by PC4 Cancer Research in Primary Care

Theme: Prostate Cancer Screening

Full title: A cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of an education intervention to improve poisoning treatment behaviour in rural peripheral hospitals in Sri Lanka

Presenter: Lalith Senarathna, PhD Fellow, Sydney School of Public Health

In developing countries, including Sri Lanka, a high proportion of patients with medical emergencies, such as acute poisoning, are initially treated in small, rural peripheral hospitals before transfer to referral hospitals for treatments. Standard treatment guidelines for medical emergencies are infrequently used in these peripheral hospitals and the treatments offered are not always up to expected standards. This directly effects patients' outcomes and the costs of treatment. Acute poisoning is a major public health issue in many low and middle income countries, including Sri Lanka. This study aimed to assessed the effect of an out-reach education intervention on the treatment behaviour of peripheral hospital staff for poisoned patients.

12:30pm - 2:00pm Clowns for Medical Service Lecture
Avital works as a Clown Therapist as part of the Dream Doctor project at Israel's Ha'emek Hospital in the paediatric ward and has done for the last 9 years. The Dream Doctors are professional theatre artists, with years of performance experience, who have combined their talents with rigorous medical training.
The Dream Doctor project works to foster joy, happiness and positivity to help motivate children to overcome and cope with illness and treatments. The main purpose of their work is to support and assist in the patients care, recovery and rehabilitation in full cooperation with the medical team of the hospital. The clowns motivate the patient to cooperate with the medical treatment and masks any painful and frightening experience.
During this lecture Avital will talk about the integration of medical clowns in medical procedures.

2:30pm - 4:30pm Hospital's Object Theatre workshop
Open to a limited number of participants - Registration required*
This is a practical workshop in Object animation and transformation with orientation to the therapeutic work of the medical clown in hospital. We will focus on hospital objects - any objects - bed, curtain, oxygen mask, injector and others. The aim of the workshop is to extend the clown's means of expression through visual and non-verbal elements.
Object transformation can lift the patient from a painful reality to a great fantasy world.
While playing the transformation game, we change the meaning of the object from painful to playful. Object animation and transformation is a creative tool to change the attitude towards hospital reality on the spot. For example: A hospital bed can also be a ship to sail with it into the great wide world.

Please register to stacey.gentilcore@sydney.edu.au for the workshop by 23 August 2012.

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The University of Sydney Medical Library, in collaboration with the Westmead & CHW Hospital Libraries, invite University of Sydney students, staff and affiliated teaching and research staff to attend any or all of the sessions listed below.

VENUE: WECC Level 2 Education Block Lecture Theatre 1

Tips for searching and keeping up to date with the biomedical literature

9.00am - 10.30am

This demonstration session will take you through the process of critically examining your research question/s to develop search strategies that you can improve the scope, comprehensiveness, and currency or your literature searches. You will be introduced to the advantages and disadvantages of keyword and subject searching, and how you can best apply these search strategies using Medline via OvidSP. You will also learn how you can keep up-to-date with the Biomedical Literature by saving your search strategies, and setting up alerts in Medline.

University of Sydney Library Resources for Research

11.00am - 1.00pm

This demonstration session will explore information and links available via the Library's website: Resources to assess research output/impact, including Web of Science, Scopus; Alerting services, including journal TOCs and database search alerts; Publishing services & resources, including SES Repository, Open Access, information and links to Theses @ Sydney; Journal rankings and impact factors; Document Delivery Service for obtaining full text articles that are not available online. We will look at some of the new features of Web of Science, how to produce a Citation Report with metrics including h-index, and how to set up search alerts and journal Table of Contents Alerts.

VENUE: WECC Level 2 Education Block Lecture Seminar Room 2

Endnote Extras (Advanced)

1.30pm - 3.00pm

This demonstration session will explore advanced functions of Endnote including: how to change display fields in your Endnote library, copy references between 2 libraries, customise an output style, view, annotate and search PDF attachments, use journal terms lists, insert citations into multi‐section documents and convert your citations and bibliography for submission/publication.

Q&A

3.00pm - 4.00pm

Need more information? Ask us!

For more information and to register for any of these sessions please direct enquiries to elizabeth.pigott@sydney.edu.au.

Expressions of Interest are sought for the Mandt System instructor certification

Hosted by the Centre for Disability Studies

Non-surgical obesity treatments are ineffective for most, in part due to adaptive responses to energy restriction that increase appetite & reduce metabolic rate. Not only do these adaptations oppose ongoing weight loss, they may also adversely affect body composition via hormonal changes that favor abdominal fat accretion with loss of muscle mass and bone. Thus, current obesity treatments may inadvertently increase the risk of metabolic diseases such as atherosclerosis, as well as that of structural diseases such as sarcopenia and osteoporosis. This talk examines potential new strategies for reducing the adaptive responses to energy restriction through use of ketogenic diets or intermittent energy restriction. The potential is to provide both more effective methods of weight management for immediate use, as well as to obtain the necessary mechanistic insights to further improve the approach.

Presenter: Associate Professor Amanda Sainsbury-Salis

With a BSc (Hons) from the University of Western Australia and a PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, Amanda Sainsbury-Salis leads a research team at The Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders that aims to help people to attain and maintain an optimum body weight and composition. Adept in translating novel research findings into human benefits, Amanda's NHMRC-funded research into hypothalamic control of energy homeostasis spans studies with conditional transgenic mice to randomized controlled clinical trials in humans.

RSVP to crystal.lee@sydney.edu.au

Hosted by the Boden Institute

Speaker:Professor Michael J Barry, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and President, Informed Medical Decisions Foundation

Abstract

Results of the Prostate cancer Intervention Versus Observation Trial (PIVOT): What are the Implications for Screening?
The PIVOT trial randomized 731 men (mean age 67, median PSA 7.8 ng/mL) with clinically localized prostate cancer to a strategy of observation or radical prostatectomy. Most men had their cancers detected through PSA screening, and about half were stage T1c. After a median follow-up of 10 years almost half of men had died. In the entire study population there was no significant difference in overall or prostate cancer mortality, and point estimates of absolute differences in mortality between groups were less than 3%. However, in subgroup analyses, there was evidence for differential effects, particularly for men with higher versus lower PSA levels. Should the PIVOT results further condemn PSA screening, or do they provide a rationale for conducting screening in a way that minimizes overdiagnosis and overtreatment while preserving most of any benefit?

RSVP Sandwich lunch will be provided from 12.30.Please RSVP by Monday 17 September

Hosted by Screening & Test Evaluation Program (STEP), School of Public Health

Like previous symposia, there will be a range of international and Australian speakers presenting and sharing their latest discoveries in the field of neurodegeneration. Amongst our distinguished international speakers in previous years were Christian Haass (Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany), Etienne Baulieu (Former President, French Academy of Sciences), Peter Seubert (Elan, USA), Lennart Mucke (Gladstone Inst, USA), David Holtzman (U Washington, USA) and Karen Duff (Columbia University, USA).

The A&PD has become a fixed event in the Australian conference calendar, and we again expect over 150 participants this year.

For further information, contact natalie.chan@sydney.edu.au or lars.ittner@sydney.edu.au.

Hosted by the Brain and Mind Research Institute

Full title: Testing for weekly and seasonal cycles in medical errors via Poisson regression with autocorrelation

Presenter:Dr David Bulger, Senior Lecturer, Statistics Department, Macquarie University

Abstract:
The medical errors considered here are errors made by medical staff in health care delivery, ranging in severity from the fatal to the trivial. Medical error data were collected over a five-year period by voluntary reporting within a large rural NSW public health service. We wished to test for weekly and seasonal cycles in the frequency of errors, so Poisson regression seemed appropriate, but a fit model showed residual autocorrelation. Incorporating autocorrelation into a Poisson regression model is not straightforward: the obvious approach is to model the logarithm of the daily expected error count linearly, incorporating autoregression terms and other predictors, but this is essentially a latent variable method, and can be very demanding computationally. We applied a GLARMA model, an alternative approach due to Davis, Dunsmuir and Streett, which uses yesterday's observed error count as a predictor for today's expected error count. Controlling for the autocorrelation reduced the model variance, and we established weekly and annual cycles, showing that errors (especially less severe errors) were more common in spring and on weekends.

About the speaker: Dr Bulger is a Senior Lecturer in Macquarie University's Statistics Department. His current research projects involve statistical modeling for applications in healthcare, political science and image processing, queue theory and statistics education. Much of his past work relates to stochastic and quantum algorithms for global optimisation.

Hosted by The George Institute for International Health

Medicine tends to get a bad press from academics, managers and the media. It is accused of being too powerful, out of touch with patients, lacking in compassion, overly expensive, and failing to maintain standards of care and safety. On the other hand, doctors remain among the most highly trusted of professionals.

Hosted by the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine

The Sydney University Medical Society proudly presents the Lambie-Dew Oration 2012, to be delivered by Professor Dame Valerie Beral (AC, DBE, FRS, FRCP). Open to students, medical professionals, and the wider public, the Oration offers personal insights from an esteemed medical authority into the current state of medicine and health in Australia.

Professor Dame Valerie Beral is Britain's most celebrated epidemiologist, currently serving as Head of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University and Principle Investigator for the Million Woman Study - famously studying links between Hormone Replacement Therapy and breast cancer. Professor Beral was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2010 for her contributions to science. As a graduate of the Sydney Medical School ('69) Professor Beral returns to The University of Sydney to offer an optimistic view on the state of Australian Health - "Dame Valerie and the Evidence: Challenging Popular Myths of Australian Health in Crisis".

The Oration is the Medical Society's premier academic event, and commemorates the founding Bosch Chairs of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Sydney, Professor Lambie and Professor Dew. Recent past speakers include Professor Patrick McGorry, Dr Rowan Gilles, Professor Ian Frazer, Professor Peter Doherty, Professor Marie Bashir and Professor Fred Hollows. Delivered in the Great Hall, the Oration is a celebration of the achievements of Medicine within the University and Australia. The Sydney University Medical Society warmly welcomes you to this important event.

Register now

Organised by Dr Ramesh Manocha, this is a non-profit seminar which features a number of clinicians and other experts and examines the impact of commerce, consumerism, media and modern culture on our children's ability to experience childhood.

Speakers/topics include:
- Alcohol advertising and children, Prof Mike Daube, Curtin University
- The compulsion loop and the internet, Dr Philip Tam, Rivendell Unit
- Rap, heavy metal music, aggression and antisocial behavior, Dr Wayne Warburton, Maquarie University
- Porn and its impact on young people, Melinda Tankard Reist, activist
- The commercialization of childhood, Maggie Hamilton, author
- Corporate social responsibility to children, Dr Emma Rush

Speaker:Professor Mark Ragan, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland

Hosted by the Children's Medical Research Institute

Measuring research impact seminars

Need to evaluate journal performance? Find your h-index or other citation information for grant applications, promotions, job applications? Staff of the Medical Sciences Libraries have great pleasure in inviting all staff (including affiliated clinical and research staff) and students, to attend one/both of these seminars, and find out about two important library resources.

Please see contact Elizabeth Pigott elizabeth.pigott@sydney.edu.au, providing your contact details, location and nominate which seminar/s, if you wish to attend via video conference.

Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, Journal Citation Reports

The session will include a demonstration of recent enhancements to the Web of Knowledge platform and important features of Web of Science and Journal Citation reports including:
- How to find and view vital citation information for an individual or an institution, such as sum of Times Cited, average citations per item and year, and the h-index.
- How to find hidden trends and patterns, gain insight into emerging fields of research, identify leading researchers, institutions, and journals, and trace the history of a particular field of study
- How to keep up-to-date with the information that matters to you by setting up Search and Citation Alerts via email or RSS feeds.
- How to use Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to identify the most appropriate, influential journals in which to publish.

Speaker:Associate Professor Ben Hankamer,Group Leader, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Full title: INFLATE - Endocrine and metabolic effects of NSAID therapy on overweight, hypogonadal men with OSA: A pilot study, plus a little about "SLEEEP" and "DEAR" studies

Speaker: Ms Elizabeth Machan, CIRUSgroup, Woolcok Institute of Medical Research

Summary
Liz's talk will be introducing a pilot trial about to commence at the Woolcock known as the inflate study. This novel work investigates the effect of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs on men with obstructive sleep apnea who are overweight and hypogonadal. Liz will introduce the trial as well as provide background about the concept and sophisticated sampling involved. Liz will also briefly introduce the SLEEEP study as well as outlining the DEAR trial and overview the vision for the provision of clinical weight loss services for patients at the Woolcock.

Bio
Liz is an accredited exercise physiologist and nutritionist who is completing her PhD at the Woolcock. Her clinical practice is centred mainly around weight loss in the management of conditions such as sleep apnea, polycystic ovarian syndrome, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension and other weight related conditions. Liz specialises in lifestyle management with expertise in health coaching to aid her clinical work.

Hosted by the Woolcok Institute of Medical Research

The Sydney Health Policy Network at the University of Sydney invites you to its 2012 Conference on November 14: All that health reform! What have we achieved and what have we learned?

Three years on from major health reforms instigated by the current Labor government, we will look at where we are up to in the process. The conference speakers are three former chairs (Professor Christine Bennett, Professor Rob Moodie & Dr Anthony Hobbs) of health reform initiatives in hospital care, prevention and primary care commissioned by the Australian government in 2008/2009. They will offer personal views on what has been achieved, what remains to be done, and what we have learned from this intense organisational upheaval and realignment.

Following the presentations, conference participants will have an opportunity to ask questions in a discussion facilitated by Professor Geoff Gallop, and contributed to by guest panellists and key members of the Sydney Health Policy Network. Participants will then be invited to join workshops exploring key health policy issues.

Register via theUniSuper form.

If you have any queries about these seminars, please contact the UniSuper Helpline on 1800 331 685.

Measuring research impact seminars

Need to evaluate journal performance? Find your h-index or other citation information for grant applications, promotions, job applications? Staff of the Medical Sciences Libraries have great pleasure in inviting all staff (including affiliated clinical and research staff) and students, to attend one/both of these seminars, and find out about two important library resources.

Please see contact Elizabeth Pigott elizabeth.pigott@sydney.edu.au, providing your contact details, location and nominate which seminar/s, if you wish to attend via video conference.

Scopus, Scopus Journal Analyzer

The session will focus on researchers and how to get the best out of Scopus and will include:
- Scopus Functionality (Searching, Sources, Analytics, Alerts, Author Profiling & Affiliations)
- Citation Tracker - how to find, check and track citation data
- Publications - Understanding Article Output and setting up Author Citation Alerts etc.
- How to evaluate journal performance using the Journal Analyser
- Detailed information on Scopus Metrics and why they are pertinent, including SNIP and SJR
- Using the author tools - how they work
- Extracting information (Citation Counts, Publications, Evidence of Research Output i.e Citation Tracker, Author Search)

Date: Friday 16th November 12:00pm - 2pm
Speaker: Cassandra Sims from Elsevier Scopus
Venue: Norman Gregg Lecture Theatre, Edward Ford Building

Speaker:Prof Geoff McCaughan, Assistant Director, Faculty, Liver Injury and Cancer, Centenary Institute

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Full title: Quantification of cardiorespiratory synchronisation in healthy infants and infants with chronic neonatal lung disease during sleep

Presenter:Mr Chinh D. Nguyen, University of Queensland

Summary

Cardiorespiratory interaction (coupling) is a vital phenomenon in human life, for providing gas exchange within a narrow range, in a manner responsive to varying physiological and metabolic demands. Analysis of the cardiorespiratory coupling, hence, might provide useful information of maturational process and cardiorespiratory control in infants. However, detection and quantification of the cardiorespiratory coupling in infants are difficult, due to noise and nonstationarity of the signals.
In this talk, I will present a semi-automated technique to characterise the cardiorespiratory coupling in the context of phase synchronisation. The technique has been validated by mathematical models and applied on two cohort of healthy infants and infants with chronic neonatal lung disease (CNLD). The results showed that cardiorespiratory synchronisation (CRS) increased with maturation in both groups; sighs followed by a central apnea were associated with lower CRS compared to sighs followed by a pause in healthy infants; and supplemental oxygen normalises CRS in infants with CNLD towards the normal value of healthy infants. The quantification of CRS might be useful to characterise cardiorespiratory control and maturation of infants during sleep.

About the speaker

Chinh D. Nguyen received the B.Eng. (Hons.) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University Technology PETRONAS, Malaysia, in 2008. He has just submitted the Ph.D. thesis in biomedical engineering at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
His research interests include mathematical analysis of physiological signals, cardiorespiratory synchronisation, and the signal-processing technique applied to sleep medicine.

Hosted by Woolcock Institute of Medical Research

Presenter:Professor Chris Goodnow, NHMRC Australia Fellow, Immunogenomics Laboratory, Head of the Department of Immunology, John Curtin School of Medical Research

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Presenter:ProfessorJohnChalmers, The George Institute

The talk will be given in French with slides in English.

Hosted by The George Institute for International Health

Presenter:Professor Ian Marschner, Macquarie University

Abstract
It has been said that the only excuse for an odds ratio is a case-control study. Nonetheless, although relative risks are usually easier to interpret than odds ratios, logistic regression remains the standard analysis method for prospective studies with dichotomous outcomes. One reason for this is that the log-binomial model for adjusted relative risks is prone to numerical instability and convergence problems as it does not respect the constraint that the fitted risks must lie between 0 and 1. In this talk I will present a method for fitting the log-binomial model that overcomes these problems, using a variant of the EM algorithm. As well as reliable model fitting, the method also conveniently accommodates semi-parametric generalizations which provide more flexible adjustment of relative risks. Illustrative applications from studies in acute myocardial infarction will be discussed.

About the speaker

Ian Marschner is Professor of Statistics at Macquarie University where his research focuses on the development of new statistical methodology with applications in health and medicine, particularly randomized clinical trials. He also holds the title of Professor of Biostatistics at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, and he formerly held appointments as Director of Biometrics at Pfizer and Associate Professor of Biostatistics at Harvard University.

Hosted by The George Institute for International Health

Presenter:Dr Anna-Louise Bouvier, Executive Director/creator of the Physiocise Group who is also an author and media communicator

Summary

Physiocise creator/director, author and media commentator, Anna-Louise Bouvier has spent many years combining her professional physiotherapy career with the media world. She is the TODAY shows Feel Good Physio, spent 4 years as a regular with James Valentine on 702 as well as many other ABC radio shows, writes regularly for many national magazines, wrote and recorded the Qantas Comfort Zone, is an Ambassador for Arthritis NSW, and recently released a 5 part DVD series with the ABC called The Happy Body. She is coming to the Woolcock to speak about how to create media-friendly messages to increase awareness for sleep research. This is a very practical look at ways you can take your research and create sticky messages that the media can easily access and broadcast (top down). Coupled with this she explores ideas for community based (bottom up) marketing. In a climate where so many areas of medical research are jostling for attention and funding this is a must see presentation.
To get a feel for some of the work Anna-Louise is involved in www.physiocise.com.au

Hosted by Woolcock Institute of Medical Research

Full title: The mTOR signaling circuitry in cancer and stem cell senescence: new molecular-targeted therapies

Presenter:Dr J Silvio Gutkind, Chief, Oral and Pharyngeal Cancer Branch, NIH, Bethesda, USA

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

On 3-4 December Obesity Australia is hosting a Summit at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra entitled "Obesity: Changing the Rhetoric, Solutions for the Future". The meeting will outline the extent of the problem of obesity and its associated disorders, explore whose responsibility it is, and propose solutions for its mitigation. The target audience is broad - media, general practice, governments, community interest groups and specialist societies. The format is of six two hour sessions, with a series of accessible presentations followed by a 40-45 minute panel discussion, engaging speakers, panellists and the audience. Further details will be available shortly. If you are interested in registering, contact us at info@obesityaustralia.org.

Full title: Consequences of blood vessel density modulation in normal and pathological conditions; a "VEGF-ocentric" universe

Presenter:Dr Andras Nagy, Senior Investigator, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Hosted by the Centenary Institute

Faculty of Medicine rockers joined by Adam Spencer in Rock for Dollo refugee camp fundraiser

The School of Public Health's Simon Chapman, Bob Cumming and Suzanne Plater's band the Original Faux Pas will be joined by ABC 702 and Sydney alumnus Adam Spencer on guitar for two big gigs to raise $50,000 for shelter for 170,000 Somali refugees living in the Dollo refugee camp in Ethiopia.

Saturday Dec 1 (max 200 tickets) at Balmain's Cat and Fiddle Hotel and Friday Dec 7 at the University's Manning Bar (max 900).

See http://bit.ly/QEJggf

Buy ticketshere http://bit.ly/W658h9

Presenter: Associate Professor Gil Levkowitz, Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Part of the SciNaPPS Lecture series

Presenter:Dr Saverio Stranges, Associate Clinical Professor of Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Division of Health Sciences, University of Warwick, UK

Summary

Sleep disorders represent an unmet public health problem, affecting large segments of the population, especially older adults, with substantial costs to society. Furthermore, reduced sleep duration and poor sleep quality are associated with adverse health outcomes in later life including reduced longevity, cardiovascular disease, psychiatric co-morbidities and lower health-related quality of life. However, whether these relationships are causal remains uncertain owing to the possibility of bidirectional associations and reverse causation, particularly in an ageing population.
The seminar will provide a general overview concerning the growing body of evidence on the public health implications of sleep disturbances across different populations worldwide, as well as on some controversial issues and specific challenges in this area of research. Moreover, relevant scientific literature, including Dr Stranges's own work, will be discussed with regard to the cardiovascular and metabolic effects of sleep disturbances.

About the speaker

Dr. Stranges is an Associate Clinical Professor of Cardiovascular Epidemiology in the Division of Health Sciences at University of Warwick, where he has been since August 2006. Dr. Stranges is originally from Italy, where he completed his medical school, and specialty training in Preventive Medicine. Thereafter, he moved to the US (2002-06) to carry out post-doctoral work in Cardiovascular Epidemiology. Dr. Stranges started his academic career as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the School of Public Health at the State University of New York in Buffalo.
His research primarily focuses on the epidemiology and prevention of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. A specific line of research Dr Stranges has been pursuing in recent years focuses on the health implications of sleep disturbances. For example, Dr Stranges has led a series of studies on the cardiovascular and metabolic effects of sleep disturbances from the Whitehall II Study in the UK and the Western New York Health Study in the US, as well as on the burden of sleep problems in developing countries (WHO-INDEPTH). Throughout his career, Dr Stranges has been involved in several international collaborative epidemiologic projects and secondary data analyses, and has published extensively in the area of chronic disease. Among the others: Nutritional Prevention of Cancer Trial, Western New York Health Study, and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), USA; National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) and Whitehall II Study, UK; EPIC Study and Olivetti Heart Study, Italy; WHO-INDEPTH.

Hosted by Woolcock Institute of Medical Research