Bioavailability of soil organic carbon and Fe as influenced by forestry practices in a subtropical coastal catchment

Potential impacts of plantation forestry practices on soil organic carbon and Fe available to microorganisms were investigated in a subtropical coastal catchment. The impacts of harvesting or replanting were largely limited to the soil top layer (0–10 cm depth). The thirty-year-old Pinus plantation showed low soil moisture content (Wc) and relatively high levels of soil total organic carbon (TOC). Harvesting and replanting increased soil Wc but reduced TOC levels. Mean dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and microbial biomass carbon (MBC) increased in harvested or replanted soils, but such changes were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Total dithionite-citrate and aqua regia-extractable Fe did not respond to forestry practices, but acid ammonium oxalate and pyrophosphate-extractable, bioavailable Fe decreased markedly after harvesting or replanting. Numbers of heterotrophic bacteria were significantly correlated with DOC levels (P < 0.05), whereas Fe-reducing bacteria and S-bacteria detected using laboratory cultivation techniques did not show strong correlation with either soil DOC or Fe content.

Quantifying N2O and CO2 emissions from subtropical pasture

Greenhouse gas emissions from a well established, unfertilized tropical grass-legume pasture were monitored over two consecutive years using high resolution automatic sampling. Nitrous oxide emissions were highest during the summer months and were highly episodic, related more to the size and distribution of rain events than WFPS alone. Mean annual emissions were significantly higher during 2008 (5.7 ± 1.0 g N2O-N/ha/day) than 2007 (3.9 ± 0.4 and g N2O-N/ha/day) despite receiving nearly 500 mm less rain. Mean CO2 (28.2 ± 1.5 kg CO2 C/ha/day) was not significantly different (P < 0.01) between measurement years, emissions being highly dependent on temperature. A negative correlation between CO2 and WFPS at >70% indicated a threshold for soil conditions favouring denitrification. The use of automatic chambers for high resolution greenhouse gas sampling can greatly reduce emission estimation errors associated with temperature and WFPS changes.

New media services : ratings and recommendations websites in the travel and tourism industry

The travel and hospitality industry is one which relies especially crucially on word of mouth, both at the level of overall destinations (Australia, Queensland, Brisbane) and at the level of travellers’ individual choices of hotels, restaurants, sights during their trips. The provision of such word-of-mouth information has been revolutionised over the past decade by the rise of community-based Websites which allow their users to share information about their past and future trips and advise one another on what to do or what to avoid during their travels. Indeed, the impact of such user-generated reviews, ratings, and recommendations sites has been such that established commercial travel advisory publishers such as Lonely Planet have experienced a pronounced downturn in sales ¬– unless they have managed to develop their own ways of incorporating user feedback and contributions into their publications. This report examines the overall significance of ratings and recommendation sites to the travel industry, and explores the community, structural, and business models of a selection of relevant ratings and recommendations sites. We identify a range of approaches which are appropriate to the respective target markets and business aims of these organisations, and conclude that there remain significant opportunities for further operators especially if they aim to cater for communities which are not yet appropriately served by specific existing sites. Additionally, we also point to the increasing importance of connecting stand-alone ratings and recommendations sites with general social media spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and of providing mobile interfaces which enable users to provide updates and ratings directly from the locations they happen to be visiting. In this report, we profile the following sites: * TripAdvisor, the international market leader for travel ratings and recommendations sites, with a membership of some 11 million users; * IgoUgo, the other leading site in this field, which aims to distinguish itself from the market leader by emphasising the quality of its content; * Zagat, a long-established publisher of restaurant guides which has translated its crowdsourcing model from the offline to the online world; * Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree site, which attempts to respond to the rise of these travel communities by similarly harnessing user-generated content; * Stayz, which attempts to enhance its accommodation search and booking services by incorporating ratings and reviews functionality; and * BigVillage, an Australian-based site attempting to cater for a particularly discerning niche of travellers; * Dopplr, which connects travel and social networking in a bid to pursue the lucrative market of frequent and business travellers; * Foursquare, which builds on its mobile application to generate a steady stream of ‘check-ins’ and recommendations for hospitality and other services around the world; * Suite 101, which uses a revenue-sharing model to encourage freelance writers to contribute travel writing (amongst other genres of writing); * Yelp, the global leader in general user-generated product review and recommendation services. In combination, these profiles provide an overview of current developments in the travel ratings and recommendations space (and beyond), and offer an outlook for further possibilities. While no doubt affected by the global financial downturn and the reduction in travel that it has caused, travel ratings and recommendations remain important – perhaps even more so if a reduction in disposable income has resulted in consumers becoming more critical and discerning. The aggregated word of mouth from many tens of thousands of travellers which these sites provide certainly has a substantial influence on their users. Using these sites to research travel options has now become an activity which has spread well beyond the digirati. The same is true also for many other consumer industries, especially where there is a significant variety of different products available – and so, this report may also be read as a case study whose findings are able to be translated, mutatis mutandis, to purchasing decisions from household goods through consumer electronics to automobiles.

Even Penelope had a plan : imagining a metaphysics of wandering in the contemporary travel blogs of Australian Women Abroad

Despite the continued popularity of travel blogs and virtual travel communities, there is currently a lack of contemporary criticism surrounding the coded structures and connotations of online travel writings, especially those arising out of the Australian context. While there have been few significant studies of Australian women’s travel to date, there have been even less about female wandering. Reimagining the archetype of Penelope, this paper considers liminal accounts of wandering in contemporary travel blogs of Australian women abroad. When women travel as wanderers, they undermine normative accounts of travel and trace out alternative movements fused with gendered meaning.

Developments in texture-based vector field visualisation techniques

Vector field visualisation is one of the classic sub-fields of scientific data visualisation. The need for effective visualisation of flow data arises in many scientific domains ranging from medical sciences to aerodynamics. Though there has been much research on the topic, the question of how to communicate flow information effectively in real, practical situations is still largely an unsolved problem. This is particularly true for complex 3D flows. In this presentation we give a brief introduction and background to vector field visualisation and comment on the effectiveness of the most common solutions. We will then give some examples of current development on texture-based techniques, and given practical examples of their use in CFD research and hydrodynamic applications.

Mum, why are the potholes 8 feet apart? Repetitive wheel loads from heavy vehicles in the spatial domain

This paper presents the results of testing to determine pavement forces from three heavy vehicles (HVs). The HVs were instrumented to measure their wheel forces. A “novel roughness” value of the roads during testing is also derived. The various dynamic pavement forces are presented according to the range of novel roughness of pavement surfacings encountered during testing. The paper then examines the relationship between the two derived wavelengths predominant within the HV suspensions; those of axle hop and body-bounce. How these may be considered as contributing to spatial repetition of pavement forces from HVs is discussed. The paper concludes that pavement models need to be revised since dynamic forces from HVs in particular are not generally considered in current pavement design.

Review of the under the limit drink driving rehabilitation program

The combination of alcohol and driving is a major health and economic burden to most communities in industrialised countries. The total cost of crashes for Australia in 1996 was estimated at approximately 15 billion dollars and the costs for fatal crashes were about 3 billion dollars (BTE, 2000). According to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development and Local Government (2009; BITRDLG) the overall cost of road fatality crashes for 2006 $3.87 billion, with a single fatal crash costing an estimated $2.67 million. A major contributing factor to crashes involving serious injury is alcohol intoxication while driving. It is a well documented fact that consumption of liquor impairs judgment of speed, distance and increases involvement in higher risk behaviours (Waller, Hansen, Stutts, & Popkin, 1986a; Waller et al., 1986b). Waller et al. (1986a; b) asserts that liquor impairs psychomotor function and therefore renders the driver impaired in a crisis situation. This impairment includes; vision (degraded), information processing (slowed), steering, and performing two tasks at once in congested traffic (Moskowitz & Burns, 1990). As BAC levels increase the risk of crashing and fatality increase exponentially (Department of Transport and Main Roads, 2009; DTMR). According to Compton et al. (2002) as cited in the Department of Transport and Main Roads (2009), crash risk based on probability, is five times higher when the BAC is 0.10 compared to a BAC of 0.00. The type of injury patterns sustained also tends to be more severe when liquor is involved, especially with injuries to the brain (Waller et al., 1986b). Single and Rohl (1997) reported that 30% of all fatal crashes in Australia where alcohol involvement was known were associated with Breadth Analysis Content (BAC) above the legal limit of 0.05gms/100ml. Alcohol related crashes therefore contributes to a third of the total cost of fatal crashes (i.e. $1 billion annually) and crashes where alcohol is involved are more likely to result in death or serious injury (ARRB Transport Research, 1999). It is a major concern that a drug capable of impairment such as is the most available and popular drug in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2007; AIHW). According to the AIHW (2007) 89.9% of the approximately 25,000 Australians over the age of 14 surveyed had consumed at some point in time, and 82.9% had consumed liquor in the previous year. This study found that 12.1% of individuals admitted to driving a motor vehicle whilst intoxicated. In general males consumed more liquor in all age groups. In Queensland there were 21503 road crashes in 2001, involving 324 fatalities and the largest contributing factor was alcohol and or drugs (Road Traffic Report, 2001). 23438 road crashes in 2004, involving 289 fatalities and the largest contributing factor was alcohol and or drugs (DTMR, 2009). Although a number of measures such as random breath testing have been effective in reducing the road toll (Watson, Fraine & Mitchell, 1995) the recidivist drink driver remains a serious problem. These findings were later supported with research by Leal, King, and Lewis (2006). This Queensland study found that of the 24661 drink drivers intercepted in 2004, 3679 (14.9%) were recidivists with multiple drink driving convictions in the previous three years covered (Leal et al., 2006). The legal definition of the term “recidivist” is consistent with the Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act (1995) and is assigned to individuals who have been charged with multiple drink driving offences in the previous five years. In Australia relatively little attention has been given to prevention programs that target high-risk repeat drink drivers. However, over the last ten years a rehabilitation program specifically designed to reduce recidivism among repeat drink drivers has been operating in Queensland. The program, formally known as the “Under the Limit” drink driving rehabilitation program (UTL) was designed and implemented by the research team at the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety in Queensland with funding from the Federal Office of Road Safety and the Institute of Criminology (see Sheehan, Schonfeld & Davey, 1995). By 2009 over 8500 drink-drivering offenders had been referred to the program (Australian Institute of Crime, 2009).

Lumia : Art | light | motion. The Art of Kuuki.

The State Library of Queensland is delighted to present Lumia: art/light/motion, a culmination of many years of collaboration by the Kuuki collective led by Priscilla Bracks and Gavin Sade. This extraordinary exhibition not only showcases the unique talent of these Queenslanders, it also opens up a world of future possibilities while re-presenting the past and present. These contemporary new media installations sit comfortably within the walls of the library as they are the distinctive products of inquisitive and philosophical minds. In a sense the exhibition highlights the longevity and purposefulness of a cultural learning institution, through the non-traditional use of data, information, research and collection interpretation. The exhibition simultaneously articulates one of our key objectives – to progress the state’s digital agenda. Two academic essays have been commissioned for this joint Kuuki and State Library of Queensland publication. The first is by artist and writer Paul Brown, who has specialised in art, science and technology since the late 1960s and in computational and generative art since the mid 1970s. Brown investigates the history of new media, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and clearly places Sade and Bracks at the forefront of this genre nationally. The second essay is by arts writer Linda Carroli, who has delved deeply into the thoughts and processes of the artists to bring to light the complex workings of the artists’ minds. The publication also features an interview Carroli conducted with the artists. This exhibition is playful, informative and contemplative. The audience is invited to play, and consequently to ponder the way we live and the environmental and social implications of our choices. The exhibition tempts us to travel deep into the Antarctic, plunge into the Great Barrier Reef, be swamped by an orchestra of crickets, enter the Charmed world and travel back in time to a Victorian parlour where you can interact with a ‘new-world’ lyrebird and consider a brave new world where our only link to the animal world is with robotic representations. In essence this exhibition is about ideas and knowledge and what better institution than the State Library of Queensland to partner such a project?. State Library is committed to preserving culture, exploring new media and creating new content as a lasting legacy of Queensland for all Queenslanders.

HIFiRE re-entry observation using an image-based visual servoing system

This paper presents an image based visual servoing system that is intended to be used for tracking and obtaining scientific observations of the HIFiRE vehicles. The primary aim of this tracking platform is to acquire and track the thermal signature emitted from the surface of the vehicle during the re-entry phase of the mission using an infra-red camera. The implemented visual servoing scheme uses a classical image based approach to identify and track the target using visual kinematic control. The paper utilizes simulation and experimental results to show the tracking performance of the system using visual feedback. Discussions on current implementation and control techniques to further improve the performance of the system are also explored.

Remixing social media for location sharing on public urban screens

This paper introduces Sapporo World Window (hereafter SWW), an interactive social media mash-up deployed in a newly built urban public underground space utilising ten public displays and urban dwellers’ mobile phones. SWW enables users to share their favourite locations with fellow citizens and visitors through integrating various social media contents to a coherent whole. The system aims to engage citizens in socio-cultural and technological interactions, turning the underground space into a creative and lively social space. We present first insight from an initial user study in a real world setting.

Widening the context for interdisciplinary social research : SFL as a method for sociology, anthropology, and communication research

In this paper, I show clear links between the theoretical underpinnings of SFL and those of specific sociological, anthropological, and communication research traditions. My purpose in doing so is to argue that SFL is an excellent interdisciplinary research method for the social sciences, especially considering the emergent form of political economy being touted by new media enthusiasts: the so called knowledge (or information) economy. To demonstrate the flexibility and salience of SFL in diverse traditions of social research, and as evidence of its ability to be deployed as a flexible research method across formerly impermeable disciplinary and social boundaries, I use analyses from my doctoral research, relating these - theoretically speaking - to specific research traditions in sociology, communication, and anthropology.