Social-conservatism, Australian politics and cricket: The triumvirate of Prime Minister John Howard, Sir Robert Menzies and Sir Donald Bradman

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Flow and axial dispersion simulation for traveling axisymmetric Taylor vortices

Numerical experiments using a finite difference method were carried out to determine the motion of axisymmetric Taylor vortices for narrow-gap Taylor vortex flow. When a pressure gradient is imposed on the flow the vortices are observed to move with an axial speed of 1.16 +/- 0.005 times the mean axial flow velocity. The method of Brenner was used to calculate the long-time axial spread of material in the flow. For flows where there is no pressure gradient, the axial dispersion scales with the square root of the molecular diffusion, in agreement with the results of Rosen-bluth et al. for high Peclet number dispersion in spatially periodic flows with a roll structure. When a pressure gradient is imposed the dispersion increases by an amount approximately equal to 6.5 x 10(-4) (W) over bar(2)d(2)/D-m, where (W) over bar is the average axial velocity in the annulus, analogous to Taylor dispersion for laminar flow in an empty tube.

The occurrence of cancer in a cohort of New South Wales coal miners

To describe the incidence of cancer in coal miners in New South Wales (NSW) between 1973 and 1992, an inception cohort of all male coal industry employees who entered the industry between 1 January 1973 and 31 December 1992 was constructed from the medical examination records of the Joint Coal Board. This cohort was matched with the NSW State Cancer Registry to determine the occurrence and type of cancer. In the cohort of 23 630 men, 297 developed 301 primary cancers in the 20-year period of observation. The standardised incidence ratio (SLR) for all cancers was 0.82. Stomach cancer has been reported to be common in coal miners but the SIR for stomach cancer was not higher than average in this cohort. A cluster of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has been reported in a NSW coal mine but an increased risk of this cancer was not evident in the industry as a whole. Similarly a cluster of cases of brain tumour has been reported. In this cohort, the SIR for brain tumour was 1.05 (95 per cent confidence interval (CI) 0.57 to 1.76) and a risk for brain tumour remains unconfirmed. The SIR for malignant melanoma was 1.13 (CI 0.90 to 1.39) altogether and 2.02 (CI 1.31 to 2.98) for those workers who started in an open-cut mine. Overall, there does not appear to be a general risk of cancer in the NSW coal industry. Open-cut miners have an increased risk of malignant melanoma, which may be related to their exposure to the sun at work.

Implicit Taylor methods for stiff stochastic differential equations

In this paper we discuss implicit Taylor methods for stiff Ito stochastic differential equations. Based on the relationship between Ito stochastic integrals and backward stochastic integrals, we introduce three implicit Taylor methods: the implicit Euler-Taylor method with strong order 0.5, the implicit Milstein-Taylor method with strong order 1.0 and the implicit Taylor method with strong order 1.5. The mean-square stability properties of the implicit Euler-Taylor and Milstein-Taylor methods are much better than those of the corresponding semi-implicit Euler and Milstein methods and these two implicit methods can be used to solve stochastic differential equations which are stiff in both the deterministic and the stochastic components. Numerical results are reported to show the convergence properties and the stability properties of these three implicit Taylor methods. The stability analysis and numerical results show that the implicit Euler-Taylor and Milstein-Taylor methods are very promising methods for stiff stochastic differential equations.

Onset of the Henry constant for supercritical adsorption into carbonaceous porous materials

The Henry constant is commonly used as a measure of how strong an adsorbate is attracted towards a solid surface and is regarded as one of the fundamental parameters in adsorption studies. Having a sound basis in thermodynamics, the Henry Law is often used as a criterion to evaluate the validity of adsorption isotherm equations. However, the application of the Henry Law for microporous materials, especially microporous activated carbon, remains questionable. It is the aim of this paper to examine the Henry Law behavior of supercritical adsorbates in carbonaceous pores of different sizes, and to define the conditions for the Henry Law to be applicable for carbonaceous adsorbents.

Transpecific microsatellites for hard pines M. Shepherd, M. Cross, T. Maguire, M. Dieters, C. Williams, R. Henry

Microsatellites are difficult to recover from large plant genomes so cross-specific utilisation is an important source of markers. Fifty micro satellites were tested for cross-specific amplification and polymorphism to two New World hard pine species, slash pine (Pinus elliottii var. elliottii) and Caribbean pine (R caribaea var. hondurensis). Twenty-nine (58%) markers amplified in both hard pine species, and 23 of these 29 were polymorphic. Soft pine (subgenus Strobus) microsatellite markers did amplify, but none were polymorphic. Pinus elliottii var. elliottii and R caribaea var. hondurensis showed mutational changes in the flanking regions and the repeat motif that were informative for Pinus spp. phylogenetic relationships. Most allele length variation could be attributed to variability in repeat unit number. There was no evidence for ascertainment bias.