Do temporary beach closures assist in the conservation of breeding shorebirds on recreational beaches?

Recreational use of beaches may threaten some beach-nesting shorebirds in southern Australia. Temporary Beach Closures, comprized of a 50 x 25 m exclusion zone around a shorebird nest, represent a promising technique for altering human behaviour by reducing both disturbance to birds and inadvertent crushing of eggs by beach visitors. We assessed whether three commonly employed configurations of Temporary Beach Closures (sign, fence, and warden) were effective at: (1) achieving compliance among beach visitors, and (2) reducing egg-crushing rates. Overall, 93.7% of beach visitors complied with all Temporary Beach Closures, resulting in a reduction in egg-crushing rates within, as opposed to adjacent to, Temporary Beach Closures. Levels of compliance were high in all Temporary Beach Closure configurations (88.0-99.4%), and similar levels of compliance were achieved within the three configurations. Human compliance was highest for females and when the density of beach-users was higher, while individuals aged <20 and >61 years were less likely to comply with Temporary Beach Closures. Despite an increased probability of compliance on high density beaches, this did not translate into a reduction in egg crushing rates on such beaches, because the overall number of noncompliant individuals remained higher. We conclude any Temporary Beach Closure configuration is meritorious, and that their use on high and low-use recreational beaches will benefit breeding shorebirds by reducing the rate of egg-crushing. Targeting demographics that display lower levels of compliance, such as men, young people (i.e. <21), and older people (i.e. >60), may further improve the effectiveness of Temporary Beach Closures in enhancing the conservation of shorebirds.

Recommendations for and compliance with social restrictions during implementation of school closures in the early phase of the influenza A (H1N1) 2009 outbreak in Melbourne, Australia

Background Localized reactive school and classroom closures were implemented as part of a suite of pandemic containment measures during the initial response to influenza A (H1N1) 2009 in Melbourne, Australia. Infected individuals, and those who had been in close contact with a case, were asked to stay in voluntary home quarantine and refrain from contact with visitors for seven days from the date of symptom onset or exposure to an infected person. Oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) was available for treatment or prophylaxis. Methods We surveyed affected families through schools involved in the closures. Analyses of responses were descriptive. We characterized recommendations made to case and contact households and quantified adherence to guidelines and antiviral therapy. Results Of the 314 respondent households, 51 contained a confirmed case. The prescribed quarantine period ranged from 1-14 days, reflecting logistic difficulties in reactive implementation relative to the stated guidelines. Household-level compliance with the requirement to stay at home was high (84.5%, 95% CI 79.3,88.5) and contact with children outside the immediate family infrequent. Conclusions Levels of compliance with recommendations in our sample were high compared with other studies, likely due to heightened public awareness of a newly introduced virus of uncertain severity. The variability of reported recommendations highlighted the difficulties inherent in implementing a targeted reactive strategy, such as that employed in Melbourne, on a large scale during a public health emergency. This study emphasizes the need to understand how public health measures are implemented when seeking to evaluate their effectiveness.

New laser soldering-based closures: a promising method in natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery

Complete closure of gastrotomy is the linchpin of safe natural orifice transgastric endoscopic surgery.

Catch Rates, Composition and Fish Size from Reefs Managed with Periodically-Harvested Closures

Periodically-harvested closures are commonly employed within co-management frameworks to help manage small-scale, multi-species fisheries in the Indo-Pacific. Despite their widespread use, the benefits of periodic harvesting strategies for multi-species fisheries have, to date, been largely untested. We examine catch and effort data from four periodically-harvested reef areas and 55 continuously-fished reefs in Solomon Islands. We test the hypothesis that fishing in periodically-harvested closures would yield: (a) higher catch rates, (b) proportionally more short lived, fast growing, sedentary taxa, and (c) larger finfish and invertebrates, compared to catches from reefs continuously open to fishing. Our study showed that catch rates were significantly higher from periodically-harvested closures for gleaning of invertebrates, but not for line and spear fishing. The family level composition of catches did not vary significantly between open reefs and periodically-harvested closures. Fish captured from periodically-harvested closures were slightly larger, but Trochus niloticus were significantly smaller than those from continuously open reefs. In one case of intense and prolonged harvesting, gleaning catch rates significantly declined, suggesting invertebrate stocks were substantially depleted in the early stages of the open period. Our study suggests periodically-harvested closures can have some short term benefits via increasing harvesting efficiency. However, we did not find evidence that the strategy had substantially benefited multi-species fin-fisheries.

Closures of positive braids and the Morton-Franks-Williams inequality

We study the Morton-Franks-Williams inequality for closures of simple braids (also known as positive permutation braids). This allows to prove, in a simple way, that the set of simple braids is an orthonormal basis for the inner product of the Hecke algebra of the braid group defined by Kálmán, who first obtained this result by using an interesting connection with Contact Topology. We also introduce a new technique to study the Homflypt polynomial for closures of positive braids, namely resolution trees whose leaves are simple braids. In terms of these simple resolution trees, we characterize closed positive braids for which the Morton-Franks-Williams inequality is strict. In particular, we determine explicitly the positive braid words on three strands whose closures have braid index three.

Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 : economic impacts, plant closures /

Prepared for the National Commission on Water Quality.

Military base closures : lack of data inhibits cost-effectiveness analyses of privatization-in-place initiatives : report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Readiness, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives /

"B-283515"--P. 3.