Departure fuel loads in time-minimizing migrating birds can be explained by the energy costs of being heavy

Lindstrom and Alerstam presented a model that predicts optimal departure fuel loads as a function of the rate of fuel deposition in time-minimizing migrants. The basis of the model is that the coverable distance per unit of fuel deposited, diminishes with increasing fuel load. This is an effect of the increasing flight costs associated with increasing body mass. Lindstrom and Alerstam (1992) found that birds left at lower fuel loads than their model predicted for which they considered various ecological explanations. Alternatively, we hypothesize that the difference between prediction and empirical data might be a result of extra resting metabolic and transport costs associated with an increase in fuel load during stopover. We develop a new version of the Lindstrom and Alerstam (1992) model taking fuel load associated costs during stopover into account. We fit empirical data from rufous hummingbirds Selasphorus rufus and bluethroats Luscinia svecica to this new model. Estimated fuel-load costs are discussed in relation to knowledge presently available on variations in basal metabolic costs and transport costs with body mass. We show that fuel-load costs within a reasonable range can explain the observed departure fuel loads when migrating birds are time minimizers.

The challenge of being heard : understanding Wadawurrung climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity

For the original residents and 'landscape planners' of the Australian continent, the some 60,000 years of accumulated ecological knowledge of the patterns and transformations of this continent held the memories and ecological knowledge of its Australian Aboriginal custodians and Elders. Much of this extensive oral knowledge is little listened to, heard, respected, nor incorporated into the Western land use planning literature that seek to guide development and management pressures borne out of some 200 years of local knowledge appreciation and a plethora of northern hemisphere knowledge uniformed by ecological responsibility and self. While extensive planning schemes, development plans, and management plans have been prepared, gazetted and embodied in law, they lack the testament of time and the lore of knowledge longevity.

Place-based inquiry – the art of being an inhabitant-researcher

In this presentation, I draw on my research encounters with schools and classrooms, together with contemporary movements in social theory and research, to propose a conceptualisation of ‘place-based inquiry’. Three areas of theory are drawn upon: (1) ‘Practice’ ontologies and associated moves towards ‘philosophical-empirical inquiry’ (Green & Hopwood, 2015) provide a warrant for thinking more closely and looking more closely in social research; (2) more-than-representational theory (Anderson & Harrison, 2010) problematizes the notion of the work and impacts of research, raising implications for the ambitions of research undertakings; and, (3) place-based pedagogies (e.g., Gruenewald, 2003) support a sentiment and model for an openly transformational social inquiry. These synergistic areas of theory are used here to frame a practice that recognises the more-than-representational work of research and how this work might be harnessed in more explicit and more deliberate ways to support educational change. I tentatively characterise this practice as that of an inhabitant-researcher, drawing on Orr’s (1992, p. 130) distinction between residing and inhabiting, where inhabiting involves “mutually nurturing relationship with a place”. The inhabitant-researcher attempts to engage research participants in both decolonising and reinhabiting encounters, and to make contributions that are both critical and generative, representational and more-than-representational.

Being made redundant: from 'the writing on the wall' to 'a bolt from the blue' - 'being disposed of' as a human tragedy

This paper focuses on the experience of being made redundant. A qualitative study conducted in Australia involved phenomenological, in-depth interviews with middle- and senior-level executives. Ten respondents were interviewed about their experiences of being made redundant. What is evident from their stories is a clear passage of "being disposed of" differing only in whether their fate was evident prior to their disposal - "the writing on the wall" - or whether it was a complete shock - "a bolt from the blue". Ultimately, whether respondents knew what was coming or not, the process was often shocking, hurtful, humiliating, and harsh. Many respondents reported going through the process of being made redundant more than once. All believed it could have been handled better.

Multicultural places and the idea of home

Place identification in urban sociology has traditionally be associated with a sense of ‘being at home’ and connected to the formation of stable and fixed identities. The rise in transnational migration and the increasing number of refugees around the world has made particular regions and communities, within many western nations, culturally diverse. This has led to a re-conceptualisation and re-examination of the relationship between place and home. In light of this new paradigm I explore the existence of multicultural places and investigate the ways, if any, we can speak of ‘being at home’ in these diverse urban places. If home has been traditionally associated with order, sameness and identity while multicultural places are conceptualised in terms of fluidity, contingency, heterogeneity and difference then there seems to be an inherent tension between these two ideas. Are the ideas of home and multiculturalism mutually exclusive? I maintain that they are dialectically interwoven, especially when we acknowledge that otherness and home should not be conceived in binary terms. In order to examine this complex relationship the paper provides a brief discussion of home within the discourses of modernity and postmodernity and then links these discourses to phenomenological and sociological approaches to home. The concluding section demonstrates how home and otherness are expressed in intercultural moments where sameness and diversity rub against each other causing occasional friction but also moments of intercultural dialogue.

Changing bodies, changing discourses : women's experiences of early menopause

Early menopause has been constructed by discourses of biological determinism as an untimely, but natural, failure of the female body. Medical discourses in particular have interpreted early menopause as a congenital irregularity and a rare anomaly of menopause at midlife. In this thesis I challenge the notion that early menopause is an innate imperfection related only to women’s age. I propose that early menopause is dependent upon the cultural interpretations of individual women and is constituted through the mercurial and multiple discourses of women who have this embodied experience. Moreover, I reveal that early menopause is a contemporary condition and that its location in history is inextricably bound to discourses of risk, naturalism and the self. Further I make the assumption that having an early menopause both affects and is an effect of women’s fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. I have drawn upon a broad range of sources to provide a sociological analysis of early menopause. Literature on early menopause is dominated by positivist discourses, yet many alternate discourses negotiate these influential constructions. I suggest here that the perception of early menopause as a natural fault is merely a construction by medical discourses and does not incorporate the dynamic discourses of early-menopausal women. Moreover, the restriction of early menopause to a genetic female failure excludes the majority of women who have an early menopause through iatrogenisis. This omission occurs through the failure of positivist discourses to accommodate diversity in discourses. Recent sociological and feminist studies have vindicated menopausal women. They have reconstructed menopause through notions of embodiment and have removed the veil of negativity used by the medical sciences to contain menopausal women (Komesaroff, Rothfield and Daly 1997). The visibility of menopausal women, however, remains connected to age. Menopause has been created as a predictable consequence of aging and as such has come to be synonymous with middle age. Nowadays, even men are said to experience menopause at midlife (Carruthers 1996). But early menopause is constituted within the discourses of women who have this experience. Medico-scientific discourses, based upon theories of genetic inevitability, disregard this perspective. Consequently early menopause is subsumed by naturalistic discourses that relate menopause to midlife. Such restraint reflects the unease created by menopause that does not coincide with prescribed life stages. Women's experiences of their changing bodies are largely unheard. Thus, women who have an early menopause are faced with a chasm of ‘cultural non-recognition’ (Fraser 1997). Conjointly with this discursive repression early-menopausal women face social imbalances that are transacted as both cause and consequence of early menopause. In particular the contemporary creation of early menopause is bound to the social and historical location of women as a group. Women are exploited by the institution of medicine, ‘exposure to environmental toxicity’ (Fraser 1997: 11) and commercialization as causes of early menopause. Yet the corporeal effects of practices of risk avoidance (Beck 1993), social practices (Shilling 1993) and Western consumerism (Lupton 1994) fail to be recognized. I address these problematics through a poststructural and feminist critique that assumes moments of commonality among women, while at the same time recognizes shifting and multiple differences (Nicholson 1999). I suggest here that early menopause falls into cultural misrecognition in Fraser's (1997) terms and argue that it is united concurrently with the gender injustice of androcentrism (Fraser 1997: 21). Fraser (1997: 16) suggests that it is only by relating these dual problematics that we are able to make sense of current dilemmas. Thus I have critiqued early menopause through a connection between individual embodied experiences of early menopause and early menopause as a modern phenomenon that is specific to women. I have attempted to unravel these arguments that simultaneously call to ‘... abolish gender differentiation and to valorize gender specificity’ (Fraser 1997: 21) while at the same time acknowledging their interconnectedness. An approach of merely combining women’s discourses with overarching social issues would be inadequate as not only do these problematics intersect but they also can be opposed. As Fraser (1997: 25) notes with her theory, redressing one aspect of cultural or social analysis can further imbalance another. For instance making visible the diversity and uniqueness of individual experiences of early menopause could detract from acknowledging the contemporary construction of early menopause through social inequality. Crucial to this understanding is a destabilizing of the binary construction of differences between the sexes that makes way for a reconstruction of early menopause through ‘sexual slippage’ (Matus 1995). In this thesis I look for a subtlety between the particular and the collective that views early menopause as concurrently a singular and changeable experience as well as imbedded in social practice. I suggest that these concepts are entwined as interactive effects of early menopause. Thus I have analyzed the bivalent problematics of the embodiment and social location of early menopause as imbricated, dynamic and unending discourses. From this perspective I reviewed the literature that was available on early menopause. In Chapter One I look to descriptions of early menopause and note that it has disappeared into a conglomeration of disparate, mostly medical, discourses that are contradictory. Nevertheless medical discourses offer ‘conclusive’ definitions of early menopause that are based on naturalistic views of the body (Shilling 1994). The determinants used are inconsistent and do not include women's discourses of early menopause. Thus, dominant medical discourses obscure women’s embodied experiences of early menopause and ignore the contemporary causes of early menopause. In Chapter Two I examine the causes of early menopause as a way of explaining the disparity between medical discourses and my anecdotal observations of early menopause as a fairly common contemporary occurrence. The relatively recent escalation in gynaecological surgery, especially hysterectomy, appears to account almost single-handedly for early menopause as a current phenomenon. Moreover, the extraordinary number of women who have their uterus removed at hysterectomy can be interpreted as a modern implementation of ancient anxieties. Women's sexuality has been constructed throughout history as problematic and this unease has been translated through women's bodies as dangerous and in need of control (Greer 1992). Thus social concerns which have evolved historically have emerged through the representation of a woman's uterus as an unseen, dark and mysterious risk (Beck 1993). Medical discourses define this risk and are able to negate the so-called dangers of women's sexuality through the surgical removal of their organs. Widespread negotiation of medical discourses is apparent, as hysterectomy in the modern Western world is the most common of all surgical operations (Hufnagel 1989). It is overwhelmingly the most common cause of early menopause as well. I examine also the historical condemnation of infertile women and how this anxiety has been transposed to the modern world through the commercialization of reproduction. Transactions of this social unease can cause early menopause. For instance the medical technology of in-vitro fertilization (I.V.F.) has been offered as a panacea for the infertility of early menopause but, paradoxically, can cause early menopause as well. Conception through technology has been normalized as a viable option for women who are unable to conceive and understandings of I.V.F. have moved into everyday discourse. Medical discourses have constructed fertility as a saleable item and infertile women expect that they can purchase this merchandise. Human eggs have become lucrative commodities that now are available in the market place. Egg ‘donation’ for I.V.F. programs can hasten the attrition rate of eggs and can cause early menopause in some pre-menopausal women (Rowland 1992: 24). Even the recycling of a woman’s uterus supposedly has become a possibility through the transferring of this ‘used’ organ at hysterectomy to a recipient woman who can use the other woman’s uterus as a ‘gestational garage’ (Rogers 1998). In this way women have been disembodied as mechanical systems with inter-changeable body parts and the potentially detrimental consequences of these commercial transactions are ignored. In addition I show how early menopause can be caused by the connection between the self and the social structure. Women's subjectivity is constituted through the cultural discourses available to them and these discourses affect social behaviour (Lupton 1995). For instance smoking and dieting have been identified as causes of early menopause. These activities have been related to the creation of women’s bodies as hetero-sexually desirable and are endemic to young women (Evans-Young 1995). This suggests that cultural causes of early menopause are transactions of sexual politics. Yet there is a paucity of literature that acknowledges the relationship between women’s subjectivity and early menopause. Thus the second chapter exposes a link between sexual politics and causes of early menopause through women's relationships with risk, naturalism and the self. In Chapter Three I deconstruct early menopause through theoretical considerations. I rely on an overarching poststructuralism that embraces the concept of fragmented plural discourses and the subjectivity of menopausal women as a continuous process (Komesaroff 1997: 61). I have woven these variables through broad feminist critiques (Leonard 1997). Through this eclectic approach I hoped to find some loose alignment between the corporeal, ontological and embodied dimensions of early menopause. The recurring themes of sexuality, fertility and subjectivity emerge through deconstructing discourses of sexual difference as immutable and non-negotiable; exposing ‘premature ovarian failure’ as a discursive construction that censures early-menopausal women; and acknowledging the discourses of individual women as unique, diverse and dynamic. I looked to a method of exposing some of these individual discourses and in Chapter Four I describe a critical research process aimed at understanding early menopause as a lived experience. In the remaining chapters I align these ontological arguments with an analysis of the discourses of women who had experienced or were experiencing an early menopause. This section partly relieves the ‘cultural non-recognition’ of the discourses of early-menopausal women. I recorded the narratives of fifty early-menopausal women through in-depth interviews and used this empirical data to direct the study. This data provides the opportunity to understand early menopause as an assortment of embodied experiences. For instance women’s experiences of age at commencement of menopause spanned over three and half decades. They did not reflect the age specifications prescribed by medical discourses. Rather women interpreted their experiences within their own discourses and determined their menopause as early based upon the expectations of their cultural context. Many of the women experienced changes attributed to menopause at midlife. It was not these changes that were significant to early-menopausal women it was how each woman translated these changes that provided meanings of early menopause. In Chapter Five I introduce the women through a table that connects the varying experiences of each woman. This profile shows that, in the main, the women’s experiences of early menopause were unexpected. I suggest that this is due to the disparity between early-menopausal women’s experiences and the current age and social norms of menopause. By bracketing the women into cohorts patterns emerged displaying differences between women who had menopause in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties. Adolescent women had intense feelings of abnormality and despair. Women who were in their twenties were less devastated by menopause than the younger women but described their sexuality and self-identity as changing. And although some women in their thirties were shocked or dismayed to have an early menopause others were ambivalent or happy. These women also described their sexuality and self-identity through changing discourses. A number of the women who were in their forties said that they were ‘too young for the menopause’ but were far less despondent than the younger women. It seemed that the greater the distance between age norms and social norms the more negatively women responded. Age norms that determine the social norms of women's lives through a ‘biological clock’ are constructed to reflect social values. But age is a social construction that changes over time. Thus it would appear that women’s changing bodies and changing discourses of early menopause are in the process of recreating age and social norms around menopause. In Chapter Six I draw upon women’s narratives that describe a connection between early menopause and sexuality. Yet the respondents were not unified in their constructions of sexuality. For instance a number of the women rejected the containment of their sexuality as absolute and defined in terms of bi-lateral hetero-sexual opposition. The discourses of these women constructed their sexuality as continuously flexible. Some early-menopausal women described this sexual mobility as an equivocal relationship between their sexuality, reproductive capacity and female organs. Other women articulated their sexuality as vacillating, ambiguous and unrepresentative of the so-called ‘true woman’. Several felt that they were not meant to have female reproductive organs at all. Nearly one third of the women had had their uterus removed at hysterectomy and the reproductive organs of two women were rudimentary. Women’s narratives showed that the social value of fertility influences constructions of early menopause. In Chapter Seven I record the contrast between the poignant responses of women who wished to have a baby of their own and other women who resisted discourses that entwine reproductivity with being a woman. For instance some women negotiated fertility through economic discourses of consumerism with the expectation that they could purchase conception as a commodity. Other women welcomed their early menopause as freedom from contraceptive concerns and others had no interest in reproduction at all. Thus discord arose through discourses that problematize early-menopausal women as non-reproductive and discourses that value variability. In addition many of the women’s accounts constructed their subjectivity as mobile, challenging the notion that discourses of the self are immutable. Chapter Eight presents narratives which suggest that the subjectivity of many women was altered continuously by early menopause. Yet some of the women rejected the construction of their subjectivity as unfluctuating. These contradictions reflect the uncertainties of the contemporary world. Nevertheless most respondents found that the tethering of menopause to constructions of midlife was incongruous with their own experiences. Many women refused to accept the label of social redundancy attached to middle-aged women. They moved their subjectivity beyond the reproductive body to a shifting and tractable identity of the self. This thesis demonstrates that the medical construction of early menopause as a rare and natural female flaw varies from women's experiences which suggest that early menopause is common and discursively constructed. This disparity has occurred through the privilege placed upon the construction of bodies as immutable and sexually static. This privileging has obscured the multi-dimensional causes of early menopause and given preference to a mono-causal theory. By exposing the variety of causes of early menopause the medical construction of women through a universal and unalterable body of reproduction is challenged. Moreover, women's discourses of early menopause demonstrate that the medical reduction of early menopause to a spontaneous bio-chemical malfunction has ignored the volatility of women’s embodied experiences. Women experience early menopause variously and through mercurial discourses. I suggest here that women's discourses of their experiences of early menopause reflect recurring and restructuring philosophical quandaries of fertility, sexuality and subjectivity. While there can be no representative claims made from this thesis it contributes to an understanding of the embodied experiences of early menopause. It provides an understanding of the creation of early menopause through social practices and goes part way to redressing the problematics of what Fraser terms ‘cultural non-recognition’. But, more importantly, it acknowledges early menopause as a variety of experiences where women interpret their changing bodies through changing discourses.

Scaling relationships of Gaussian processes

Asset returns conforming to a Gaussian random walk are characterised by the temporal independence of the moments of the distribution. Employing currency returns, this note demonstrates the conditions that are necessary for risk to be estimated in this manner.

Associations of physical activity with body weight and fat in men and women

OBJECTIVE: Increasing physical activity is strongly advocated as a key public health strategy for weight gain prevention. We investigated associations of leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) and occupational/domestic physical activity with body mass index (BMI) and a skinfold-derived index of body fat (sum of six skinfolds), among normal-weight and overweight men and women.

DESIGN: Analyses of cross-sectional self-report and measured anthropometric data.

SUBJECTS: A total of 1302 men and women, aged 18-78 y, who were part of a randomly selected sample and who agreed to participate in a physical health assessment.

MEASUREMENTS: Self-report measures of physical activity, measured height and weight, and a skinfold-derived index of body fatness.

RESULTS: Higher levels of LTPA were positively associated with the likelihood of being in the normal BMI and lower body fat range for women, but few or no associations were found for men. No associations were found between measures of occupational/domestic activity and BMI or body fat for men or women.

CONCLUSION: By using a skinfold sum as a more direct measure of adiposity, this study extends and confirms the previous research that has shown an association between BMI and LTPA. Our results suggest gender differences in the relationship of leisure-time physical activity with body fatness. These findings, in conjunction with a better understanding of the causes of such differences, will have important public health implications for the development and targeting of weight gain prevention strategies.

The effect of mechanical loading on the size and shape of bone in pre-, peri-, and postpubertal girls: a study in tennis players

Exercise during growth results in biologically important increases in bone mineral content (BMC). The aim of this study was to determine whether the effects of loading were site specific and depended on the maturational stage of the region. BMC and humeral dimensions were determined using DXA and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the loaded and nonloaded arms in 47 competitive female tennis players aged 8-17 years. Periosteal (external) cross-sectional area (CSA), cortical area, medullary area, and the polar second moments of area (I_p, mm⁴) were calculated at the mid and distal sites in the loaded and nonloaded arms. BMC and I _p of the humerus were 11-14% greater in the loaded arm than in the nonloaded arm in prepubertal players and did not increase further in peri- or postpubertal players despite longer duration of loading (both, _p < 0.01). The higher BMC was the result of a 7-11% greater cortical area in the prepubertal players due to greater periosteal than medullary expansion at the midhumerus and a greater periosteal expansion alone at the distal humerus. Loading late in puberty resulted in medullary contraction. Growth and the effects of loading are region and surface specific, with periosteal apposition before puberty accounting for the increase in the bone's resistance to torsion and endocortical contraction contributing late in puberty conferring little increase in resistance to torsion. Increasing the bone's rt.osistance to torsion is achieved hy modifying bone shape and mass, not necessarily bone density.

A partnership model of corporate ethics

The stock market crash of 1987 had a profound effect on corporate Australia and the Australian community in general. The fall-out revealed that some of our most respected business figures had not been as ethical, or even as lawful, as we would have hoped. This impropriety produced in Australia an awakening to business ethics. Whilst many companies endeavoured to introduce ethical practices into their corporations, they perceived ethics as a way of minimising damage to the corporation and in some cases as a means of competitive advantage. What was lost was the reason that one should embark on business ethics; and that is to make the society and corporate Australia a more ethical place in which to exist.This paper proposes a model based on 2 factors: commitment and partnerships, as a means of enabling corporate Australia to refocus attention on the main purpose of being inherently ethical in all that we do. This ethical model requires a commitment to partnerships with all stakeholders both internal and external in an attempt to enhance the level of ethical business practices that are contemplated and pursued within corporate Australia. Whilst the research agenda and the information collected is Australian-based, it is hoped that the ideas contained within this paper will have a wider appeal to corporations in similar cultural settings.

Safety attitudes and beliefs of junior Australian football players

Objectives: To describe the safety attitudes and beliefs of junior (aged 16–18 years) Australian football players.

Setting: Six Victorian Football League Under 18 (VFL U18) clubs in Victoria, Australia.

Methods: Cross sectional survey. Altogether 103 players completed a self report questionnaire about their safety beliefs and perceptions of support when injured, across three contexts in which they played: VFL U18 club, local club, and school.

Results: Although only 6% believed it was safe to play with injuries, 58% were willing to risk doing so. This increased to almost 80% when players perceived that their chances of being selected to play for a senior elite team would be adversely affected if they did not play. There were significant differences in the perceived level of support for injured players and in the ranking of safety as a high priority across the three settings. In general, the VFL U18 clubs were perceived as providing good support for injured players and giving a high priority to safety issues, but local clubs and particularly schools were perceived to address these issues less well.

Conclusions: Junior Australian football players have certain beliefs and perceptions in relation to injury risk that have the potential to increase injuries. These negative beliefs need to be addressed in any comprehensive injury prevention strategy aimed at these players.

The 'nature' of environmental education research from a feminist poststructuralist viewpoint

For a generation or more, environmental education discourses have been constructed around persistent Cartesian dualisms of modernist thought that divide an "othered" category of being from that of a constituted homogeneous human identity. During the same period, both feminist and poststructuralist theorizing has acted to destabilize the constitution of identities, revealing knowledge, including environmental knowledge, to be multiple, subjective, contingent, and intimately tied in with embodied experiences of place. We explore some of the contingencies of environmental knowledge as revealed through a poststructuralist feminist research methodology and the place for such understandings within an early twenty-first century vision for environmental education research and practice.

Spatial model for predicting the presence of cinnamon fungus (Phytophthora cinnamomi) in sclerophyll vegetation communities in south-eastern Australia

The pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi causes extensive 'dieback' of Australian native vegetation. This study investigated the distribution of infection in an area of significant sclerophyll vegetation in Australia. It aimed to determine the relationship of infection to site variables and to develop a predictive model of infection. Site variables recorded at 50 study sites included aspect, slope, altitude, proximity to road and road characteristics, soil profile characteristics and vegetation attributes. Soil and plant tissues were assayed for the presence of the pathogen. A geographical information systyem (GIS) was employed to provide accurate estimations of spatial variables and develop a predictive model for the distribution of P. cinnamomi. The pathogen was isolated from 76% of the study sites. Of the 17 site variables initially investigated during the study a logistic regression model identified only two, elevation and sun-index, as significant in determining the probability of infection. The presence of P. cinnamomi infection was negatively associated with elevation and positively associated with sun-index. The model predicted that up to 74% of the study area (11 875 ha) had a high probability of being affected by P. cinnamomi. However, the present areas of infection were small, providing an opportunity for management to minimize spread into highly susceptible uninvaded areas.