A survey of Australian dairy farmers’ attitudes to their business, its challenges and transitioning to alternative enterprises

Dairy farmers are grappling with serious business challenges, including rising operational costs, labour shortages, unstable milk prices, changing consumer preferences, long hours with minimal downtime and unstable weather patterns due to climate change impacts. Using a telephone-based representative survey and interviews with 147 Australian dairy farmers conducted in 2023, we employed a mixed-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative analysis to determine the challenges and primary concerns of the participants, as well as to explore potential solutions. Four key variables that contributed significantly to a binary logistic regression model of transition intentions were identified, namely: level of satisfaction with dairy farming, openness to exploring other agricultural alternatives to dairy farming, preference to receive financial and/or other support to remain in the industry and preference to receive financial and/or other support to transition into a different form of farming or business. This model accurately predicted the probability that farmers were considering transitioning away from dairy farming and the probability that they were considering staying in dairy farming. This deepens our understanding of the challenges faced by farmers in the Australian dairy industry, and provides policymakers, industry stakeholders and researchers with critical insights to facilitate transition pathways that will enhance farmers’ future sustainability

Using Inertial Measurement Units and Machine Learning to Classify Body Positions of Adults in a Hospital Bed

In hospitals, timely interventions can prevent avoidable clinical deterioration. Early recognition of deterioration is vital to stopping further decline. Measuring the way patients position themselves in bed and change their positions may signal when further assessment is necessary. While inertial measurement units (IMUs) have been used in health research, their use inside hospitals has been limited. This study explores the use of IMUs with machine learning to continuously capture, classify and visualise patient positions in hospital beds. The participants attended a data collection session in a simulated hospital bedspace and were asked to adopt nine positions. Movement data were captured using five IMU Xsens DOTs attached to the forehead, wrists and ankles. Support Vector Machine (SVM) and K-Nearest Neighbours classifiers were trained using five different combinations of sensors (e.g., right wrist only, right and left wrist) to determine body positions. Data from 30 participants were analysed. The highest accuracy (87.7%) was achieved by SVM using forehead and wrist sensors. Adding data from ankle sensors reduced the accuracy. To preserve patient privacy in a hospital setting, a 3D visualisation was developed in Unity, offering a non-identifiable representation of patient positions. This system could help clinicians monitor changes in position which may signal clinical deterioration

Comparison of WET UCIO powder suspension and novel luminescent techniques for latent fingermark detection on the adhesive side of tape

Pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes are a common vector for latent fingermarks in forensic investigations, often detected using powder suspension techniques. Among these, WET UCIO, employed by the Mossos d’Esquadra Central Fingerprint Development Laboratory Scientific Police Division in Catalonia, Spain, is a carbon black powder suspension method showing promise for casework. WET UCIO also utilises a cost-effective detergent solution, enhancing its practicality and sustainability. While powder-based methods like WET UCIO have proven effective, there is growing interest in luminescent techniques, such as exfoliated Egyptian blue (EB) and CuInS2/ZnS (CIS/ZS) quantum dots (QDs), which have been successfully tested on non-porous surfaces. This study investigates the operational efficacy of WET UCIO on adhesive tapes, demonstrating its strong performance on various substrates, including dark-coloured surfaces. Additionally, luminescent techniques featuring EB and CIS/ZS QDs are explored, offering valuable insights into their potential effectiveness for forensic analysis. The performance of the WET UCIO and luminescent techniques were assessed using both deliberately placed fingermarks, and also an approach that generates incidental marks to better reflect operational casework scenarios

The Role of Local Governments in Environmental Globalization

The global environmental challenges suggest that a new approach needs to be taken to address a cross-scale and multi-level issue of environmental risk reduction. Environmental problems stretch across scales of geographic space and require action at multiple levels of jurisdictions. But the suggested approaches face difficulties in policy coordination created by the plurality of stakeholders and also attended with organizational complexity. In this context much of the scholarly work to date tends to overlook the role of sub-national governments. Sub-national governments occupy a strategic position to act as intermediate agents to reconnect local action with national policy and turn global strategies into local action for problem-solving. The author argues that policy coordination and leadership is much easier where there are environmental benefit-recipients with real needs at the local level. This chapter sets out to examine how such a framework might be identified to support the future shape of Japan’s environmental policy and governance

Zero Waste Policy Development: Lessons Learned from Selected Case Studies

The transition to a zero-waste and circular economy requires comprehensive policy frameworks, innovative strategies, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. The presentation explores key developments in waste management, zero-waste, and circular economy discourses, highlighting lessons learned from selected case studies. The case of used lead-acid batteries (ULABs) in Bangladesh illustrates the environmental and public health risks posed by informal recycling networks and the need for regulatory harmonisation. Additionally, insights from Western Australia's Circular Horizons (WATCH) initiative demonstrate how lifecycle-focused policies and circular economy integration can drive sustainable material use. The presentation provides key recommendations for policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers to enhance circularity, resource efficiency, and waste minimisation at local, national, and global scales

SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION IN INDIA A discourse in education development

Education is the best means to achieve both awareness and dissemination of sustainability knowledge and thinking to a population of 1.4 billion in India. • India was one of the earliest signatories to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and has initiated a number of programs to include sustainability in national educational plans. However, more effort is needed to increase curricula focus on education for sustainable development in India, as most efforts are still voluntary in nature. • The establishment of national and regional organizations to conduct research on sustainability education, the initiatives of various educational boards, and the creation of the University Grants Commission to introduce short-duration courses on sustainable development have been notable items of progress in Indian sustainability education development. • The role of voluntary organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in promoting sustainable development education has also been important. • Instead of stand-alone courses on sustainability, there is a need to incorporate sustainability into all courses and programs. Above all, there is a need to train teachers in sustainability education. • Sustainability education and values education are inextricably linked, with the latter providing fundamental moral and political ideals that help to underwrite the sustainability norms and dispositions required in sustainability education