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While many countries have experienced more than one wave of the pandemic throughout 2020, Australia has been able to contain the virus in a way that makes it a stand out (with New Zealand) in the way that it has been contained, with an exception in Victoria linked to failed quarantine procedures for travellers returning from overseas. Through descriptive analysis, this paper builds on earlier papers by the authors on the Australian response, with a focus on the changing dynamics of travel activity, concern with public transport, and attitudes surrounding activity given the perception of risk of COVID-19 and the level of public support for regulatory intervention and restrictions on movement. We find that Australia continues to suppress travel, particularly that for commuting, that comfort in completing day-to-day activities continues to rise (with the exception of Victoria where confidence feel significantly), and while support for intervention measures remains high, there has been an erosion in sentiment. As with previous work, we discuss what this might mean for future transport policy, and attempt to draw lessons from the Australian experience. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the wellbeing effects of the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires, the deadliest wildfire event in Australia's known history. Using subjective wellbeing data from a nationally representative longitudinal study and adopting an individual fixed-effects approach, our results identify a significant reduction in life satisfaction for individuals residing in close proximity of the wildfires. The negative wellbeing effect is valued at A$52,300. This corresponds to 80% of the average annual income of a full-time employed adult in the state of Victoria. The satisfaction domain most negatively affected is how safe the person feels, and the group most affected are people with low social support. A delayed adverse mental health effect is also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and diabetes are two of the most important public health problems. Outcomes for patients with these disorders vary considerably, likely due to the added influence of a range of interacting clinical, metabolic, environmental, lifestyle, genetic and psychosocial risk factors associated with these diseases. The Baker Biobank study was designed to characterise these factors to inform better risk prediction, earlier diagnosis and better treatment of CVDs and diabetes.Methods: This paper describes the detailed methods for the establishment of the Baker Biobank. The study collected extensive phenotypic detail about the participants recruited from Victoria, Australia. Data and samples were collected at the Departments of Cardiology and Respiratory Medicine at the Alfred Hospital and Healthy Hearts Program at the Baker Institute.Results: A total of 6,530 adults with age 18-69 years were recruited into the Biobank. The majority of these participants (63%) were male. The mean (standard deviation [SD]) age of the Biobank Cohort at the time of data collection was 57(15) years. The study collected data on socio-demographic characteristics, behavioural and lifestyle factors, anthropometric measurements, medical and medication history, and blood levels of various biomarkers. The study also collected and stored Guthrie cards, serum, plasma, buffy coat, whole blood collected in Tempus tubes (for RNA extraction). For some samples extracted DNA and RNA is stored. The Biobank data is also linked to echocardiogram, hospital admission, pathology and mortality datasets. The Baker Biobank data and samples are available for health researchers with approval of Biobank Steering Group and Human Research Ethics Committee.Conclusion: The Baker Biobank provides valuable data and samples into the study of the interplay among cardiovascular diseases risk factors and their impact on morbidity and mortality in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) commonly affects people of working age, yet there is limited data regarding the return-to-work experience in this cohort. This study aimed to investigate the proportion of survivors currently working after completion of radiation therapy and to explore potential facilitators and barriers to working after treatment.Methods: A cross-sectional, single-institutional study was undertaken at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, a comprehensive cancer center in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Eligible participants were 18 to 65 years old at diagnosis, were employed at or within the 3 months before diagnosis, and had completed curative treatment for HPV-associated OPC ≥4 months before enrollment. Participants completed a paper-based survey to assess baseline demographics, employment status, and quality of life (QOL; Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Head and Neck). Open-ended questions explored factors affecting return to work. Associations between current employment status and various disease, treatment, and demographic variables and with QOL were examined. Free-text items were analyzed by summarizing content analysis.Results: Of 93 participants approached, 68 responded (73.1%). Mean age was 54.1 years (range, 39-64 years), and 89.7% were male. Most participants (67.6%) had stage II disease and were treated with chemoradiation (85.3%). Mean time after treatment was 2.6 years (range, 0.3-9.1 years). Fifty-eight of 68 participants (85.3%) were working at enrollment; median time to return to work was 6.0 months (interquartile range, 4-10 months); 45 (77.6%) were in the same role and 35 (60.3%) worked the same number of hours. Ten participants were not working, 3 had retired, 5 reported persistent and significant treatment toxicity preventing employment. Survivors currently working reported higher physical, functional, and global QOL scores. Access to leave and support from treating doctors were facilitators for return to work, whereas fatigue was frequently reported as a barrier to returning to work.Conclusion: With time, the majority of participants with HPV-associated OPC will return to work after radiation therapy. Attention to symptom management and support from the workplace may enable more successful return to work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Young people with complex support needs who live outside metropolitan areas face unique challenges. Issues such as poor educational and employment opportunities, homelessness, racism, problematic substance use, challenging behaviour, disability and mental illness can be magnified and lead to judgment and marginalisation in small communities such as those in rural and regional areas. As a result of poor resourcing of services in these areas, young people may be forced to transition from place to place, service to service as a way of coping with life challenges. This paper presents findings from interviews and focus groups with service providers who support such young people in regional and rural Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Service providers reported similar challenges to professionals working in urban areas, such as navigating inter-agency and inter-professional work and dealing with funding shortages. However, these issues were amplified by the need to work across broad geographical areas, to recruit and retain skilled workers and to respond to the many structural and resource inadequacies in smaller communities. While services aimed to be responsive to young people, the challenges of providing support in a non-metropolitan context could create a context in which young people either disengaged from services or poor response resulted in systemic escalation to crisis. The implications for policy and practice are explored. Highlights • Supports to young people with complex support needs in non-metropolitan areas in Australia are poorly resourced. • Non-metropolitan services work best when they are based on relationship-based practice and local community needs. • Interagency collaboration is essential when working across broad geographical areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic led to drastic social restrictions globally. Early data suggest that women in science have been more adversely affected by these lockdowns than men, with relatively fewer scientific articles authored by women. However, these observations test broad populations with many potential causes of disparity. Australia presents a natural experimental condition where several states of similar demographics and disease impact had differing approaches in their social isolation strategies. The state of Victoria experienced 280 days of lockdowns from 2020 to 2021, whereas the comparable state of New South Wales experienced 107 days, most of these in 2021, and other states even fewer restrictions. To assess how the gender balance changed in Australian biomedical publishing with the lockdowns, we created a custom workflow to analyse PubMed data from more than 120,000 published articles submitted in 2019–2021 from Australian authors. Broadly, Australian women have been incredibly resilient to the challenges faced by the lockdowns. There was an increase in the number of published articles submitted in 2020 that was equally due to women as men, including from Victoria. On the other hand, articles specifically addressing COVID-19 were significantly less likely to be authored by women than those on other topics, a finding not likely due to particular gender imbalance in virology or viral epidemiology, since publications on HIV followed similar patterns to previous years. By 2021, this imbalance had reversed, with more COVID-19-related papers authored by women than men. These data suggest women from Victoria were less able to rapidly transition to new research early in the pandemic but had accommodated to the new conditions by 2021. This work indicates we need strategies to support women in science as the pandemic continues and to continue to monitor the situation for its impact on vulnerable groups. • We analyzed PubMed data from >120,000 articles from Australian authors. • COVID-19 pandemic lockdown severity had no gender-specific effect. • Women authored fewer COVID-19 articles than expected in 2020. • Women's publishing of COVID-19 work normalized in 2021. • Women were less able to rapidly transition to new research in the COVID pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries embarked on reforms of mental health law in the wake of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These reforms have had varying levels of success. This paper considers the experience of consumers in the Victorian mental health system, drawing on an evaluation that asked consumers and clinicians about their knowledge and experience of rights under the Victorian Mental Health Act, 2014. The data show that consumers were not informed of their rights, were not involved in decisions about treatment, were not able to access safeguards, and could not exercise their rights. The explanations for this include limited staff time, unclear delegations of responsibility, a lack of knowledge, training, and support for rights, and a preference for 'best interests' approaches. The paper identifies tangible reforms that would maintain rights for consumers, including competent refusal of treatment, legislative and regulatory reforms, and training and resourcing. Consumers in this study found that the rights-based framework in the Mental Health Act, 2014 had such an insignificant effect on clinical mental health practice in Victoria that their rights appeared to be illusory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Helping people in acute psychiatric crisis has become an increasingly common part of modern community policing. In certain extreme cases, police may be faced with a suicidal individual who intends to intentionally provoke police to shoot them. While fatalities are fortunately rare, anecdotal reports from frontline police suggest that these kinds of encounters are occurring on a regular basis. This paper explores 2350 psychiatric crisis incidents over an eight-month period in Victoria, Australia, and assesses the frequency and nature of potential police-provoked shootings resolved through non-fatal means. Contextual factors relating to the person's behaviour and police responses, and the person's psychiatric and criminal histories were considered to elucidate characteristics common to these incidents. Results suggest that police are potentially encountering a person who is suicidal and trying to provoke police to shoot them more than twice a week. These individuals share a number of common characteristics with those who have been fatally shot in similar circumstances and are quite different from those who attempt self-inflicted suicide. Results are discussed in relation to the impact of previous criminal contact from both the suspect and police perspectives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

'Care' is a keyword for cities and citizens in the 21st century. This paper draws on Emma Power's (2019) notion of 'caring-with' as an ethical and analytical guide for caring action and relational community capacity-building around gambling at the local scale. The focus of analysis is the approval of electronic gaming machines or EGMs colloquially known as 'the Pokies', with particular reference to the Australian context and the experience of Castlemaine - a small town in the south-eastern state of Victoria whose citizens successfully appealed an application for further gambling development. The paper highlights how caring-with re-frames community responses to gambling as an assemblage of localized care practices and relations. This includes, but is not limited to, working to develop a culture of care, challenging systemic injustices, and proactive rather than reactive practices of collective care. • Increasing calls for a care praxis 'caring-with' emphasize the responsibility of a sharing democracy in an unequal world • Caring-with reframes community responses to gambling as social and political, rather than individual and private • This involves the formation of coalitions of strategy, resistance and advocacy for transformative change. • The case study highlights participation and inclusion; transparency and consistency and fairness as key care concepts. • The case also shines a light on gambling in cities and the relational role of communities that seek to resist new development [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of COVID-19 has been massive and unprecedented, affecting almost every aspect of our daily lives. This paper attempts to quantify the impact of COVID-19 on the future size, composition and distribution of Australia's population by projecting a range of scenarios. Drawing on the academic literature, historical data and informed by expert judgement, four scenarios representing possible future courses of economic and demographic recovery are formulated. Results suggest that Australia's population could be 6 per cent lower by 2040 in a Longer scenario than in the No Pandemic scenario, primarily due to a huge reduction in international migration. Impacts on population ageing will be less severe, leading to a one percentage point increase in the proportion of the population aged 65 and over by 2040. Differential impacts will be felt across Australian States and Territories, with the biggest absolute and relative reductions in growth occurring in the most populous states, Victoria and New South Wales. Given the ongoing nature of the crisis at the time of writing, there remains significant uncertainty surrounding the plausibility of the proposed scenarios. Ongoing monitoring of the demographic impacts of COVID-19 are important to ensure appropriate planning and recovery in the years ahead. • The Australian population will be up to 6 per cent smaller in 2040 than in would have been in the absence of COVID-19. • This is a deficit of 1.9 million people caused by 860,000 fewer births and over 1 million fewer immigrants. • Even with a re-opening of international borders by mid-2022, Australia will be short of 462,000 people by 2040. • Lower population growth in all states and territories but the impact wille the greatest in New South Wales and Victoria. • Potential implications for tax revenue distribution and apportionment of seats in the Australian House of Representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A hybrid short-term load forecasting method is proposed. • A data preprocessing module is conducted based on de-noising technique and fuzzy time series. • To balance the forecasting accuracy and stability, a multi-objective optimization algorithm is applied to optimize the BPNN model. Countries around the globe have introduced renewable energies (RE) and minimized the dependency of fossil resources in power systems to address extensive environmental risks. However, such large-scale energy transitions pose a great challenge to power systems due to the volatility of RE. Meanwhile, power demand is increasing over time and it shows temporal characteristics, such as seasonal and peak-valley patterns. Whether the future power system with a larger proportion of RE can meet the surging but fluctuated electricity demand remains problematic. Previous studies on short-term load forecasting focused more on forecasting accuracy than stability. Further, there is a relative paucity of research into temporal patterns. In order to fill in these research gaps, this paper proposes a fuzzy theory-based machine learning model for workdays and weekends short-term load forecasting. Fuzzy time series (FTS) is applied for data mining and back propagation (BP) neural network is used as the main predictor for short-term load forecasting. To exploit the trade-offs between forecasting stability and accuracy, multi-objective optimization is applied to modify the parameters of BP. Moreover, an interval forecasting architecture with several statistical tests is constructed to address forecasting uncertainties. Short-term load data from Victoria in Australia is selected as a case study. Results demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly boost forecasting stability and accuracy, and help strategy making in the field of energy and electricity system management and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanisation continuously imposes pressure on coastal brownfield sites. At the same time, climate change and associated consequences on coastal environments make these sites less secure for human habitation. Converging stresses make the renewal process of these sites challenging, to the extent that they are often perceived as wicked problems. Several scholars suggest that temporary best solutions are identifiable to address wicked problems via an Adaptive , Participatory and Transdisciplinary (APT) approach. This paper operationalises the APT framework by evaluating the development of a strategic land-use framework for the transformation of a coastal brownfield site in southern Victoria, Australia. Policy and planning documents and in-depth interviews conducted with key stakeholders were analysed. Results show that the process incorporated elements of the APT approach by engaging with diverse stakeholder views during consultation and included community appraisal of alternative scenarios. However, the process fell short of being truly transdisciplinary or collaborative as it separated disciplinary inputs in decision-making. As a result, it did not appear to influence the final plan to achieve adaptive and responsive outcomes. We conclude that a uniquely placed-based and adaptive response can be created when all stakeholders deeply and effectively collaborate to develop shared understandings of the problem and co-create shared responses. We demonstrate that an integrated APT framework, one that focuses on synergies between A, P and T, can provide a useful tool for assessing the decision-making process of complex projects. Furthermore, our recommendations to advance APT can help directing future decision-making processes in similar projects with wicked problems. Unlabelled Image • Coastal brownfield transformations pose wicked challenges to decision makers. • An analytical framework for operationalising the Adaptive, Participatory, and Transdisciplinary (APT) approach was developed. • The APT framework was tested to evaluate a coastal brownfield transformation in Australia. • Suggestions were made for an integrated APT decision making approach. • For a uniquely placed-based and adaptive response, stakeholders should deeply collaborate to co-create shared responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the stability and deformation analysis of open-cut mines using numerical methods, one critical step is to identify and simulate the elastoplasticity of geomaterials comprising the open-cut batters. The Victorian Brown Coal (VBC) in Australia is a non-textbook geotechnical material with a hardening feature in compression leading to brittle failure while showing a sharp post-peak softening behaviour. In order to study different aspects of elastoplasticity including the hardening and post-peak softening behaviour of the VBC, a series of laboratory tests including one-dimensional oedometer and triaxial tests were carried out on undisturbed VBC specimens taken from 30 m to 50 m below the ground level in one of the largest VBC open-cut mines in Victoria. By post-processing of the triaxial and oedometer test results, a yielding phenomenon was identified at the boundary between the fully elastic and elastoplastic domains. The magnitude of the material stiffness in the elastic domain was found to be independent of the confining pressure in triaxial tests while governed by the chemical bonding of the coal particles. The post-yield behaviour, however, was a frictional hardening and ruled by the magnitude of the confining pressure leading to a failure envelope sensitive to the organic content of the material. In this paper, a unified failure envelope is defined for the VBC using the Hvorslev-type normalisation process. Furthermore, a nonlinear elastoplastic constitutive model was examined to describe the elastoplasticity of VBC in triaxial condition, which led to a good agreement between the experimental and numerical modelling results. • Different aspects of elastoplasticity of an Australian Soft Rock (VBC) were studied. • A series of laboratory tests, including oedometer and triaxial tests, were carried out. • The material stiffness in the elastic domain was found to be stress-independent. • The post-yield behaviour was found to be stress-dependant frictional hardening. • The failure envelope was found to be sensitive to the organic content of the material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The value of extra pasture DM for livestock production can be estimated using several different methods. • The two-price market value method can be an efficient way to estimate the value of extra seasonal dry matter yield of pasture grown and used. • To demonstrate its application, the method is used to value the seasonal yield of 19 perennial ryegrass cultivars grown in temperate Australia. • The value of extra pasture estimated using the two-price market value method can be easily generalised across a range of farming systems. The challenges of estimating the value of growing and using extra pasture to the farm business often necessitates using complex systems modelling of individual farms. In this paper, a straightforward market value method is outlined, where technical substitutes for which there is a defined market price are used as proxies to estimate an equivalent value for extra pasture used in a farm system. The method can be useful for all grazed livestock production systems where substitutes for pasture are purchased and sold. The two-price approach presented advances on previous applications of using market values by accounting for differences in the value of extra pasture DM used on farm in different seasons. The value per extra kg DM harvested in seasons when pasture typically limits livestock production, for example during summer/autumn in temperate environments, and used on farm equates to the market price of the replacement cost as purchased supplementary feed. This is the maximum the extra pasture DM could be worth when used in the farm system. Conversely, the value per extra kg DM harvested in spring when extra pasture is likely to be in surplus of livestock requirements, equates to its market price if sold, as standing hay for example, termed the salvage value. This two-price approach was applied to value the previously published seasonal DM yield differences of 19 perennial ryegrass cultivars, compared to an industry standard cultivar, grown in three regions of Victoria, Australia. Results were then compared to the value of extra pasture DM previously estimated using system simulation analyses of three farms and applied to the same perennial ryegrass data set. The difference in the value of extra pasture DM estimated using the two methods ranged from $0.01/kg DM to $0.24/kg DM. Overall, the two-price method estimated an extra $24 to $200/ha.year benefit over the industry standard cultivar for the 19 cultivars across the three regions, similar to the extra $0 to ∼ $180/ha.year estimated by the previous system simulation analysis. The two-price market value method can be an efficient way to estimate the value of extra seasonal DM yield of pasture, with results easily generalised across a range of farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]