Now we can “see the forest and the trees too” but there are risks : Camera trapping and privacy law in Australia

The use of camera traps in wildlife management is an increasingly common practice. A phenomenon which is also becoming more common is for such camera traps to unintentionally film individuals engaged in a variety of activities, ranging from the innocent to the nefarious and including lewd or potentially embarrassing behaviour. It is therefore possible for the use of camera traps to accidentally encroach upon the privacy rights of persons who venture into the area of surveillance. In this chapter we describe the legal framework of privacy in Australia and discuss the potential risk of this sleeping tiger for users of camera traps. We also present the results of a survey of camera trap users to assess the frequency of such unintended captures and the nature of activity being filmed before discussing the practical implications of these laws for camera traps users in this country and make recommendations.

From ImageNet to mining: Adapting visual object detection with minimal supervision

This paper presents visual detection and classification of light vehicles and personnel on a mine site.We capitalise on the rapid advances of ConvNet based object recognition but highlight that a naive black box approach results in a significant number of false positives. In particular, the lack of domain specific training data and the unique landscape in a mine site causes a high rate of errors. We exploit the abundance of background-only images to train a k-means classifier to complement the ConvNet. Furthermore, localisation of objects of interest and a reduction in computation is enabled through region proposals. Our system is tested on over 10km of real mine site data and we were able to detect both light vehicles and personnel. We show that the introduction of our background model can reduce the false positive rate by an order of magnitude.

Using decision trees to understand structure in missing data

Objectives Demonstrate the application of decision trees – classification and regression trees (CARTs), and their cousins, boosted regression trees (BRTs) – to understand structure in missing data. Setting Data taken from employees at three different industry sites in Australia. Participants 7915 observations were included. Materials and Methods The approach was evaluated using an occupational health dataset comprising results of questionnaires, medical tests, and environmental monitoring. Statistical methods included standard statistical tests and the ‘rpart’ and ‘gbm’ packages for CART and BRT analyses, respectively, from the statistical software ‘R’. A simulation study was conducted to explore the capability of decision tree models in describing data with missingness artificially introduced. Results CART and BRT models were effective in highlighting a missingness structure in the data, related to the Type of data (medical or environmental), the site in which it was collected, the number of visits and the presence of extreme values. The simulation study revealed that CART models were able to identify variables and values responsible for inducing missingness. There was greater variation in variable importance for unstructured compared to structured missingness. Discussion Both CART and BRT models were effective in describing structural missingness in data. CART models may be preferred over BRT models for exploratory analysis of missing data, and selecting variables important for predicting missingness. BRT models can show how values of other variables influence missingness, which may prove useful for researchers. Conclusion Researchers are encouraged to use CART and BRT models to explore and understand missing data.

Can’t see the trees for the forest? Why IS-ServQual items matter

Despite longstanding concern with the dimensionality of the service quality construct as measured by ServQual and IS-ServQual instruments, variations on the IS-ServQual instrument have been enduringly prominent in both academic research and practice in the field of IS. We explain the continuing popularity of the instrument based on the salience of the item set for predicting overall customer satisfaction, suggesting that the preoccupation with the dimensions has been a distraction. The implicit mutual exclusivity of the items suggests a more appropriate conceptualization of IS-ServQual as a formative index. This conceptualization resolves the paradox in IS-ServQual research, that of how an instrument with such well-known and well-documented weaknesses continue to be very influential and widely used by academics and practitioners. A formative conceptualization acknowledges and addresses the criticisms of IS-ServQual, while simultaneously explaining its enduring salience by focusing on the items rather than the “dimensions.” By employing an opportunistic sample and adopting the most recent IS-ServQual instrument published in a leading IS journal (virtually, any valid IS- ServQual sample in combination with a previously tested instrument variant would suffice for study purposes), we demonstrate that when re-specified as both first-order and second-order formatives, IS-ServQual has good model quality metrics and high predictive power on customer satisfaction. We conclude that this formative specification has higher practical use and is more defensible theoretically.

Free Energy Gap Dependence of the Electron-Transfer Rate from the Inverted to the Normal Region

numerical study of the free energy gap (FEG) dependence of the electron-transfer rate in polar solvents is presented. This study is based on the generalized multidimensional hybrid model, which not only includes the solvent polarization and the molecular vibration modes, but also the biphasic polar response of the solvent. The free energy gap dependence is found to be sensitive to several factors, including the solvent relaxation rate, the electronic coupling between the surfaces, the frequency of the high-frequency quantum vibrational mode, and the magnitude of the solvent reorganization energy. It is shown that in some cases solvent relaxation can play an important role even in the Marcus normal regime. The minimal hybrid model involves a large number of parameters, giving rise to a diverse non-Marcus FEG behavior which is often determined collectively by these parameters. The model gives the linear free energy gap dependence of the logarithmic rate over a substantial range of FEG, spanning from the normal to the inverted regime. However, even for favorable values of the relevant parameters, a linear free energy gap dependence of the rate could be obtained only over a range of 5000-6000 cm(-1) (compared to the experimentally observed range of 10000 cm(-1) reported by Benniston et al.). The present work suggests several extensions/generalizations of the hybrid model which might be necessary to fully understand the observed free energy gap dependence.

Species-area and species-individual relationships for tropical trees: A comparison of three 50-ha plots

1 Species-accumulation curves for woody plants were calculated in three tropical forests, based on fully mapped 50-ha plots in wet, old-growth forest in Peninsular Malaysia, in moist, old-growth forest in central Panama, and in dry, previously logged forest in southern India. A total of 610 000 stems were identified to species and mapped to < Im accuracy. Mean species number and stem number were calculated in quadrats as small as 5 m x 5 m to as large as 1000 m x 500 m, for a variety of stem sizes above 10 mm in diameter. Species-area curves were generated by plotting species number as a function of quadrat size; species-individual curves were generated from the same data, but using stem number as the independent variable rather than area. 2 Species-area curves had different forms for stems of different diameters, but species-individual curves were nearly independent of diameter class. With < 10(4) stems, species-individual curves were concave downward on log-log plots, with curves from different forests diverging, but beyond about 104 stems, the log-log curves became nearly linear, with all three sites having a similar slope. This indicates an asymptotic difference in richness between forests: the Malaysian site had 2.7 times as many species as Panama, which in turn was 3.3 times as rich as India. 3 Other details of the species-accumulation relationship were remarkably similar between the three sites. Rectangular quadrats had 5-27% more species than square quadrats of the same area, with longer and narrower quadrats increasingly diverse. Random samples of stems drawn from the entire 50 ha had 10-30% more species than square quadrats with the same number of stems. At both Pasoh and BCI, but not Mudumalai. species richness was slightly higher among intermediate-sized stems (50-100mm in diameter) than in either smaller or larger sizes, These patterns reflect aggregated distributions of individual species, plus weak density-dependent forces that tend to smooth the species abundance distribution and 'loosen' aggregations as stems grow. 4 The results provide support for the view that within each tree community, many species have their abundance and distribution guided more by random drift than deterministic interactions. The drift model predicts that the species-accumulation curve will have a declining slope on a log-log plot, reaching a slope of O.1 in about 50 ha. No other model of community structure can make such a precise prediction. 5 The results demonstrate that diversity studies based on different stem diameters can be compared by sampling identical numbers of stems. Moreover, they indicate that stem counts < 1000 in tropical forests will underestimate the percentage difference in species richness between two diverse sites. Fortunately, standard diversity indices (Fisher's sc, Shannon-Wiener) captured diversity differences in small stem samples more effectively than raw species richness, but both were sample size dependent. Two nonparametric richness estimators (Chao. jackknife) performed poorly, greatly underestimating true species richness.

Bounds on isoperimetric values of trees

Let G = (V, E) be a finite, simple and undirected graph. For S subset of V, let delta(S, G) = {(u, v) is an element of E : u is an element of S and v is an element of V - S} be the edge boundary of S. Given an integer i, 1 <= i <= vertical bar V vertical bar, let the edge isoperimetric value of G at i be defined as b(e)(i, G) = min(S subset of V:vertical bar S vertical bar=i)vertical bar delta(S, G)vertical bar. The edge isoperimetric peak of G is defined as b(e)(G) = max(1 <= j <=vertical bar V vertical bar)b(e)(j, G). Let b(v)(G) denote the vertex isoperimetric peak defined in a corresponding way. The problem of determining a lower bound for the vertex isoperimetric peak in complete t-ary trees was recently considered in [Y. Otachi, K. Yamazaki, A lower bound for the vertex boundary-width of complete k-ary trees, Discrete Mathematics, in press (doi: 10.1016/j.disc.2007.05.014)]. In this paper we provide bounds which improve those in the above cited paper. Our results can be generalized to arbitrary (rooted) trees. The depth d of a tree is the number of nodes on the longest path starting from the root and ending at a leaf. In this paper we show that for a complete binary tree of depth d (denoted as T-d(2)), c(1)d <= b(e) (T-d(2)) <= d and c(2)d <= b(v)(T-d(2)) <= d where c(1), c(2) are constants. For a complete t-ary tree of depth d (denoted as T-d(t)) and d >= c log t where c is a constant, we show that c(1)root td <= b(e)(T-d(t)) <= td and c(2)d/root t <= b(v) (T-d(t)) <= d where c(1), c(2) are constants. At the heart of our proof we have the following theorem which works for an arbitrary rooted tree and not just for a complete t-ary tree. Let T = (V, E, r) be a finite, connected and rooted tree - the root being the vertex r. Define a weight function w : V -> N where the weight w(u) of a vertex u is the number of its successors (including itself) and let the weight index eta(T) be defined as the number of distinct weights in the tree, i.e eta(T) vertical bar{w(u) : u is an element of V}vertical bar. For a positive integer k, let l(k) = vertical bar{i is an element of N : 1 <= i <= vertical bar V vertical bar, b(e)(i, G) <= k}vertical bar. We show that l(k) <= 2(2 eta+k k)

Tissue culture of forest trees: Clonal multiplication of Eucalyptus grandis L

Axillary shoot proliferation was obtained using explants of Eucalyptus grandis L. juvenile and mature stages on a defined medium. Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) supplemented with benzyladenine (BA), naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and additional thiamine. Excised shoots were induced to root on a sequence of three media: (1) White's medium containing indoleacetic acid (IAA), NAA and indole butyric acid; (IBA), (2) half-strength MS medium with charcoal and (3) half-strength MS liquid medium. The two types of explants differed in rooting response, with juvenile-derived shoots giving 60% rooting and adult-derived ones only 35%. Thus, the factors limiting cloning of selected trees in vitro are determined to be those controlling rooting of shoots in E. grandis.

Roy Kenzie Kiyooka

Roy Kenzie Kiyooka Canadian, born 1926 Roy Kiyooka was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1926. Throughout his career, he was known as a painter, photographer, sculptor, poet, musician, filmmaker and teacher. He studied at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary from 1946-49, and then at the Instituto Allende in Mexico in 1955. During the summers of 1958 - 1960 he attended the Emma Lake Workshops in Saskatchewan, where he worked closely with Barnett Newman and Clement Greenberg. In 1959 he executed his first series of abstract paintings, The Hoarfrost Series, which assume a disciplined minimal quality. In the late 1960's Kiyooka began to push beyond painting and created mixed media works, including collage, photography, film and poetry. Kiyooka’s art is born out of personal experience and through it he records his relationship to the surrounding landscape; a night in a motel, a trip to the coast, or hoarfrost on the trees. Through the unfolding of Kiyooka’s interior/exterior landscapes he shares his personal journeys with us all. The Art Gallery of Ontario's collection of Roy Kiyooka's work began with the purchase of two paintings; Barometer No. 2, in 1964 and Surya, in 1987.

Using tau polarization to probe the stau co-annihilation region of the minimal supergravity model at the LHC

The minimal supergravity model predicts the polarization of the tau coming from the stau to bino decay in the co-annihilation region to +1. This can be exploited to extract this soft tau signal at LHC and also to measure the tiny mass differences between the stau and the bi lightest superparticle. Moreover, this strategy will be applicable for a wider class of bino lightest superparticle models, where the lighter stau has a right component at least of similar size as the left.

Effects of rootstock and nitrogen fertiliser on postharvest anthracnose development in Hass avocado

These rootstock and nitrogen fertiliser studies confirmed that rootstock race can significantly affect the development of postharvest disease and mineral nutrient accumulation in Hass avocado fruit. When Hass (Guatemalan race) was grafted to seedling Velvick (West Indian race) rootstock, the severity and incidence of anthracnose in fruit were significantly reduced by up to 64 and 37%, respectively, compared with seedling Duke 6 (Mexican race) rootstock. Stem-end rot was also influenced by rootstock in some seasons, and significant reductions (up to 87%) in the severity and incidence of stem-end rot were recorded in Hass fruit from Velvick compared with Duke 6 rootstock trees. These improvements in postharvest diseases were associated with significantly lower concentrations of nitrogen and potassium, higher concentrations of calcium and magnesium, lower ratios of nitrogen:calcium and higher ratios of calcium + magnesium:potassium in Hass leaves and fruit from Velvick compared with Duke 6 rootstock trees. Altering the rate of nitrogen fertiliser had minimal impact on postharvest disease development. However, in one season, reducing the rate of nitrogen fertiliser to nil significantly reduced the concentration of nitrogen in the fruit skin, decreased the nitrogen:calcium ratio and significantly reduced the severity and incidence of anthracnose in Hass fruit from both Velvick and Duke 6 rootstock trees. The form of nitrogen fertiliser (ammonium compared with nitrate) applied to the trees did not significantly affect the postharvest disease susceptibility of Hass avocado fruit on either Velvick or Duke 6 rootstock. The Guatemalan race rootstocks, Anderson 8 and Anderson 10, were also found to be superior to the Mexican race rootstock, Parida 1, for reducing anthracnose severity. This again, was associated with a better balance of mineral nutrients (significantly lower nitrogen:calcium and higher calcium + magnesium:potassium ratios) in the fruit. This rootstock effect, however, was only observed in the first season of a 3-year experiment, possibly because of a better balance between vegetative growth and fruit production in Parida 1 in the latter two seasons. Significant positive correlations between anthracnose severity and fruit skin nitrogen:calcium ratios were evident across all experiments.

Tree-ring based hydroclimate reconstruction over northern Vietnam from Fokienia hodginsii: eighteenth century mega-drought and tropical Pacific influence

We present here the first statistically calibrated and verified tree-ring reconstruction of climate from continental Southeast Asia.The reconstructed variable is March-May (MAM) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) based on ring widths from 22 trees (42 radial cores) of rare and long-lived conifer, Fokienia hodginsii (Po Mu as locally called) from northern Vietnam. This is the first published tree ring chronology from Vietnam as well as the first for this species. Spanning 535 years, this is the longest cross-dated tree-ring series yet produced from continental Southeast Asia. Response analysis revealed that the annual growth of Fokienia at this site was mostly governed by soil moisture in the pre-monsoon season. The reconstruction passed the calibration-verification tests commonly used in dendroclimatology, and revealed two prominent periods of drought in the mid-eighteenth and late-nineteenth enturies. The former lasted nearly 30 years and was concurrent with a similar drought over northwestern Thailand inferred from teak rings, suggesting a ``mega-drought'' extending across Indochina in the eighteenth century. Both of our reconstructed droughts are consistent with the periods of warm sea surface temperature (SST)anomalies in the tropical Pacific. Spatial correlation analyses with global SST indicated that ENSO-like anomalies might play a role in modulating droughts over the region, with El Nio (warm) phases resulting in reduced rainfall. However, significant correlation was also seen with SST over the Indian Ocean and the north Pacific,suggesting that ENSO is not the only factor affecting the climate of the area. Spectral analyses revealed significant peaks in the range of 53.9-78.8 years as well as in the ENSO-variability range of 2.0 to 3.2 years.

What lies beneath? The pattern and abundance of the subterranean tuber bank of the invasive liana cat's claw creeper, Macfadyena unguis-cati (Bignoniaceae)

Cat’s claw creeper, Macfadyena unguis-cati (L.) Gentry (Bignoniaceae) is a major environmental weed of riparian areas, rainforest communities and remnant natural vegetation in coastal Queensland and New South Wales, Australia. In densely infested areas, it smothers standing vegetation, including large trees, and causes canopy collapse. Quantitative data on the ecology of this invasive vine are generally lacking. The present study examines the underground tuber traits of M. unguis-cati and explores their links with aboveground parameters at five infested sites spanning both riparian and inland vegetation. Tubers were abundant in terms of density (~1000 per m2), although small in size and low in level of interconnectivity. M. unguis-cati also exhibits multiple stems per plant. Of all traits screened, the link between stand (stem density) and tuber density was the most significant and yielded a promising bivariate relationship for the purposes of estimation, prediction and management of what lies beneath the soil surface of a given M. unguis-cati infestation site. The study also suggests that new recruitment is primarily from seeds, not from vegetative propagation as previously thought. The results highlight the need for future biological-control efforts to focus on introducing specialist seed- and pod-feeding insects to reduce seed-output.

Demography of three perennial grasses in a central Queensland eucalypt woodland.

The population dynamics of the palatable, perennial grasses Bothriochloa ewartiana (Domin) C.E.Hubb. (desert Mitchell grass), Chrysopogon fallax S.T.Blake (golden beard grass) and Heteropogon contortus (L.) P.Beauv. ex Roem. & Schult. (black speargrass), were studied in an extensive grazing study conducted in a eucalypt woodland within the Aristida-Bothriochloa pasture community in central Queensland between 1994 and 2000. Treatments were three grazing pressures based on light, medium and heavy utilisation of forage available at the end of summer and two timber treatments (trees intact and trees killed). Seasonal rainfall throughout this study was generally favourable for plant growth with no severe drought periods. Grazing pressure had a greater overall impact on plant dynamics than timber treatment, which had minimal impact. Grazing pressure had a large impact on H. contortus dynamics, an intermediate impact on B. ewartiana and no impact on C. fallax. Fluctuations in plant density of both B. ewartiana and C. fallax were small because both species were long lived with low levels of seedling recruitment and plant death, whereas fluctuations in H. contortus density were relatively high because of its relatively short life span and higher levels of both recruitment and death. Heavy grazing pressure increased the recruitment of B. ewartiana and H. contortus in some years but had no impact on that of C. fallax. Heavy grazing pressure reduced the survival of the original plants of both B. ewartiana and H.contortus but not of C. fallax. For H. contortus, the size of the original plants was larger where trees were killed than where trees were left intact and plants of the 1995 seedling cohort were larger in 1998 at heavy compared with those at light and medium grazing pressure. Grazing had a minor negative impact on the soil seed bank of H. contortus. Populations of all three species remained stable throughout this study, although the favourable seasonal rainfall experienced and the short duration of this study relative to the life span of these species may have masked longer term, deleterious impacts of heavy grazing pressure.