Melbourne School of Population and Global Health - Research Publications
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ItemLongitudinal variance components models for systolic blood pressure, fitted using Gibbs sampling(BMC, 2003-12-31)This paper describes an analysis of systolic blood pressure (SBP) in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 13 (GAW13) simulated data. The main aim was to assess evidence for both general and specific genetic effects on the baseline blood pressure and on the rate of change (slope) of blood pressure with time. Generalized linear mixed models were fitted using Gibbs sampling in WinBUGS, and the additive polygenic random effects estimated using these models were then used as continuous phenotypes in a variance components linkage analysis. The first-stage analysis provided evidence for general genetic effects on both the baseline and slope of blood pressure, and the linkage analysis found evidence of several genes, again for both baseline and slope.
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ItemGenome-wide linkage analysis of longitudinal phenotypes using σ2A random effects (SSARs) fitted by Gibbs sampling -: art. no. S12(BMC, 2003-12-31)The study of change in intermediate phenotypes over time is important in genetics. In this paper we explore a new approach to phenotype definition in the genetic analysis of longitudinal phenotypes. We utilized data from the longitudinal Framingham Heart Study Family Cohort to investigate the familial aggregation and evidence for linkage to change in systolic blood pressure (SBP) over time. We used Gibbs sampling to derive sigma-squared-A-random-effects (SSARs) for the longitudinal phenotype, and then used these as a new phenotype in subsequent genome-wide linkage analyses. Additive genetic effects (sigma2A.time) were estimated to account for approximately 9.2% of the variance in the rate of change of SBP with age, while additive genetic effects (sigma2A) were estimated to account for approximately 43.9% of the variance in SBP at the mean age. The linkage results suggested that one or more major loci regulating change in SBP over time may localize to chromosomes 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 17, and 19. The results also suggested that one or more major loci regulating level of SBP may localize to chromosomes 3, 8, and 14. Our results support a genetic component to both SBP and change in SBP with age, and are consistent with a complex, multifactorial susceptibility to the development of hypertension. The use of SSARs derived from quantitative traits as input to a conventional linkage analysis appears to be valuable in the linkage analysis of genetically complex traits. We have now demonstrated in this paper the use of SSARs in the context of longitudinal family data.
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ItemFamilies courting the Web: the Internet in the everyday life of household families( 2000)Popular reactions to having the Internet at home include exaggerated fears that families will split up as a result of secret on-line romances and fears that children will learn how to build bombs at home. The Preliminary Stanford Institute Report Internet and Society (2000) which looks at the social consequences of the Internet similarly seems to presume that people are passive consumers of the technology. At the other extreme are studies which suppose that consumers have complete control over the effects of the technology. For example, Silverstone and Hirsch (1992) tend towards a notion of complete agency of the consumer with their model of the appropriation, objectification, incorporation and conversion of information and communication technologies into the household. In this paper, I present findings from a series of in-depth interviews with different types of Australian household families to reveal the diversity of responses to the Internet. Conceiving of the family as a process of continual renegotiation, I theorise the way in which the Internet intersects with the daily life of household families as both an effect of the way in which individuals enact their understanding of family, while simultaneously, use of the Internet enables new performances of the family. Both the technology and the individual members are actors and the performance of family at any time is always an achievement rather than the predictable result of the interaction of the technology with a coherent household.
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ItemThere goes the neighbourhood: the malign effects of stigma(Griffith University, 2006)