Reforms required to the Australian tax system to improve biodiversity conservation on private land

Private land conservation forms an integral part of Australia’s natural resource management and biodiversity conservation efforts, and the past two decades have seen a significant growth in the establishment of in-perpetuity conservation covenants. Specifically, conservation covenants address key national goals such as building the National Reserve System and expanding the markets for ecosystem services. However, a number of financial barriers exist to achieving these goals, and the national tax review in the form of the Tax White Paper Task Force provides an opportunity to address these barriers. This article provides a number of specific recommendations which outline how these financial barriers for private land conservation might be addressed by the Federal Government.

A shadow-like task migration model based on context semantics for mobile and pervasive environments

Pervasive computing is a user-centric mobile computing paradigm, in which tasks should be migrated over different platforms in a shadow-like way when users move around. In this paper, we propose a context-sensitive task migration model that recovers program states and rebinds resources for task migrations based on context semantics through inserting resource description and state description sections in source programs. Based on our model, we design and develop a task migration framework xMozart which extends the Mozart platform in terms of context awareness. Our approach can recover task states and rebind resources in the context-aware way, as well as support multi- modality I/O interactions. The extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach can migrate tasks by resuming them from the last broken points like shadows moving along with the users.

The Influence of Task Characteristics on the Intermanual Asymmetry of Motor Overflow

The two studies reported here were designed to test the proposition that greater motor overflow occurs when movements are performed by the non-dominant hand. Unlike previous studies using normal adults, the task in these studies did not require force production. In the first study, a group of 19 right-handed participants performed unweighted finger lifting. That the frequency of motor overflow occurrence was the same regardless of which hand performed the task, did not support findings from other studies where tasks involving force production resulted in more overflow when performed by the non-dominant hand. To investigate further the influence of task characteristics on motor overflow occurrence, in the second study participants were required to remember and reproduce a prescribed sequence of four finger lifts. Left- and right-handed participants ( N =30) performed both single and sequenced finger lifting. The relative frequency of motor overflow (unintended lifts of fingers of the passive hand) was compared between hand preference groups, active hand and task type (single/sequenced). Contrary to the expectation that motor overflow would be greater for the sequenced finger lifting task, overflow was exhibited with a significantly greater frequency on single finger lifting. This finding indicates that task characteristics influence the pattern of overflow occurrence in normal adults. The task used in this study did not involve force production and did not result in an intermanual asymmetry of motor overflow. This contrasts with findings from other studies requiring adults to exert forces where greater overflow occurred when the non-dominant hand was active. However, this study confirms previous findings which show that left-handers produce greater overflow compared to right-handers regardless of the task being performed and the hand performing the task.

Minimal force jump within human and assistive robot cooperation

When an assistant robotic manipulator cooperatively performs a task with a human and the task is required to be highly reliable, then fault tolerance is essential. To achieve the fault tolerance force within the human robot cooperation, it is required to map the effects of the faulty joint of the robot into the manipulator’s healthy joints’ torque space and the human force. The objective is to optimally maintain the cooperative force within the human robot cooperation. This paper aims to analyze the fault tolerant force within the cooperation and two frameworks are proposed. Then they have been validated through a fault scenario. Finally, the minimum force jump which is the optimal fault tolerance has been achieved.

On the effort of task completion for partially-failed manipulators

Adding to a previous work of the authors for task completion for partially failed manipulator, other aspects of the effort are discussed. The paper aims to investigate on the strategies of maximum effort for maintaining the availability of partially failed manipulators. The failures are assumed as the joint lock failures of the manipulators. The main objective is to facilitate the existing manipulators to continue their tasks even if a non catastrophic fault occurs into their joints. The tasks includes motion tasks and force tasks. For each group of tasks a constrained optimality problem is introduced. Then in a case study a required force profile on a desired trajectory using a 3DOF planar manipulator is indicated. Through this study the joint angles and joint torques for a healthy manipulator and a faulty manipulator are shown. It is illustrated that a failure in the second joint is tolerated on the trajectory of end-effector.

Short-interval intracortical inhibition is not affected by varying visual feedback in an isometric task in biceps brachiii muscle

Purpose : To establish if visual feedback and force requirements influence SICI.

Methods : SICI was assessed from 10 healthy adults (5 males and 5 females aged between 21 and 35 years) in three submaximal isometric elbow flexion torque levels [5, 20, and 40% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC)] and with two tasks differing in terms of visual feedback. Single-pulse and paired-pulse motor-evoked potentials (MEPs), supramaximal M-wave, and background surface electromyogram (sEMG) were recorded from the biceps brachii muscle.

Results : Repeated measures MANOVA was used for statistical analyses. Background sEMG did not differ between tasks (F = 0.4, P = 0.68) nor was task × torque level interaction observed (F = 1.2, P = 0.32), whereas background sEMG increased with increasing torque levels (P = 0.001). SICI did not differ between tasks (F = 0.9, P = 0.43) and no task × torque level interaction was observed (F = 2.3, P = 0.08). However, less SICI was observed at 40% MVC compared to the 5 and 20% MVC torque levels (P = 0.01–0.001).

Conclusion : SICI was not altered by performing the same task with differing visual feedback. However, SICI decreased with increasing submaximal torque providing further evidence that SICI is one mechanism of modulating cortical excitability and plays a role in force gradation.

Molding micropatterns of elasticity on PEG-based hydrogels to control cell adhesion and migration

We present an innovative and simple, soft UV lithographic method “FIll-Molding In Capillaries” (FIMIC) that combines soft lithography with capillary force driven filling of micro-channels to create smooth hydrogel substrates with a 2D micro-pattern on the surface. The lithographic procedure involves the molding of a polymer; in our case a bulk PEG-based hydrogel, via UV-curing from a microfabricated silicon master. The grooves of the created regular line pattern are consequently filled with a second hydrogel by capillary action. As a result, a smooth surface is obtained with a well-defined pattern design of the two different polymers on its surface. The FIMIC method is very versatile; the only prerequisite is that the second material is liquid before curing in order to enable the filling process. In this specific case we present the proof of principle of this method by applying two hydrogels which differ in their crosslinking density and therefore in their elasticity. Preliminary cell culture studies on the fabricated elasticity patterned hydrogels indicate the preferred adhesion of the cells to the stiffer regions of the substrates, which implies that the novel substrates are a very useful platform for systematic cell migration studies, e.g. more fundamental investigation of the concept of “durotaxis”

Effects of realistic force feedback in a robotic assisted minimally invasive surgery system

Robotic assisted minimally invasive surgery systems not only have the advantages of traditional laparoscopic procedures but also restore the surgeon's hand-eye coordination and improve the surgeon's precision by filtering hand tremors. Unfortunately, these benefits have come at the expense of the surgeon's ability to feel. Several research efforts have already attempted to restore this feature and study the effects of force feedback in robotic systems. The proposed methods and studies have some shortcomings. The main focus of this research is to overcome some of these limitations and to study the effects of force feedback in palpation in a more realistic fashion.

The effect of dual-task difficulty on the inhibition of the motor cortex

Dual-tasking is intrinsic to many daily activities, including walking and driving. However, the activity of the primary motor cortex (M1) in response to dual-tasks (DT) is still not well characterised. A recent meta-analysis (Corp in Neurosci Biobehav Rev 43:74-87, 2014) demonstrated a reduction in M1 inhibition during dual-tasking, yet responses were not consistent between studies. It was suggested that DT difficulty might account for some of this between-study variability. The aim of this study was to investigate whether corticospinal excitability and M1 inhibition differed between an easier and more difficult dual-task. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to participants' abductor pollicis brevis muscle representation during a concurrent pincer grip task and stationary bike-riding. The margin of error in which to maintain pincer grip force was reduced to increase task difficulty. Compared to ST conditions, significantly increased M1 inhibition was demonstrated for the easier, but not more difficult, DT. However, there was no significant difference in M1 inhibition between easy and difficult DTs. The difference in difficulty between the two tasks may not have been wide enough to result in significant differences in M1 inhibition. Increased M1 inhibition for the easy DT condition was in opposition to the reduction in M1 inhibition found in our meta-analysis (Corp in Neurosci Biobehav Rev 43:74-87, 2014). We propose that this may be partially explained by differences in the timing of the TMS pulse between DT studies.