A transcriptomic analysis of striped catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus) in response to salinity adaptation: De novo assembly, gene annotation and marker discovery

The striped catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus) culture industry in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam has developed rapidly over the past decade. The culture industry now however, faces some significant challenges, especially related to climate change impacts notably from predicted extensive saltwater intrusion into many low topographical coastal provinces across the Mekong Delta. This problem highlights a need for development of culture stocks that can tolerate more saline culture environments as a response to expansion of saline water-intruded land. While a traditional artificial selection program can potentially address this need, understanding the genomic basis of salinity tolerance can assist development of more productive culture lines. The current study applied a transcriptomic approach using Ion PGM technology to generate expressed sequence tag (EST) resources from the intestine and swim bladder from striped catfish reared at a salinity level of 9 ppt which showed best growth performance. Total sequence data generated was 467.8 Mbp, consisting of 4,116,424 reads with an average length of 112 bp. De novo assembly was employed that generated 51,188 contigs, and allowed identification of 16,116 putative genes based on the GenBank non-redundant database. GO annotation, KEGG pathway mapping, and functional annotation of the EST sequences recovered with a wide diversity of biological functions and processes. In addition, more than 11,600 simple sequence repeats were also detected. This is the first comprehensive analysis of a striped catfish transcriptome, and provides a valuable genomic resource for future selective breeding programs and functional or evolutionary studies of genes that influence salinity tolerance in this important culture species.

A comparative analysis of the conservative bridge transition design approaches

Differential settlement at the bridge approach between the deck and rail track on ground is often considered as a source of challenging technical and economical problem. This caused by the sudden stiffness changes between the bridge deck and the track on ground, and changes in soil stiffness of backfill and sub-grade with soil moisture content and loading history. To minimise the negative social and economic impacts due to poor performances of railway tracks at bridge transition zones, it is important, a special attention to be given at design, construction and maintenance stages. It is critically challenging to obtain an appropriate design solution for any given site condition and most of the existing conventional design approaches are unable to address the actual on-site behaviour due to their inherent assumptions of continuity and lack of clarifying of the local effects. An evaluation of existing design techniques is considered to estimate their contributions to a potential solution for bridge transition zones. This paper analyses five different approaches: the Chinese Standard, the European Standard with three different approaches, and the Australian approach. Each design approach is used to calculate the layer thicknesses, accounting critical design features such as the train speed, the axle load, the backfill subgrade condition, and the dynamic loading response. Considering correlation between track degradation and design parameters, this paper concludes that there is still a need of an optimised design approach for bridge transition zones.

The feeding practices and structure questionnaire : construction and initial validation in a sample of Australian first-time mothers and their 2-year olds

Background Early feeding practices lay the foundation for children’s eating habits and weight gain. Questionnaires are available to assess parental feeding but overlapping and inconsistent items, subscales and terminology limit conceptual clarity and between study comparisons. Our aim was to consolidate a range of existing items into a parsimonious and conceptually robust questionnaire for assessing feeding practices with very young children (<3 years). Methods Data were from 462 mothers and children (age 21–27 months) from the NOURISH trial. Items from five questionnaires and two study-specific items were submitted to a priori item selection, allocation and verification, before theoretically-derived factors were tested using Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Construct validity of the new factors was examined by correlating these with child eating behaviours and weight. Results Following expert review 10 factors were specified. Of these, 9 factors (40 items) showed acceptable model fit and internal reliability (Cronbach’s α: 0.61-0.89). Four factors reflected non-responsive feeding practices: ‘Distrust in Appetite’, ‘Reward for Behaviour’, ‘Reward for Eating’, and ‘Persuasive Feeding’. Five factors reflected structure of the meal environment and limits: ‘Structured Meal Setting’, ‘Structured Meal Timing’, ‘Family Meal Setting’, ‘Overt Restriction’ and ‘Covert Restriction’. Feeding practices generally showed the expected pattern of associations with child eating behaviours but none with weight. Conclusion The Feeding Practices and Structure Questionnaire (FPSQ) provides a new reliable and valid measure of parental feeding practices, specifically maternal responsiveness to children’s hunger/satiety signals facilitated by routine and structure in feeding. Further validation in more diverse samples is required.

The Healthy Trends of International Relations Research

As the end of the Cold War approached in 1989, Caroline Thomas argued: “It is important that the discipline [International Relations, IR] should address the issue of disease and more broadly, health, not simply to facilitate containment of disease transmission across international borders but also because central notions of justice, equity, efficiency and order are involved” (1989:273).1 Ten years later, Craig Murphy echoed these sentiments. Murphy (2001: 352) proposed that IR had yet to grapple with the political consequences of growing inequality between the world’s rich and poor, and areas such as health—where these inequalities were most stark—should become the field’s core business. How IR’s theories and methods would approach these issues was less clear. Bettcher and Yach (1998) cautioned that IR would be unable to develop progressive research projects that explored global health diplomacy as a global public good without adopting new perspectives and methods. Others warned that the expansion of security studies into areas such as global health would weaken the intellectual coherency of the field (Walt 1991:213). Taking its cue from the recent Ng and Prah Ruger (2011) study, this paper returns to these concerns to briefly explore key trends and potential future concerns of research in IR on health...

Characteristics of ultrafine particle sources and deposition rates in primary school classrooms

The aim of this work was to investigate changes in particle number concentration (PNC) within naturally ventilated primary school classrooms arising from local sources either within or adjacent to the classrooms. We quantify the rate at which ultrafine particles were emitted either from printing, grilling, heating or cleaning activities and the rate at which the particles were removed by both deposition and air exchange processes. At each of 25 schools in Brisbane, Australia, two weeks of measurements of PNC and CO2 were taken both outdoors and in the two classrooms. Bayesian regression modelling was employed in order to estimate the relevant rates and analyse the relationship between air exchange rate (AER), particle infiltration and the deposition rates of particle generated from indoor activities in the classrooms. During schooling hours, grilling events at the school tuckshop as well as heating and printing in the classrooms led to indoor PNCs being elevated by a factor of more than four, with emission rates of (2.51 ± 0.25) x 1011 p min-1, (8.99 ± 6.70) x 1011 p min-1 and (5.17 ± 2.00) x 1011 p min-1, respectively. During non-school hours, cleaning events elevated indoor PNC by a factor of above five, with an average emission rate of (2.09 ± 6.30) x 1011 p min-1. Particles were removed by both air exchange and deposition; chiefly by ventilation when AER > 0.7 h-1 and by deposition when AER < 0.7 h-1.

Integration of XML Schemas for the Exchange of FDOT Construction Project Data

An investigation of the construction data management needs of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) with regard to XML standards including development of data dictionary and data mapping. The review of existing XML schemas indicated the need for development of specific XML schemas. XML schemas were developed for all FDOT construction data management processes. Additionally, data entry, approval and data retrieval applications were developed for payroll compliance reporting and pile quantity payment development.

Reduction of amplitude equations by the renormalization group approach

This article elucidates and analyzes the fundamental underlying structure of the renormalization group (RG) approach as it applies to the solution of any differential equation involving multiple scales. The amplitude equation derived through the elimination of secular terms arising from a naive perturbation expansion of the solution to these equations by the RG approach is reduced to an algebraic equation which is expressed in terms of the Thiele semi-invariants or cumulants of the eliminant sequence { Zi } i=1 . Its use is illustrated through the solution of both linear and nonlinear perturbation problems and certain results from the literature are recovered as special cases. The fundamental structure that emerges from the application of the RG approach is not the amplitude equation but the aforementioned algebraic equation. © 2008 The American Physical Society.

Series in vector spherical harmonics : an efficient tool for solution of nonlinear problems in spherical plasmas

The series expansion of the plasma fields and currents in vector spherical harmonics has been demonstrated to be an efficient technique for solution of nonlinear problems in spherically bounded plasmas. Using this technique, it is possible to describe the nonlinear plasma response to the rotating high-frequency magnetic field applied to the magnetically confined plasma sphere. The effect of the external magnetic field on the current drive and field configuration is studied. The results obtained are important for continuous current drive experiments in compact toruses. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Designing schools as effective 21st C learning spaces : a review

The Queensland Centre for Social Science Innovation was formed in 2012 to develop collaborations among the Queensland Government and five Queensland universities—The University of Queensland, Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology, James Cook University and Central Queensland University. Three priorities for initial projects were established by the Queensland Government with response by the participating universities. This project addressed the identified priority area: factors affecting educational achievement and investigation of the link between school design, refurbishment and educational outcomes. The proposal for this project indicated that a Review of research literature would be undertaken that linked school and classroom design with educational outcomes for learners in the 21st century. Further, research would be examined for impact of technology on staff and students, as well as learning spaces that addressed the diversity of student learners. Specific investigation of research on effective design to enhance learning outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students was to be undertaken. The project therefore consists of a Review of research literature to provide an evidence base on the impact of school and classroom on educational outcomes. The original proposal indicated that indicators of successful school and classroom design would be student learning outcomes on a range of variables, with input, the specific architectural design elements. The review was undertaken during the period July 2012 to June 2013. A search was undertaken of journals, databases, and websources to identify relevant material. These were examined for evidence-based statements and design of learning spaces to enhance learning. The Review is comprehensive, and representative of issues raised in research, and conceptualisations and debates informing modern educational design. Initial findings indicated two key findings central to reading this Review. The first key finding is that the predominant focus of modern design of learning space is on process and the engagement of stakeholders. Schools are social institutions and development of a school as a learning space to suit 21st century learning needs necessarily involves the staff, students and other members of the community as key participants. The concept of social aspects of design is threaded throughout the Review. The second key finding is that little research explicitly examined the relationship between the design of learning spaces and educational outcomes. While some research does exist, the most explicitly-focused research uses narrow test-based achievement as the learning outcomes. These are not sympathetic to the overall framings of the research on 21st century learning, future schooling and the needs of the new generation of learners and society.

Integrating the impact of climate into event based failure models for water pipes

This paper presents an event-based failure model to predict the number of failures that occur in water distribution assets. Often, such models have been based on analysis of historical failure data combined with pipe characteristics and environmental conditions. In this paper weather data have been added to the model to take into account the commonly observed seasonal variation of the failure rate. The theoretical basis of existing logistic regression models is briefly described in this paper, along with the refinements made to the model for inclusion of seasonal variation of weather. The performance of these refinements is tested using data from two Australian water authorities.

Powering a curriculum for all : a critical ethnographic study of inclusive education

This project makes a contribution to knowledge about the successful leadership practices that enhance education for young people with a disability in a Queensland Secondary School. The project used a critical ethnographic approach with a variety of data collection methods and analysis. For example, the use of work diaries, semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observation. These leadership practices were found to be relevant to the development of inclusive schools for all learners.The most powerful leadership practices found were those used by the leader to challenge, interupt and replace exsisting discourse and processes that led to exclusion of students with a disability.

Constructing, deconstructing and negotiating the boundaries of digital cultures

The focus of this special issue is upon notions, and experiences of, the erosion and blurring of the boundaries constructed between work, play, the public and private as related to digital media. We seek to increase knowledge regarding the contemporary experiences and potential reshaping of the boundaries and structures of existing social organisation, and the altering of the ways in which people learn to experience life. We know that even as access to digital technologies continues to vary based on age, gender, nationality, residence, ethnicity, work, and other key aspects of society, it is clear the presence and uses of these digital technologies are increasingly important features of contemporary life...

The value of storytelling

Considering the embodied carbon in existing buildings where expenditure has already occurred, the retrofitting of existing buildings presents a significant opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of our built environment. In Australia there is also a renewed awareness of the importance of our cultural heritage and the adaptive reuse of our historic buildings is increasingly discussed as a preservation strategy. The ‘design’ phase in building projects is credited with providing “an unparalleled window of opportunity to address environmental objectives” and fostering sustainable development, with up to 80% of overall environmental impacts determined by the decisions made at this stage. Both design and built environment professionals appreciate that a holistic and ‘whole systems’ approach is key in enabling transformation. The design process often comprises of many divergent and convergent activities, many of which seek to understand the people and context. The design process for heritage building adaptive reuse projects revolves around producing or referring to a conservation management plan that articulates what is and isn't heritage fabric. In an Australian context, and according to literature and the emerging results of a series of semi-structured interviews undertaken with designers of such projects, the key themes integral to success are: business case, vision, communication & collaboration, values, and storytelling.

An analysis of the timeliness and nature of profit warnings in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis

The global financial crisis (GFC) has severely impacted the financial position and performance of many companies internationally. Because of its severity and associated increase in uncertainty it challenges the effectiveness of existing disclosure regulation. Australia provides a unique environment in which to test the effects of the GFC on corporate disclosure because statutory rules mandate the timely disclosure of ‘price-sensitive’ information (ASX Rule 3.1) by listed entities. Exploiting this institutional setting we investigate the determinants and timeliness of profit warnings issued by the top 500 ASX-listed firms with profit declines in the 2009 fiscal year. Our findings show that firms behave differently with regard to the issuance of profit warnings: larger and more indebted firms are more likely to issue a profit warning and tend to be timelier; surprisingly, poorer performing firms tend to release the news more quickly and this might be attributed to an increasing threat of litigation. Our analysis of profit warning determinants shows interesting results with the presence of asset impairments hindering the early disclosure of profit warnings. Our findings are novel for two main reasons: first, we provide insights into the impact of global financial crisis on profit warning behaviour; second, we are the first to examine the differential impact of alternative features of profit warnings on disclosure timeliness. The findings have implications for regulators in determining compliance with continuous disclosure rules and more broadly, for market participants in interpreting profit warnings.

Towards a theory of individual-level discontinuance of information systems use

I develop a model of individuals’ intentions to discontinue information system use. Understanding these intentions is important because they give insights into users’ willingness to carry out system tasks, and provide a basis for maintenance decisions as well as possible replacement decisions. I offer a first conceptualization of factors determining users’ discontinuance intentions on basis of existing literature on technology use, status quo bias and dual factor concepts. The model is grounded in rational choice theory to distinguish determinants of a conscious decision between continuing or discontinuing IS use. I provide details on the empirical test of the model through a field study of IS users in a retail organization. The work will have implications for theory on information systems continuance and dual-factor logic in information system use. The empirical findings will provide suggestions for managers dealing with cessation of information systems and work routine changes in organizations.