Climate change impacts : challenges for aquaculture

In spite of all the debates and controversies, a global consensus has been reached that climate change is a reality and that it will impact, in diverse manifestations that may include increased global temperature, sea level rise, more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, change in weather patterns, etc., on food production systems, global biodiversity and overall human well being. Aquaculture is no exception. The sector is characterized by the fact that the organisms cultured, the most diverse of all farming systems and in the number of taxa farmed, are all poikilotherms. It occurs in fresh, brackish and marine waters, and in all climatic regimes from temperate to tropical. Consequently, there are bound to be many direct impacts on aquatic farming systems brought about by climate change. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that certain aquaculture systems are dependent, to varying degrees, on products such as fishmeal and fish oil, which are derived from wild-caught resources that are subjected to reduction processes. All of the above factors will impact on aquaculture in the decades to come and accordingly, the aquatic farming systems will begin to encounter new challenges to maintain sustainability and continue to contribute to the human food basket. The challenges will vary significantly between climatic regimes. In the tropics, the main challenges will be to those farming activities that occur in deltaic regions, which also happen to be hubs of aquaculture activity, such as in the Mekong and Red River deltas in Viet Nam and the Ganges-Brahamaputra Delta in Bangladesh. Aquaculture in tropical deltaic areas will be mostly impacted by sea level rise, and hence increased saline water intrusion and reduced water flows, among others. Elsewhere in the tropics, inland cage culture and other aquaculture activities could be impacted by extreme weather conditions, increased upwelling of deoxygenated waters in reservoirs, etc., requiring greater vigilance and monitoring, and even perhaps readiness to move operations to more conducive areas in a waterbody. Indirect impacts of climate change on tropical aquaculture could be manifold but are perhaps largely unknown. The reproductive cycles of a great majority of tropical species are dependent on monsoonal rain patterns, which are predicted to change. Consequently, irrespective of whether cultured species are artificially propagated or not, changes in reproductive cycles will impact on seed production and thereby the whole grow-out cycle and modus operandi of farm activities. Equally, such impacts will be felt on the culture of those species that are based on natural spat collection, such as that of many cultured molluscs. In the temperate region, global warming could raise temperatures to the upper tolerance limits of some cultured species, thereby making such culture systems vulnerable to high temperatures. New or hitherto non-pathogenic organisms may become virulent with increases in water temperature, confronting the sector with new, hitherto unmanifested and/or little known diseases. One of the most important indirect effects of climate change will be driven by impacts on production of those fish species that are used for reduction, and which in turn form the basis for aquaculture feeds, particularly for carnivorous species. These indirect effects are likely to have a major impact on some key aquaculture practices in all climatic regimes. Limitations of supplies of fishmeal and fish oil and resulting exorbitant price hikes of these commodities will lead to more innovative and pragmatic solutions on ingredient substitution for aquatic feeds, which perhaps will be a positive result arising from a dire need to sustain a major sector. Aquaculture has to be proactive and start addressing the need for adaptive and mitigative measures. Such measures will entail both technological and socio-economic approaches. The latter will be more applicable to small-scale farmers, who happen to be the great bulk of producers in developing countries, which in turn constitute the “backbone’ of global aquaculture. The sociological approaches will entail the challenge of addressing the potential climate change impacts on small farming communities in the most vulnerable areas, such as in deltaic regions, weighing the most feasible adaptive options and bringing about the policy changes required to implement these adaptive measures economically and effectively. Global food habits have changed over the years. We are currently in an era where food safety and quality, backed up by ecolabelling, are paramount; it was not so 20 years ago. In the foreseeable future, we will move into an era where consumer consciousness will demand that farmed foods of every form will have to include in their labeled products the green house gas (GHG) emissions per unit of produce. Clearly, aquaculture offers an opportunity to meet these aspirations. Considering that about 70 percent of all finfish and almost 100 percent of all molluscs and seaweeds are minimally GHG emitting, it is possible to drive aquaculture as the most GHG-friendly food source. The sector could conform to such demands and continue to meet the need for an increasing global food fish supply. However, to achieve this, a paradigm shift in our seafood consumption preferences will be needed.

Challenges of family business succession: Chinese-Australian case studies

This thesis explores the factors and values that have impacted on succession choices prior to the succession event in Chinese-Australian first-generational family businesses. Founders demonstrated an oscillation between the choices of a family-based succession and a business-based succession, which was influenced by the multifaceted Chinese-Australian family business context.

An effective heuristic for stockyard planning and machinery scheduling at a coal handling facility

Coal handling is a complex process involving different correlated and highly dependent operations such as selecting appropriate product types, planning stockpiles, scheduling stacking and reclaiming activities and managing train loads. Planning these operations manually is time consuming and can result in non-optimized schedules as future impact of decisions may not be appropriately considered. This paper addresses the operational scheduling of the continuous coal handling problem with multiple conflicting objectives. As the problem is NP-hard in nature, an effective heuristic is presented for planning stockpiles and scheduling resources to minimize delays in production and the coal age in the stockyard. A model of stockyard operations within a coal mine is described and the problem is formulated as a Bi- Objective Optimization Problem (BOOP). The algorithm efficacy is demonstrated on different real-life data scenarios. Computational results show that the solution algorithm is effective and the coal throughput is substantially impacted by the conflicting objectives. Together, the model and the proposed heuristic, can act as a decision support system for the stockyard planner to explore the effects of alternative decisions, such as balancing age and volume of stockpiles, and minimizing conflicts due to stacker and reclaimer movements.

Acceleration data reveal the energy management strategy of a marine ectotherm during reproduction

1. Maintaining a high and stable body temperature is often critical for female ectotherms during reproduction. Yet this strategy may be energetically costly, and therefore challenging, during this period of already high-energy demand. 2. Here, the 6-week deployment of tri-axial accelerometers (n = 6) on a marine ectotherm, the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), reproducing at the northern limit of the species’ breeding range (i.e. in a thermally dynamic environment) revealed the behavioural mechanisms underlying its energy management strategy during the breeding season. 3. The estimated activity levels of female loggerheads using overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA) were high during the breeding season, suggesting that marine turtles may not be able to remain inactive for long periods in the same manner as terrestrial ectotherms, because of the thermally dynamic nature of their environment. 4. However, activity levels were not constant throughout the season, being impacted by both ambient water temperature and female reproductive status. In cold water at the beginning of the nesting season, high levels of activity suggested that females behaviourally thermoregulated by seeking out warm water patches along the shoreline. Interactions with male turtles (courtship and/or avoidance) may also explain this high level of activity. As sea temperatures warmed up and the amount of energy devoted to reproduction probably increased, the turtles spent more time resting during long sequential flat-bottomed dives, and reduced any unnecessary locomotory activity. 5. Turtles may therefore adjust their activity patterns in response to seasonal variations in abiotic (i.e. ambient temperature) and biotic (i.e. reproductive status) factors. This may help minimize activity-linked metabolic rate and maximize reproductive output over a season while breeding in thermally dynamic environments. 6. A mechanistic model gave support to these empirical results. The model revealed that actively maintaining high and stable body temperature is of clear benefit to female turtles at temperate breeding sites. While energetically costly, such active thermoregulatory behaviour may speed up egg maturation, allowing turtles to initiate nesting earlier in the season, and hence maximize reproductive output.

The behaviour of a hawksbill turtle data-logged during the passage of hurricane Georges through the Caribbean

Recent severe hurricanes in the Caribbean and south-east United States have had devastating socio-economic effects, and there is a pressing need to learn how animals are impacted by such events. We serendipitously deployed a multi-channel data logger onto a hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) during the breeding season in 1998 and logged various aspects of her behaviour before, during and after passage of hurricane Georges. As Georges passed by, the turtle made shorter dives, became more active and spent less time at the surface between dives compared with its baseline, non-storm activity. However, after passage of the hurricane the turtle quickly resumed its pre-hurricane behaviour and nested successfully a few days later. These results show that, in this case, the hurricane had a minor impact on the submerged animal presumably because of the dampening effect of depth on high winds over water.

Coach career development: Who is responsible?

Career development is crucial to the success of individuals, organizations and industries. As such, in many professions there are prescribed career development processes underpinned by legal and institutional policies that drive managerial practice. Although there has been sustained interest in understanding career development for athletes and building managerial strategies to assist in the process, there is little empirical knowledge about career development of coaches, and how management may assist in the process. The aim of this study is to explore the way in which sport policy discourse and agendas have impacted coach career development. This study demonstrates that coaches’ careers are not part of the policy discourse despite their important role in athlete performance, career development and sport organization development and success. Coaches are the key performance managers in sport and yet they are ignored by sport policy makers and managers when considering the development of the Australian sport workforce.

The role of physical attractiveness in marketing education: an exploratory study

Recent work on the relationship between class attendance and student performance found that student absenteeism impacted negatively on students’ grade or scores performance (Stanca, 2006). This research aims to examine the relationship between students’ perceived physical attractiveness and lecture attendance. The findings indicated that most students agreed that they will attend the face-to-face lecture more often if the lecturer is ‘funny’. In particular, the male respondents of the study claimed that they would be more likely to attend lecture if the lecturer is ‘attractive’ and ‘good-looking’. Such results may be an indicator that physical attractiveness of the instructor can be one of the motivating factors for students to attend face to face lecture sessions.

Mental context reinstatement or drawing: which better enhances children's recall of witnessed events and protects against suggestive questions?

The aim of this experiment was to examine the effectiveness of two techniques in enhancing children's recall of an event that they experienced approximately a week earlier. Younger (5–6 years) and older (8–9 years) children were interviewed about a magic show event in one of three conditions. Before recalling the event, some children were instructed to mentally reinstate the context of the event (MCR group), others were asked to draw the context of the event (DCR group), and others received no reinstatement instructions (NCR). Results showed that these instructions had no impact on children's free recall or responses to open-ended prompts. However, reinstatement instructions impacted children's responses to suggestive questions: those in the DCR group gave more accurate responses than those in the NCR group. These findings provide preliminary support for the use of drawing as a potentially protective exercise that lessens the impact of biased questions with child witnesses.

Pathways to university : enabling factors in construction management education in Australia

Past Australian and international research has shown that many students find transition and navigating pathways from vocational education to university difficult. This paper proposes a framework for evaluating the success of these pathways in construction management education. Students enrolled in undergraduate degree courses responded to a questionnaire on the nature of their experiences in vocational education and how this impacted on their decision to articulate to university. The survey covered a sample of three universities across Australia. The results showed that students generally had positive experiences, but that some pathways had better outcomes than others. Utilising an existing outreach-developed matrix the research identified three factors that were good measures of the success of pathways models. The paper concludes by suggesting that universities need a greater awareness of the impact of transition issues for their pathways students. This research is significant in that it considers pathways as an organised and systematic process, which is capable of being defined and measured.

Accessibility and autonomy preconditions to ‘our’ inclusion: a grounded theory study of the experiences of secondary students with vision impairment

In this paper, I report core findings of a small-scale qualitative study that I conducted with a group of young people with vision impairment who attended an inclusive secondary school in the Australian state of Queensland. My objective was to capture their voiced experiences of their schooling through face-to-face interviews and to develop a substantive theory that was grounded in the collected data. Relevant to the study was my status as an insider researcher, which impacted both data collection and analysis. Here, I develop the methodological process that I followed and present core findings of the study. These findings shed light on the practices within schools that are designed to promote inclusion yet perpetuate exclusion for students with impaired vision.

The Victorian bushfires and extreme weather events : media coverage, crisis and communication

The 2009 'Black Saturday' Victorian bushfires claimed the lives of 173 people and have become known as the worst fire event in Australian history. Victoria has been at the centre of two other significant Australian fire disasters - 'Black Friday' in 1939 and the 1983 'Ash Wednesday' fires in south-eastern Australia that claimed the lives of 47 people in Victoria. As media scholar and commentator Michael Gawenda has noted, the media not only report an 'event' - like the Victorian bushfires or the tsunami in the South Pacific - but in a sense create and define it. Print and electronic media coverage of extreme weather events therefore raises a multitude of issues about the media's role in serving the community before, during and after a crisis, while also trying to produce the best possible reportage in a competitive industry undergoing dramatic change. This issue of MIA provides a venue for critical, empirical engagement with media coverage and representation, and the role of journalism and journalists in reporting national and international bushfires, tsunamis, hurricanes and other extreme weather events, with a special focus on the 2009 Victorian bushfires. Its goal is to address the ramifications of an industry in flux - indeed, some may say crisis - driven by technological advances, staff reductions and media organisations under financial pressure, and to explore the ways in which such extreme weather events have impacted media practices and policy

Detecting the impact of invasive species on native fauna: Cane toads (Bufo marinus), frillneck lizards (Chlamydosaurus kingii) and the importance of spatial replication

An understanding of which native species are severely impacted by an anthropogenic change (such as the arrival of an invasive species) and which are not is critical to prioritizing conservation efforts. However, it is difficult to detect such impacts if the native taxa exhibit strong stochastic variations in abundance; a ‘natural’ population decline might be wrongly interpreted as an impact of the invader. Frillneck lizards (Chlamydosaurus kingii) are large iconic Australian agamids, and have been reported to decline following the invasion of toxic cane toads. We monitored three populations of the species in the savanna woodland of tropical Australia over a 7-year period bracketing toad arrival. One population crashed, one remained stable and one increased. Hence, studies on any single population might have inferred that cane toads have negative, negligible or positive effects on frillneck lizards. With the benefit of spatial replication, and in combination with observations of prey choice by captive lizards, our data suggest that invasive cane toads have had little or no effect on frillneck abundance.

Mapping WIL activities in the curriculum to develop graduate capabilities : a case study in accounting

Big business continues to request universities to produce graduates who possess both technical and generic skills. Although work-integrated learning (WIL) programs can be used to develop these skills, WIL placements in Australia are undertaken by a minority of students. Perceiving a gap, one Australian university undertook a major WIL revamp to expand WIL offerings embedded within its courses. This required major organizational change that impacted significantly on curriculum design. From a quality assurance perspective, this paper provides an overview of a revised WIL program in the accounting discipline, and discusses the issues and challenges associated with the revised WIL program four years after its implementation. The findings demonstrate that the discipline area has not yet fully met the revamped WIL program as defined by university policy. Recommendations are provided that form a valuable learning tool for educational institutions considering embedding broadly defined WIL within their courses.

Early adoption of mobile devices : a social network perspective

As mobile devices have become the personal information-processing interface of choice, many individuals seem to swiftly follow fashion. Yet, the literature is silent on how early adopters of mobile devices overcome uncertainties related to shifts in technology. Based on purposive sampling, this paper presents detailed insights into why and how five closely related individuals made the decision to adopt the iPhone before it was available through traditional supply chains. Focusing on the role played by social networks, we analyze how adoption threshold, opinion leaders, social contagion, and social learning shaped adoption behaviors and outcomes. The analyses confirm that network structures impacted the early decision to accept the iPhone; they show that when facing uncertainty, adoption decisions emerged as a combined result of individual adoption reflections and major influences from the social network as well as behaviors observed within the network; and, they reveal interesting behaviors that differed from expectations. In conclusion, we discuss implications for both theory and practice.

The impact of contemporary contact lenses on contact lens discontinuation

Discontinuation or “dropout” from contact lens (CL) wear continues to afflict the CL industry. This study was conducted to determine whether the advent of new CL materials and designs has impacted the dropout rate and the reasons for discontinuation. Current and lapsed CL wearers residing in Canada were recruited using Facebook to take part in an on line survey investigating CL wearing experiences during 2008 to 2010 and to establish the percentage of participants who temporarily and permanently discontinued CL wear during the period surveyed. Four thousand two hundred seven eligible surveys were received (64% female; median age 27 years). Forty percent had lapsed from lens wear for at least 4 months; however, 62% of the lapsed wearers (LWs) resumed wear. There were no differences between LWs and nonlapsed wearers (NLWs) with respect to gender; however, LWs were older, started lens wear when older, and had not worn lenses for as long as NLWs (all P<0.001). More NLWs than LWs wore silicone hydrogel CLs (49% vs. 38%, P<0.001) and more LWs than NLWs wore daily disposable lenses and hydrogel CLs (24% vs. 19% and 22% vs. 18%, respectively, P≤0.001). Primary reasons for discontinuation were discomfort (24%), dryness (20%), red eyes (7%), and expense (7%). Compliance with lens replacement was no different between LWs and NLWs (48% vs. 45%). About 23% of those surveyed had discontinued CL wear permanently. The primary reasons for dropping out continue to be discomfort and dryness. Dropout rates were lower in silicone hydrogel wearers.