A Randomised Placebo-controlled Trial Of Antibiotics To Prevent Urinary Tract Infection In Children
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$735,000.00
Summary
This study is needed to determine whether a common clinical practice long-term antibiotic treatment for children following urinary tract infection (UTI) - is safe and effective in preventing further UTI and if so, whether all appropriate children are being treated. UTI will affect about 10% of Australian children by high school age (88,000 children per year). Because UTI may damage the kidneys, the management priority for children with UTI has been prevention of further infection. Currently this ....This study is needed to determine whether a common clinical practice long-term antibiotic treatment for children following urinary tract infection (UTI) - is safe and effective in preventing further UTI and if so, whether all appropriate children are being treated. UTI will affect about 10% of Australian children by high school age (88,000 children per year). Because UTI may damage the kidneys, the management priority for children with UTI has been prevention of further infection. Currently this means the identification of children thought to be most at risk of recurrent UTI by renal tract imaging. Those found to have reflux of urine from the bladder to the kidney (present in about 30% of those with UTI) are then placed on antibiotics fro 2-5 years. Unfortunately there has never been a properly designed trial to test whether antibiotics do really prevent UTI and if so, whether children with reflux are the appropriate and only group requiring treatment. Long term antibiotics may in fact do more harm than good because of side effects like skin, bowel and blood problems and because resistant bacteria may develop. The design of this study involves the random allocation of placebo or antibiotic (cotrimoxazole, the usual antibiotic given in this case) to about 800 children after their first symptomatic UTI. These children are treated and followed for one year to determine the rate of futher UTI in both groups. Any difference in outcome between the two groups of children will be because of the antibiotic treatment. This study may prove long-term antibiotics are ineffective and therefore should not be routinely used. In this case investigation of children to detect vesicoureteric reflux would serve little purpose and should be abandoned. Alternatively antibiotic treatment may be shown as effective treatment for preventing further UTI and in this case the study will clearly identify those children who will benefit.Read moreRead less
The Macroderma initiative: conserving ghost bats and informing development. This project aims to improve methods for capturing biological information required for environmental assessments of highly mobile species and enable strategic environmental planning in Northern Australia. Using Australia’s iconic ghost bat as a focus, the project will test and apply emerging technologies to obtain key information on a species’ population status and its critical resources to inform assessments of ecologic ....The Macroderma initiative: conserving ghost bats and informing development. This project aims to improve methods for capturing biological information required for environmental assessments of highly mobile species and enable strategic environmental planning in Northern Australia. Using Australia’s iconic ghost bat as a focus, the project will test and apply emerging technologies to obtain key information on a species’ population status and its critical resources to inform assessments of ecological impacts of industry development. Important benefits of the project include information and tools for streamlining development approvals and accurately assessing risks to threatened species to improve outcomes for both our economy and our natural environment.Read moreRead less
New ways for old ceremonies: an archival research project. This research aims to develop and implement suitable Indigenous frameworks for the preservation, interpretation and dissemination of the recordings of ceremonial performances in the Wagait-Daly region of the Northern Territory of Australia. The focus is a body of recordings, made by early anthropologists and missionaries, of final mortuary ceremony performances. The ceremonial performance is a key process for integrating Indigenous knowl ....New ways for old ceremonies: an archival research project. This research aims to develop and implement suitable Indigenous frameworks for the preservation, interpretation and dissemination of the recordings of ceremonial performances in the Wagait-Daly region of the Northern Territory of Australia. The focus is a body of recordings, made by early anthropologists and missionaries, of final mortuary ceremony performances. The ceremonial performance is a key process for integrating Indigenous knowledge from many different domains, a socially powerful site of exchange, transmission and transformation of relationship to country, kin and identity. The aim is to extend the power of ceremony in order to benefit Indigenous people's identity and Australia's shared history in the future.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE140100063
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$539,000.00
Summary
A Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages - Stage II. A living archive of Aboriginal languages - Stage 2: A living archive of 16 Australian Indigenous languages was created with funding from an ARC 2012 LIEF grant. This project for Stage 2 aims to involve more partner organisations to radically expand the number of languages and document types included, to develop bespoke interfaces and technical configurations at the remote community level, and to engage local language authorities, community mem ....A Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages - Stage II. A living archive of Aboriginal languages - Stage 2: A living archive of 16 Australian Indigenous languages was created with funding from an ARC 2012 LIEF grant. This project for Stage 2 aims to involve more partner organisations to radically expand the number of languages and document types included, to develop bespoke interfaces and technical configurations at the remote community level, and to engage local language authorities, community members and school students to work with researchers around the world in refining and extending the archive. Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE120100016
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$430,000.00
Summary
A living archive of Australian Indigenous languages. A digital archive of endangered literature in more than 16 Australian Indigenous languages will be built in collaboration with the communities which own the languages, thereby enabling researchers to engage with texts (and related audiovisual files) as well as the Indigenous knowledge authorities for the languages.
Automated groundwater level mapping: a tool for catchment scale estimation of aquifer storage changes, fluxes and hydrogeological properties. Cutting-edge groundwater mapping tools will be developed by this project and made freely available. Water table maps will be derived for Victoria and used to quantify aquifer properties, recharge and the groundwater balance. Fundamental limitations to quantitative groundwater management will be overcome and the Bureau of Meteorology intend to adopt the fin ....Automated groundwater level mapping: a tool for catchment scale estimation of aquifer storage changes, fluxes and hydrogeological properties. Cutting-edge groundwater mapping tools will be developed by this project and made freely available. Water table maps will be derived for Victoria and used to quantify aquifer properties, recharge and the groundwater balance. Fundamental limitations to quantitative groundwater management will be overcome and the Bureau of Meteorology intend to adopt the findings.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100159
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$160,000.00
Summary
Mobile Australian field isotope alliance. This project will enable a quantum leap in capacity to undertake, real-time, field-based studies of environmental processes using the natural isotope tracers of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. This will enable the project to address a range of fundamental research questions in climate change, water resources, ecology and human impact in tropical Australia.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100852
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$455,766.00
Summary
Breathing streams: integrating aquatic emissions into carbon budgets. This project aims to determine the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by small streams across the Australian tropics, a potential hotspot for emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. The project expects to investigate the controls on gaseous emissions from stream to regional scales using a novel combination of gas tracer experiments, remote sensing techniques and machine learning algorithms. Expected outcomes include the devel ....Breathing streams: integrating aquatic emissions into carbon budgets. This project aims to determine the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by small streams across the Australian tropics, a potential hotspot for emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. The project expects to investigate the controls on gaseous emissions from stream to regional scales using a novel combination of gas tracer experiments, remote sensing techniques and machine learning algorithms. Expected outcomes include the development of a predictive model of gas exchange and the first estimate of gaseous emissions from the Australian tropics. This should provide significant benefits such as reducing uncertainties on the national carbon budget and avoiding misalignment of greenhouse gas abatement policies.Read moreRead less
Hydrogeological drivers and fate of spring flow in a semi-arid setting. In arid and semi-arid climates, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems often rely on groundwater springs. Spring hydrology depends on complex relationships between underlying aquifers and surface conditions, leading to high uncertainties in understanding aquifer-spring-wetland hydrology, which is critical for spring ecosystem protection and to inform management of relevant groundwater-affecting activities. This project will appl ....Hydrogeological drivers and fate of spring flow in a semi-arid setting. In arid and semi-arid climates, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems often rely on groundwater springs. Spring hydrology depends on complex relationships between underlying aquifers and surface conditions, leading to high uncertainties in understanding aquifer-spring-wetland hydrology, which is critical for spring ecosystem protection and to inform management of relevant groundwater-affecting activities. This project will apply novel hydrogeophysical and hydrochemical methods, and computer modelling, to investigate the source aquifer of, and fate of discharge from the Doongmabulla Springs Complex (DSC), located in an area of future development. Project results will inform spring vulnerability to development pressures and climate effects.Read moreRead less
Cross-cultural management of freshwater on resource-constrained islands. This project aims to develop a methodology for community-led adaptive water management on resource-constrained islands and will involve Indigenous communities in the development of predictive groundwater models. The project plans to apply three-dimensional participatory mapping, a stakeholder engagement process led and owned by the local communities, on Milingimbi Island in the Northern Territory. The extension of the parti ....Cross-cultural management of freshwater on resource-constrained islands. This project aims to develop a methodology for community-led adaptive water management on resource-constrained islands and will involve Indigenous communities in the development of predictive groundwater models. The project plans to apply three-dimensional participatory mapping, a stakeholder engagement process led and owned by the local communities, on Milingimbi Island in the Northern Territory. The extension of the participatory mapping with a subsurface component will then support the conceptualisation and development of a numerical model of the island's groundwater system. The predictive model and community engagement processes are expected to provide a more robust methodology for evaluating future water management plans. The project outcomes will contribute to solving water supply problems in remote communities in Australia, and overseas.Read moreRead less