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The Australian
5 hours ago
- The Australian
EMVision to start two key studies
EMVision receives ethics approval for two studies that will advance prototype First Responder toward commercial production Studies designed to demonstrate First Responder brain scanner can fit into emergency workflows and collect valuable data in pre-hospital setting EMVision non-dilutive milestone payment received under Australian Stroke Alliance Project Agreement Special Report: EMVision Medical Devices has passed a major milestone with ethics approval granted for two key studies to advance its First Responder prototype portable device to detect stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI). EMVision Medical Devices (ASX:EMV) said the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) pre-hospital aeromedical study and Melbourne Mobile Stroke Unit (MSU) study would advance its First Responder brain scanner toward commercial production. The studies are designed to demonstrate that the First Responder device can fit seamlessly into emergency workflows and collect valuable data in the pre-hospital setting. First Responder is EMVision's second device and designed to address significant unmet needs in stroke and TBI care by enabling earlier triage, transfer or treatment decisions at the scene. The device is being advanced in parallel with its emu bedside scanner to rapidly diagnose stroke at the point-of-care, which is currently in a pivotal trial to support US Food and Drug (FDA) de novo (new device) clearance. RFDS pre-hospital aeromedical study Ethics approval has been granted for a feasibility, usability and workflow implementation aeromedical study. The study is a collaboration of RFDS, South Australia Ambulance Service's emergency retrieval service MedStar, South Australia Health's Rural Support Services, the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Australian Stroke Alliance. The study will evaluate the First Responder device's usability, reliability, functionality, workflow metrics and other tests as necessary to meet user and international regulatory requirements. EMVision said the study was on track to start recruitment this quarter, with study results expected to be reported next quarter. Melbourne Mobile Stroke Unit (MSU) Ethics approval has also been granted for a First Responder study during acute suspected stroke cases attended by the Melbourne Mobile Stroke Unit (MSU). EMVision said the study provided a unique opportunity to collaborate with the only MSUs in Australia and one of a few MSUs globally who participate in clinical research. The study aims to evaluate the use of First Responder during pre-hospital emergency response to acute suspected stroke patients, while gathering contemporaneous ground-truth MSU CT-scan data. This study is forecast to start later this quarter. Milestone payment of $400,000 from ASA In a further boost EMVision has reached a key development milestone under its project agreement with the Australian Stroke Alliance (ASA), supported by the Federal Government's Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF). The company has received a $400,000 non-dilutive payment for completing the Telemedicine and Road/Air Integration milestone, an achievement that advances its First Responder portable brain scanner program. EMVision's CEO Scott Kirkland said the company was delighted to report successful achievement of the important milestone, which brings together the power of its point-of-care neurodiagnostic capabilities with the reach of telehealth. 'This combination has the potential to transform patient workflows and outcomes, particularly in the pre-hospital setting,' he said. 'In the coming months, EMVision will be conducting several studies to progress development of its First Responder device, which will be integral to expediating its commercialisation via the FDA 510(k) regulatory pathway. 'We look forward to communicating the results of these studies to the market in due course.' First responder pathway to market entry Source:EMVision This article was developed in collaboration with EMVIsion, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing. This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
ABC News
8 hours ago
- ABC News
Giant hail threat increases for Australian cities as climate warms
The frequency of "giant" hail and the number of hail days in a season could increase substantially for multiple Australian cities as the climate warms, a new study has found. The University of New South Wales study modelled the severity of hailstorms for the current and future climate across Australia's most hail-prone major cities, including Brisbane, the Sydney/Canberra area, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. It is one of the first studies to simulate how hailstorm frequency and severity — one of the most costly natural perils in Australia — may change in the future. It also looked at the WA goldfields town of Kalgoorlie, which the researchers said was a hotspot for hail. The study found that while the overall frequency of hailstorms only increased for a few cities, the chances of "giant hail" would become more frequent by the end of the century for Melbourne, Perth, Kalgoorlie, Sydney and Canberra. The "future" scenario assumes a warming of about 2.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in 2080–2100, which the researchers say is within the range of projections for our current emissions pathway. In Melbourne, the likelihood of 10cm hailstones hitting the city would increase from once every 20 years to once every three years, according to the study's findings. "In Melbourne, we saw that in the historical simulations, you might expect a 10cm hailstone, so that's like a pretty big hailstone, to occur once every 20 years in those simulations," the author of the research paper, Dr Tim Raupach, said. "But in the future scenario, that time reduces to every three years. Kalgoorlie saw similarly big increases in the frequency of giant hail — with 10cm hail recurring every six years in the future, compared to 18 years now. In Sydney and Canberra, giant hail already has a risk of happening once every three years, on average, but this goes to once every two years in the future scenario. In Perth, the chance of seeing giant hail with a diameter of 5cm increased from 14 per cent in any given year to 21 per cent, but the trends for 10cm hail were less clear. Giant hail has been shown to cause substantial damage to cities in the past, with some of Australia's most expensive insurance disasters coming from hailstorms. The Bureau of Meteorology issues warnings when hail is over 2cm in size. The simulations also predict the overall frequency of hailstorms will increase by nearly 30 per cent in Sydney and Canberra and 15 per cent in Brisbane — two areas already very prone to hail. "So those east coast cities — we saw increases in the frequency in the future simulations but in the other places we looked at, the changes were not significant, so no big changes there," Dr Raupach said. In Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney and Canberra, it's not just how often the hailstorms and large hail come around that is increasing. The stones are also predicted to get bigger in general, with the biggest stones in any given storm in Melbourne predicted to increase by nearly a centimetre in diameter on average, according to the study. Hail is one of the most costly natural disasters, responsible for more than 20 per cent of insurance losses in Australia from 1967 to 2023. This includes the 1999 Sydney Hailstorm — Australia's most expensive natural disaster in insurance history — which saw an "avalanche" of cricket ball-sized hailstones blasting through roofs, windows and cars. The freak storm caused $1.7 billion in insured losses at the time, estimated at $8.85 billion if it were to happen today. Perth residents also remember the 2010 hailstorm, which left the city in tatters and led to over $1 billion in insurance claims. There are still cars on the road today bearing golf-ball-sized dents. Dr Raupach said Australia's booming rooftop solar installations could make our cities and towns even more vulnerable to cost blow-outs now. "Hail can damage solar panels. We've seen it happen — in Brisbane in 2020 and in the US as well," he said. Given the hefty price tag of these events, Dr Raupach said it was something Australia needed to consider, noting hail was not in the building regulations. "This was a study looking at the end of the century," he said. "If climate change is making hailstones larger, then first of all, we should reduce emissions so that we kind of tamp down the effects of climate change. Despite the study's findings, Dr Raupach described the impact of climate change on hail as still being "uncertain", noting this was only one study. He said further studies were also needed on wind speeds, which could act to make the damage of hailstorms far worse by blowing the stones sideways into windows. One of the main reasons for hail getting larger is the warming of the atmosphere, according to Dr Raupach. With every degree the atmosphere warms, it can hold 7 per cent more moisture. This extra moisture acts as "fuel" for a storm when the right weather system comes along, meaning it has the potential to be more powerful and create larger hail. But Dr Raupach said other "dynamical" parts of weather made the situation more complicated from place to place. "The ingredients you need for a hailstorm [are] instability in the atmosphere and you need the wind to be changing with height, that's called wind shear, and you need plenty of moisture," he said. "Let's take Brisbane as an example. There, we see an increase in the instability but we see a decrease in the wind shear, and that seems to have an offsetting effect … that might explain why we're not seeing these changes in hailstone size in Brisbane. "But in Melbourne, for example, we're seeing increases in both of those ingredients, and so it makes sense that we're seeing changes in the hail size there." Adelaide did not show any significant trends in either frequency or hail size. Hobart and Darwin were not included in the study because they "don't get hail as often", according Dr Raupach.
ABC News
10 hours ago
- ABC News
Largest modular social housing build in NSW opens in South Grafton
Residents have moved into the largest modular social housing development in New South Wales, which academics say could be the future of affordable housing in Australia. Twenty-four modular homes were built on the central coast and taken to South Grafton for assembly and installation, as part of the $9 million project. NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson said the process took less than six months, which was less than half the time it took for a traditional build. "We're building homes the traditional way as well, but this particular way of delivering housing is appealing because it's so quick," Ms Jackson said. "We need homes as quickly as we can. We have thousands and thousands of people who are desperately looking for that roof over their heads." Using modular construction, also called pre-fabricated construction, a house is built in individual modules off-site from where it will ultimately be located. The South Grafton site comprises of 12 one-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom units. Ehsan Noroozinejad, who is a senior researcher at the Urban Transformation Research Centre at Western Sydney University, said governments should use modular housing more widely to address the housing crisis. "Compared to the current traditional housing, I think this is much cheaper, this is much faster," Dr Noroozinejad said. Dr Noroozinejad said many people were unaware of how high quality modular housing could be. "The basic idea is that the whole structure will be manufactured in a high-quality factory setting using robotic technology," he said. "Then they'll be transported to the construction site and assembled together like Lego." Ms Jackson said modular housing would play an increasingly large role in social housing, particularly in regional areas. "We have 90 in the pipeline for the next year, but my view is that it's only going to get larger," Ms Jackson said. "In coming years, thousands of homes will be delivered using these methods." Lee Haworth, who spent six years on a social housing waiting list, said she could not speak highly enough of the initiative that had given her a home. "I couldn't believe it when I got the keys," she said. "I had to pinch myself because I've been waiting for so long. "If I want to paint, I can paint. If I want to sing, I can sing. Despite technological evolutions such as 3D printing and robotics, Australia has a comparatively small modular construction market compared to other countries. "It's about 5 per cent overall," Dr Noroozinejad said. "For example, in Sweden, it's over 84 per cent being built with modular." He said part of that low take-up was due to community stigma, with people believing the houses were low-quality temporary structures like post-WW2 "dongas" or Nissen huts. "But everything has changed regarding the technology and the optimisation we are using to produce these modules," Dr Noroozinejad said. "Modular and prefab are much better in terms of flexibility for the architect and they're much more energy efficient." State and federal governments are trialling modular housing, with the latest federal government budget investing $54 million to support the industry. NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania have invested in pre-fabrication for social housing. So far, NSW has rolled out modular social housing in South Grafton and Wollongong, with builds in Lake Macquarie and Shellharbour expected to be delivered by the end of the year.
