Toward making inroads in reducing the disparity of lung health in Australian Indigenous and New Zealand Maori children

Globally, Indigenous populations, which include Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders in Australia and Māori people in New Zealand (NZ), have poorer health than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Indigenous peoples worldwide face substantial challenges in poverty, education, employment, housing and disconnection from ancestral lands. While addressing social determinants of health is a priority, solving clinical issues is equally important. Indeed, ignoring the latter until social issues improve risks further disparity as this may take generations. A systematic overview of interventions addressing social determinants of health found a striking lack of reliable evaluations.Where evidence was available, health improvement associated with interventions was modest or uncertain. 10 Thus advances in healthcare remain essential and these require the best evidence available in 11 preventing and managing common illnesses, including respiratory illnesses.

Toward making inroads in reducing the disparity of lung health in Australian Indigenous and New Zealand Maori children

Globally, Indigenous populations, which include Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders in Australia and Māori people in New Zealand (NZ), have poorer health than their non-Indigenous counterparts (1). Indigenous peoples worldwide face substantial challenges in poverty, education, employment, housing, and disconnection from ancestral lands (1). While addressing social determinants of health is a priority, solving clinical issues is equally important. Indeed, ignoring the latter until social issues improve risks further disparity as this may take generations. A systematic overview of interventions addressing social determinants of health found a striking lack of reliable evaluations (2). Where evidence was available, health improvement associated with interventions was modest or uncertain (2). Thus, advances in healthcare remain essential and these require the best evidence available in preventing and managing common illnesses, including respiratory illnesses

The links between public tendencies and the urban design framework of Brisbane’s public squares: Mapping urban design frameworks present in Brisbane public squares and the correlating activities of the Australian public

This research seeks to demonstrate the ways in which urban design factors, individually and in various well-considered arrangements, stimulate and encourage social activities in Brisbane’s public squares through the mapping and analysis of user behaviour. No design factors contribute to public space in isolation, so the combinations of different design factors, contextual and social impacts as well as local climate are considered to be highly influential to the way in which Brisbane’s public engages with public space. It is this local distinctiveness that this research seeks to ascertain. The research firstly pinpoints and consolidates the design factors identified and recommended in existing literature and then maps the identified factors as they are observed at case study sites in Brisbane. This is then set against observational mappings of the site’s corresponding user activities and engagement. These mappings identify a number of patterns of behaviour; pertinently that “activated” areas of social gathering actively draw people in, and the busier a space is, both the frequency and duration of people lingering in the space increases. The study finds that simply providing respite from the urban environment (and/or weather conditions) does not adequately encourage social interaction and that people friendly design factors can instigate social activities which, if coexisting in a public space, can themselves draw in further users of the space. One of the primary conclusions drawn from these observations is that members of the public in Brisbane are both actively and passively social and often seek out locations where “people-watching” and being around other members of the public (both categorised as passive social activities) are facilitated and encouraged. Spaces that provide respite from the urban environment but that do not sufficiently accommodate social connections and activities are less favourable and are often left abandoned despite their comparable tranquillity and available space.

Hydraulic conductivity increases in a sodic clay soil in response to gypsum applications impacts of bulk density and cation exchange

Amelioration of sodic soils is commonly achieved by applying gypsum, which increases soil hydraulic conductivity by altering soil chemistry. The magnitude of hydraulic conductivity increases expected in response to gypsum applications depends on soil properties including clay content, clay mineralogy, and bulk density. The soil analyzed in this study was a kaolinite rich sodic clay soil from an irrigated area of the Lower Burdekin coastal floodplain in tropical North Queensland, Australia. The impact of gypsum amelioration was investigated by continuously leaching soil columns with a saturated gypsum solution, until the hydraulic conductivity and leachate chemistry stabilized. Extended leaching enabled the full impacts of electrolyte effects and cation exchange to be determined. For the columns packed to 1.4 g/cm3, exchangeable sodium concentrations were reduced from 5.0 ± 0.5 mEq/100 g to 0.41 ± 0.06 mEq/100 g, exchangeable magnesium concentrations were reduced from 13.9 ± 0.3 mEq/100 g to 4.3 ± 2.12 mEq/100 g, and hydraulic conductivity increased to 0.15 ± 0.04 cm/d. For the columns packed to 1.3 g/cm3, exchangeable sodium concentrations were reduced from 5.0 ± 0.5 mEq/100 g to 0.51 ± 0.03 mEq/100 g, exchangeable magnesium concentrations were reduced from 13.9 ± 0.3 mEq/100 g to 0.55 ± 0.36 mEq/100 g, and hydraulic conductivity increased to 0.96 ± 0.53 cm/d. The results of this study highlight that both sodium and magnesium need to be taken into account when determining the suitability of water quality for irrigation of sodic soils and that soil bulk density plays a major role in controlling the extent of reclamation that can be achieved using gypsum applications.

Media Village Generates Hype, Few Results in Glasgow

Driven by a desire to redevelop derelict land, attract inward investments, and better exploit the commercial potential of local talent, public authorities in Glasgow are partnering with private developers to transform an abandoned industrial dockland into a riverside business cluster for the creative industries. It’s a strategy increasingly common in a number of other peripheral regions and it highlights the new role “creativity” plays in urban rejuvenation, social renewal, and economic development. At its core, the strategy also betrays a troubling policy shift away from certain democratic conceptions of culture to ones that are more attuned to economic considerations shaped by global influences.

Goodbye Brigadoon: Place, Production, and Identity in Global Glasgow

Goodbye Brigadoon examines the shifting role media production plays in the economic and cultural strategies of global cities in small market nations, specifically Glasgow, Scotland. In particular, this project focuses on the formation of a digital media village along the banks of the River Clyde to argue the site constitutes a logical component to Glasgow’s ongoing transformation into a cosmopolitan center. Yet, as the regional government’s economic strategies and policy directives work to transform the abandoned waterfront into a center of cultural activity, this project also underscores the contradictory cultural dynamics to emerge from media production’s new role in the post-industrial city. At its core, the media hub reveals a regional government more interested in the technology used to deliver “national” stories than the manner of the stories themselves or the cultural practices responsible for creating them. Indeed, Goodbye Brigadoon is most interested in how media professionals based at the emergent cluster negotiate a sense of cultural identity and creative license against the institutional constraints, policy matters, and commercial logic they also must navigate in their workaday rituals. Ultimately, the conclusions offered in this project argue for a more complicated conception of the global-local location where these professionals work. Glasgow’s digital media village, in other words, is much more than an innocuous site of competitive advantage, urban regeneration, and job growth. It is best understood as a site of intense social struggle and unequal power relations where local mediamakers often find the site’s impetus for multiplatform media production an institutionally enforced false promise at odds with the realities of creative labor in the city.

Design and flight testing of an integrated solar powered UAV and WSN for greenhouse gas monitoring emissions in agricultural farms

There is an increased interest in measuring the amount of greenhouse gases produced by farming practices . This paper describes an integrated solar powered Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) gas sensing system for greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural lands. The system uses a generic gas sensing system for CH4 and CO2 concentrations using metal oxide (MoX) and non-dispersive infrared sensors, and a new solar cell encapsulation method to power the unmanned aerial system (UAS)as well as a data management platform to store, analyze and share the information with operators and external users. The system was successfully field tested at ground and low altitudes, collecting, storing and transmitting data in real time to a central node for analysis and 3D mapping. The system can be used in a wide range of outdoor applications at a relatively low operational cost. In particular, agricultural environments are increasingly subject to emissions mitigation policies. Accurate measurements of CH4 and CO2 with its temporal and spatial variability can provide farm managers key information to plan agricultural practices. A video of the bench and flight test performed can be seen in the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwas7stYIxQ

Remote Sensing and Data Collection from Solar Powered Wireless Sensor Network using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System

Sensor networks for environmental monitoring present enormous benefits to the community and society as a whole. Currently there is a need for low cost, compact, solar powered sensors suitable for deployment in rural areas. The purpose of this research is to develop both a ground based wireless sensor network and data collection using unmanned aerial vehicles. The ground based sensor system is capable of measuring environmental data such as temperature or air quality using cost effective low power sensors. The sensor will be configured such that its data is stored on an ATMega16 microcontroller which will have the capability of communicating with a UAV flying overhead using UAV communication protocols. The data is then either sent to the ground in real time or stored on the UAV using a microcontroller until it lands or is close enough to enable the transmission of data to the ground station.

The reader-assembled narrative: Representing the random in print fiction

The growing interest in co-created reading experiences in both digital and print formats raises interesting questions for creative writers who work in the space of interactive fiction. This essay argues that writers have not abandoned experiments with co-creation in print narratives in favour of the attractions of the digital environment, as might be assumed by the discourse on digital development. Rather, interactive print narratives, in particular ‘reader-assembled narratives’ demonstrate a rich history of experimentation and continue to engage writers who wish to craft individual reading experiences for readers and to experiment with their own creative process as writers. The reader-assembled narrative has been used for many different reasons and for some writers, such as BS Johnson it is a method of problem solving, for others, like Robert Coover, it is a way to engage the reader in a more playful sense. Authors such as Marc Saporta, BS Johnson, and Robert Coover have engaged with this type of narrative play. This examination considers the narrative experimentation of these authors as a way of offering insights into creative practice for contemporary creative writers.

The North in the Old English Orosius : A Geographical Narrative in Context

This doctoral dissertation examines the description of the North as it appears in the Old English Orosius (OE Or.) in the form of the travel accounts by Ohthere and Wulfstan and a catalogue of peoples of Germania. The description is discussed in the context of ancient and early medieval textual and cartographic descriptions of the North, with a special emphasis on Anglo-Saxon sources and the intellectual context of the reign of King Alfred (871-899). This is the first time that these sources, a multidisciplinary approach and secondary literature, also from Scandinavia and Finland, have been brought together. The discussion is source-based, and archaeological theories and geographical ideas are used to support the primary evidence. This study belongs to the disciplines of early medieval literature and (cultural) history, Anglo-Saxon studies, English philology, and historical geography. The OE Or. was probably part of Alfred s educational campaign, which conveyed royal ideology to the contemporary elite. The accounts and catalogue are original interpolations which represent a unique historical source for the Viking Age. They contain unparalleled information about peoples and places in Fennoscandia and the southern Baltic and sailing voyages to the White Sea, the Danish lands, and the Lower Vistula. The historical-philological analysis reveals an emphasis on wealth and property, rank, luxury goods, settlement patterns, and territorial divisions. Trade is strongly implied by the mentions of central places and northern products, such as walrus ivory. The references to such peoples as the Finnas, the Cwenas, and the Beormas appear in connection with information about geography and subsistence in the far North. Many of the topics in the accounts relate to Anglo-Saxon aristocratic culture and interests. The accounts focus on the areas associated with the Northmen, the Danes and the Este. These areas resonated in the Anglo-Saxon geographical imagination: they were curious about the northern margin of the world, their own continental ancestry and the geography of their homeland of Angeln, and they had an interest in the Goths and their connection with the southern Baltic in mythogeography. The non-judgemental representation of the North as generally peaceful and relatively normal place is related to Alfredian and Orosian ideas about the unity and spreading of Christendom, and to desires for unity among the Germani and for peace with the Vikings, who were settling in England. These intellectual contexts reflect the innovative and organizational forces of Alfred s reign. The description of the North in the OE Or. can be located in the context of the Anglo-Saxon worldview and geographical mindset. It mirrors the geographical curiosity expressed in other Anglo-Saxon sources, such as the poem Widsith and the Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi. The northern section of this early eleventh-century world map is analyzed in detail here for the first time. It is suggested that the section depicts the North Atlantic and the Scandinavian Peninsula. The survey of ancient and early medieval sources provides a comparative context for the OE Or. In this material, produced by such authors as Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus, Jordanes, and Rimbert, the significance of the North was related to the search for and definition of the northern edge of the world, universal accounts of the world, the northern homeland in the origin stories of the gentes, and Carolingian expansion and missionary activity. These frameworks were transmitted to Anglo-Saxon literary culture, where the North occurs in the context of the definition of Britain s place in the world.

Modelling Mortality and Reproduction Rates for Management of Sheep Flocks in Northern Australia

By quantifying the effects of climatic variability in the sheep grazing lands of north western and western Queensland, the key biological rates of mortality and reproduction can be predicted for sheep. These rates are essential components of a decision support package which can prove a useful management tool for producers, especially if they can easily obtain the necessary predictors. When the sub-models of the GRAZPLAN ruminant biology process model were re-parameterised from Queensland data along with an empirical equation predicting the probability of ewes mating added, the process model predicted the probability of pregnancy well (86% variation explained). Predicting mortality from GRAZPLAN was less successful but an empirical equation based on relative condition of the animal (a measure based on liveweight), pregnancy status and age explained 78% of the variation in mortalities. A crucial predictor in these models was liveweight which is not often recorded on producer properties. Empirical models based on climatic and pasture conditions estimated from the pasture production model GRASP, predicted marking and mortality rates for Mitchell grass (Astrebla sp.) pastures (81% and 63% of the variation explained). These prediction equations were tested against independent data from producer properties and the model successfully validated for Mitchell grass communities.

VegMachine - putting pastoralists in the picture

Australia’s rangelands are the extensive arid and semi-arid grazing lands that cover approximately 70% of the Australian continent. They are characterised by low and generally variable rainfall, low productivity and a sparse population. They support a number of industries including mining and tourism, but pastoralism is the primary land use. In some areas, the rangelands have a history of biological decline (Noble 1997), with erosion, loss of perennial native grasses and incursion of woody vegetation commonly reported in the scientific and lay literature. Despite our historic awareness of these trends, the establishment of systems to measure and monitor degradation, has presented numerous problems. The size and accessibility of Australia’s rangeland often mitigates development of extensive monitoring programs. So, too, securing on-going commitment from Government agencies to fund rangeland monitoring activities have led to either abandonment or a scaled-down approach in some instances (Graetz et al. 1986; Holm 1993). While a multiplicity of monitoring schemes have been developed for landholders at the property scale, and some have received promising initial uptake, relatively few have been maintained for more than a few years on any property without at least some agency support (Pickup et al. 1998). But, ironically, such property level monitoring tools can contribute significantly to local decisions about stock, infrastructure and sustainability. Research in recent decades has shown the value of satellites for monitoring change in rangelands (Wallace et al. 2004), especially in terms of tree and ground cover. While steadily improving, use of satellite data as a monitoring tool has been limited by the cost of the imagery, and the equipment and expertise needed to extract useful information from it. A project now under way in the northern rangelands of Australia is attempting to circumvent many of the problems through a monitoring system that allows property managers to use long-term satellite image sequences to quickly and inexpensively track changes in land cover on their properties

Poisoning for production: how effective is fox baiting in south-eastern Australia?

1. The European red fox Vulpes vulpes represents a continuing threat to both livestock and native vertebrates in Australia, and is commonly managed by setting ground-level baits impregnated with 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) poison. However, the long-term effectiveness of such control campaigns is likely to be limited due to the ability of foxes to disperse over considerable distances and to swiftly recolonize areas from where they had been removed. 2. To investigate the effectiveness of fox baiting in a production landscape, we assessed the potential for foxes to reinvade baited farm property areas within the jurisdiction of the Molong Rural Lands Protection Board (RLPB), an area of 815 000 ha on the central tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. The spatial distribution and timing of fox baiting campaigns between 1998 and 2002 was estimated from RLPB records and mapped using Geographical Information System software. The effectiveness of the control campaign was assessed on the basis of the likely immigration of foxes from non-baited farms using immigration distances calculated from published relationships between dispersal distance and home range size. 3. Few landholders undertook baiting campaigns in any given year, and the area baited was always so small that no baited property would have been sufficiently far from an unbaited property to have been immune from immigrating individuals. It is likely, therefore, that immigration onto farms negated any long-term effects of baiting operations. This study highlights some of the key deficiencies in current baiting practices in south-eastern Australia and suggests that pest management programmes should be monitored using such methods to ensure they achieve their goals.

Achievements in forest tree improvement in Australia and New Zealand 6: Genetic improvement and conservation of Araucaria cunninghamii in Queensland

Araucaria cunninghamii (hoop pine) typically occurs as an emergent tree over subtropical and tropical rainforests, in a discontinuous distribution that extends from West Irian Jaya at about 0°30'S, through the highlands of Indonesian New Guinea and Papua New Guinea, along the east coast of Australia from 11°39'S in Queensland to 30°35'S in northern New South Wales. Plantations established in Queensland since the 1920s now total about 44000 ha, and constitute the primary source for the continuing supply of hoop pine quality timber and pulpwood, with a sustainable harvest exceeding 440 000 m3 y-1. Establishment of these managed plantations allowed logging of all native forests of Araucaria species (hoop pine and bunya pine, A. bidwillii) on state-owned lands to cease in the late 1980s, and the preservation of large areas of araucarian forest types within a system of state-owned and managed reserves. The successful plantation program with this species has been strongly supported by genetic improvement activities since the late 1940s - through knowledge of provenance variation and reproductive biology, the provision of reliable sources of improved seed, and the capture of substantial genetic gains in traits of economic importance (for example growth, stem straightness, internode length and spiral grain). As such, hoop pine is one of the few tropical tree species that, for more than half a century, has been the subject of continuous genetic improvement. The history of commercialisation and genetic improvement of hoop pine provides an excellent example of the dual economic and conservation benefits that may be obtained in tropical tree species through the integration of gene conservation and genetic improvement with commercial plantation development. This paper outlines the natural distribution and reproductive biology of hoop pine, describes the major achievements of the genetic improvement program in Queensland over the past 50+ y, summarises current understanding of the genetic variation and control of key selection traits, and outlines the means by which genetic diversity in the species is being conserved.

The original native pasture ecosystems of the eastern and western Darling Downs - Can they be restored?

The original pasture ecosystems of southern inland Queensland ranged from treeless grasslands on cracking clays through grassy woodlands of varying density on a great range of soil types to those competing at the dynamic edges of forests and scrubs. Fire, both wild and aboriginal-managed, was a major factor, along with rainfall extremes, in shaping the pastures and tree:grass balance. Seedling recruitment was driven by rainfall extremes, availability of germinable seed and growing space, with seed availability and space being linked to the timing and intensity of recent fires and rain. The impact of insects, diseases, severe wind and hailstorms on recruitment should not be underestimated. The more fertile soils had denser grass growth, greater fire frequency and thinner tree cover than infertile soils, except where trees were so dense that grass growth was almost eliminated. The pastures were dominated by perennial tussock grasses of mid-height but included a wide array of minor herbaceous species whose abundance was linked to soil type and recent seasonal conditions. Many were strongly perennial with Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Malvaceae, Cyperaceae and Goodeniaceae most common in an environment, which can experience effective rainfall at any time of year. The former grassland communities that are now productive farming lands are not easily returned to their original composition. However, conservation of remnant examples of original pasture types is very achievable provided tree density is controlled, prescribed burning and grazing are used and rigorous control of invasive, exotic species is undertaken. This should be done with a clear understanding that significant short-and medium-term fluctuations in botanical composition are normal.