Animal management, 1908.

Reprinted.

Sugar and coffee: A history of settler agriculture in nineteenth-century Liberia

This dissertation is about commercial agriculture in nineteenth-century Liberia. Based primarily on the archives of the American Colonization Society (founder of Liberia), it examines the impact of environmental and demographic constraints on an agrarian settler society from 1822 to the 1890s. Contrary to the standard interpretation, which linked the poor state of commercial agriculture to the settlers' disdain for cultivation, this dissertation argues that the scarcity of labor and capital impeded the growth of commercial agriculture. The causes of the scarcity were high mortality, low immigration and the poverty of the American “Negroes” who began to settle Liberia in 1822. ^ Emigration to Liberia meant almost certain death and affliction for many immigrants because they encountered a new set of diseases. Mortality was particularly high during the early decades of colonization. From 1822 to 1843, about 48 percent of all immigrants died of various causes, usually within their first year. The bulk of the deaths is attributed to malaria. There was no natural increase in the population for this early period and because American “Negroes” were unenthusiastic about relocation to Liberia, immigration remained sparse throughout the century. Low immigration, combined with the high death rate, deprived the fledgling colony of its potential human resource, especially for the cultivation of labor-intensive crops, like sugar cane and coffee. Moreover, even though females constituted approximately half of the settlers, they seldom performed agricultural labor. ^ The problem of labor was compounded by the scarcity of draft animals. Liberia is in the region where trypanosomiasis occurs. The disease is fatal to large livestock. Therefore, animal-drawn plows, common in the United States, were never successfully transplanted in Liberia. Besides, the dearth of livestock obstructed the development of the sugar industry since many planters depended on oxen-powered mills because they could not afford to buy the more expensive steam engine mills. ^ Finally, nearly half of the immigrants were newly emancipated slaves. Usually these former bondsmen arrived in Liberia penniless. Consequently, they lacked the capital to invest in large-scale plantations. The other categories of immigrants (e.g., those who purchased their freedom), were hardly better off than the emancipated slaves. ^

Draft genome of the Leptospira interrogans strains, Acegua, RCA, Prea, and Capivara, obtained from wildlife maintenance hosts and infected domestic animals

In the present paper, we announce new draft genomes of four Leptospira interrogans strains named Acegua, RCA, Prea, and Capivara. These strains were isolated in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, from cattle, dog, Brazilian guinea pig, and capybara, respectively.

Raven management plan for the California Desert Conservation Area : draft /

In cooperation with: California Dept. of Fish and Game, Region IV and Region V, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

High-quality draft genome sequence of Bifidobacterium longum E18, isolated from a healthy adult

Bifidobacteria are important gastrointestinal commensals of a number of animals, including humans, and various beneficial effects on host health have been attributed to them. Here, we announce the noncontiguous finished genome sequence of Bifidobacterium longum E18, isolated from a healthy adult, which reveals traits involved in its interaction with the host.

Submission to Brisbane City Council : Draft Brisbane Economic Development Plan

As with any strategic planning process, evidence-based estimates are needed to plan effectively for the future. Comments below are based upon data drawn from the Brisbane Long Term Infrastructure Plan (Department of Local Government, Planning, Sport and Recreation, 2005) and the Brisbane Long Term Planning Economic Indicators (National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, 2005), as these are cited as the underpinning research for the economic plan. This submission focuses on one critical aspect of the strategic plan — the relationship between population growth, employment growth, and infrastructure provision. While the focus of the strategic plan is on the changes which would occur within Brisbane, it is important that consideration of predicted changes in surrounding local government areas be also carried out.

Reflections on the national trial of the draft Early Years Learning Framework and Educator's Guide

To promote and support informed discussion, we look here at the experiences of some services in the national trial of the draft Early Years Learning Framework, and the more recent trial of the supporting draft Educator's Guide. Reflecting on these experiences, the paper offers some examples of how a service can 'get started' with the EYLF.

From robots to animals : Virtual fences for controlling cattle

We consider the problem of monitoring and controlling the position of herd animals, and view animals as networked agents with natural mobility but not strictly controllable. By exploiting knowledge of individual and herd behavior we would like to apply a vast body of theory in robotics and motion planning to achieving the constrained motion of a herd. In this paper we describe the concept of a virtual fence which applies a stimulus to an animal as a function of its pose with respect to the fenceline. Multiple fence lines can define a region, and the fences can be static or dynamic. The fence algorithm is implemented by a small position-aware computer device worn by the animal, which we refer to as a Smart Collar.We describe a herd-animal simulator, the Smart Collar hardware and algorithms for tracking and controlling animals as well as the results of on-farm experiments with up to ten Smart Collars.

Perception of affordances in multi-scale dynamics as an alternative explanation for equivalence of analogical and inferential reasoning in animals and humans

Recent claims of equivalence of animal and human reasoning are evaluated and a study of avian cognition serves as an exemplar of weaknesses in these arguments. It is argued that current research into neurobiological cognition lacks theoretical breadth to substantiate comparative analyses of cognitive function. Evaluation of a greater range of theoretical explanations is needed to verify claims of equivalence in animal and human cognition. We conclude by exemplifying how the notion of affordances in multi-scale dynamics can capture behavior attributed to processes of analogical and inferential reasoning in animals and humans.

Flower animals

The coral reefs around the world may be likened to canaries down the mineshaft of global warming. These sensitive plant-like animals have evolved for life in tropical seas. Their needs are quite specific – not too cold, not too hot. A rise of as little as one degree Celsius is enough to cause some bleaching of these colourful jewels of the sea. Many climate models indicate we can expect sea temperature increases of between two and six degrees Celsius. Research - such as that detailed in a 2004 report by the University of Queensland’s Centre for Marine Studies – indicates that by the year 2050 most of the worlds major reef systems will be dead. Many of us have heard this kind of information, but it remains difficult to comprehend. It’s almost impossible to imagine the death of the Great Barrier Reef. Some six to nine thousand years old and visible from space, it is the world’s largest structure created by living organisms. Yet whilst it is hard to believe, this gentle, sensitive giant is at grave risk because it cannot adapt quickly enough to the changes in the environment. This cluster of fluffy felt brain coral sculptures are connected in real time to temperature data collected by monitoring stations within the Great Barrier Reef, that form part of the Australian Institute of Marine Science’s Great Barrier Reed Ocean Observing System. These corals display illumination patterns showing changes in sea temperature at Heron Reef, one of the 2,900 reefs that comprise the Great Barrier Reef. Their spectrum of colour ranges from cool hues, through warm tones to bright white when temperatures exceed those that tropical corals are able to tolerate over sustained periods. The Flower Animals also blush in colour and make sound when people come within close proximity. In a reef, fishes and other creatures generate significant amounts of sound. These cacophonies are considered an indicator of reef health, and are used by reef fish to determine where they can best live and forage.

Chlamydia pneumoniae is genetically diverse in animals and appears to have crossed the host barrier to humans on (at least) two occasions

Chlamydia pneumoniae is a common human and animal pathogen associated with a wide range of diseases. Since the first isolation of C. pneumoniae TWAR in 1965, all human isolates have been essentially clonal, providing little evolutionary insight. To address this gap, we investigated the genetic diversity of 30 isolates from diverse geographical locations, from both human and animal origin (amphibian, reptilian, equine and marsupial). Based on the level of variation that we observed at 23 discreet gene loci, it was clearly evident that the animal isolates were more diverse than the isolates of human origin. Furthermore, we show that C. pneumoniae isolates could be grouped into five major genotypes, A-E, with A, B, D and E genotypes linked by geographical location, whereas genotype C was found across multiple continents. Our evidence strongly supports two separate animal-to-human cross species transfer events in the evolutionary history of this pathogen. The C. pneumoniae human genotype identified in the USA, Canada, Taiwan, Iran, Japan, Korea and Australia (non- Indigenous) most likely originated from a single amphibian or reptilian lineage, which appears to have been previously geographically widespread. We identified a separate human lineage present in two Australian Indigenous isolates (independent geographical locations). This lineage is distinct and is present in Australian amphibians as well as a range of Australian marsupials.

Autonomous aerial navigation and tracking of marine animals

In this paper, we describe the development of an independent and on-board visual servoing system which allows a computationally impoverished aerial vehicle to autonomously identify and track a moving surface target. Our image segmentation and target identification algorithms were developed with the specific task of monitoring whales at sea but could be adapted for other targets. Observing whales is important for many marine biology tasks and is currently performed manually from the shore or from boats. We also present hardware experiments which demonstrate the capabilities of our algorithms for object identification and tracking that enable a flying vehicle to track a moving target.