Sun Valley

Sun Valley is located within the Blue Mountains City Council local government area, hidden in the lower Blue Mountains near Springwood.The valley is the result of a strange geological formation known as a diatreme or volcanic vent. These volcanic remains have formed a landscape that is unique in the Blue Mountains. The surrounding sandstone is dry and rugged, while very rich soils and undulating country have provided excellent native grasslands and magnificent stands of mountain blue gum trees.The first people to visit Sun Valley were the Aboriginal clans crossing, and living in, the Blue Mountains. It is possible that both Dharug and Gundungurra people used the valley

Participative Approaches to Enhance Adoption of Fasciolosis Control Strategies in Cattle, in Yogya-Karta Province, Indonesia

Fasciolosis is a widespread, significant, endemic problem in cattle in rice-growing areas of Indonesia. Its effects are usually sub-clinical so it remains largely unrecognised by farmers and extensionists. Indonesian and Australian parasitologists have developed a suite of control strategies. Initial attempts to promote these strategies through Transfer of Technology (TOT) approaches achieved increased awareness, but little lasting change in farmer practices was evident 4 years later. This paper reports on the process, and early promising results from, an initiative to trial a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology to stimulate an extension process whose outcome is effective, sustainable fasciolosis control in Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. In PAR, groups of farmers, extension agents and scientists work closely in a cooperative and flexible process, to resolve commonly identified problematic issues. The emphasis is on working with rather than for people through an interactive process to enhance opportunities for learning by doing. The process involved working through a four-step process to gain credible access to four farmer groups in three villages identified as having a fasciolosis problem. This was followed by a 9-month long series of activities, coordinated through farmer group meetings, which included (1) creating awareness through developing a media package, and then maintaining farmer involvement through (2) design and execution of field trials, (3) monitoring results, and (4) presentation and discussion of results with farmers. Group meetings were an important part of the information exchange process, and the use of learning aid tools was regarded as complementary for interpersonal communication. Of the four recommended control strategies, two were already practised for reasons other than fasciolosis control, one was acceptable but had prohibitive cost, and the fourth was unattractive because it was technically difficult to implement. A significant development was a new strategy generated within a farmer group that was adopted readily by other groups. We conclude that adoption of technical innovations by farmers depends largely on two issues: (i) the nature of the associated farming systems, and (ii) the way in which the innovation is presented through extension agency activity. A participative approach appears to have considerable potential for stimulating significant practice change, particularly if it incorporates farmer involvement in generation and dissemination of locally relevant knowledge and recommendations. PAR fosters such a reflexive approach.Fasciolosis control, participatory action research, adoption process, Livestock Production/Industries,

Luther\u27s Summaries of the Psalms (1531)--A Model for Contemporary Psalm Interpretation

Luther has left only one work in which he commented on all 150 psalms. The Summarien fiber die Psalmen of 1531 accompanied his extensive revision of the Psalter published that year and reflects his thinking after fifteen years of lecturing on, writing about, and translating the psalms. Some portions of this work--both suggestions for interpretation and details of translation--are untenable, or at least unfollowed. Many of his applications are dated, or at least unfashionable. The challenge for the contemporary Luther-minded interpreter of the psalms is to develop summaries and applications of the psalms for our time, using the principles Luther laid down. My thesis is that Luther does provide a set of principles which can be utilized in a way which is both faithful to the text and usable today

Elucidation of the Mechanism of Beta-2 Adrenergic Receptor Agonist-Mediated Mitochondrial Biogenesis

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is the transient loss of renal function following an insult. Despite high incidence and mortality, therapy for AKI is limited to supportive care and renal replacement therapy. The induction of mitochondrial biogenesis (MB) accelerates recovery of renal function in animal models of AKI. We have identified that the beta-2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR) agonist formoterol induces MB in renal proximal tubule cells (RPTC); however, not all β2AR agonists induce MB. We hypothesized that formoterol activates a distinct signaling pathway in RPTC to induce MB and accelerate recovery of renal function. In cultured RPTC, we found that formoterol activates a Gβγ-Akt-eNOS-cGMP pathway. Clenbuterol, a β2AR agonist that does not induce MB, did not activate this pathway. Formoterol, but not clenbuterol, increased mRNA expression of PGC-1a and NDUFS1; mtDNA copy number; and FCCP-uncoupled respiration at 24 h in RPTC. Inhibition of Gβγ, Akt, NOS, and guanylate cyclase prevented formoterol-induced increases in these markers of MB. To assess the role of proximal tubule β2AR in formoterol-induced recovery of renal function, a mouse with proximal tubule-specific deletion of the β2AR (γGT-Cre:ADRB2Flox/Flox) was generated. Following bilateral renal ischemia reperfusion, γGT-Cre:ADRB2Flox/Flox and wild-type controls (ADRB2Flox/Flox) were treated once-daily with 0.3 mg/kg formoterol beginning at 24 h. At 144 h post-injury, ADRB2Flox/Flox mice treated with formoterol had improved renal function and increased markers of MB relative to vehicle controls, while γGT-Cre:ADRB2Flox/Flox mice treated with formoterol did not. Furthermore, transmission electron microscopy demonstrated that in ADRB2Flox/Flox mice, but not in γGT-Cre:ADRB2Flox/Flox mice, formoterol increased mitochondrial number and density relative to vehicle controls. Together, these data demonstrate that formoterol activates a Gβγ-Akt-eNOS-cGMP to induce MB in RPTC and that following AKI, formoterol acts on RPTC β2AR to induce MB and accelerate recovery of renal functio

International Englishes, Dialects and Glocalized Englishes: Translanguaging in South Korea

English has spread across the world as the language of business, education, science and travel. Americans, British and other native speakers living in Inner Circle countries speak English as a Native Language (ENL). Nigerians, Jamaicans, Singaporeans and others living in Outer Circle countries speak ‘World Englishes (WEs)’, but what do Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and others living in the Expanding Circle speak? Koreans learn English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) but they also speak Konglish, and they can see and hear English in Korean music, advertisements and products, indicating that English is not really a ‘foreign’ language. They often do better at communication with Chinese or Japanese business contacts than native speakers who do not know how to modify their English. In this dissertation I introduce the concepts of ‘Glocalized Englishes (GEs)’, ‘English as a Glocalized Language (EGL)’ and ‘International Englishes (IEs)’ to account for the relationships between different varieties of English. GEs cover Konglish, Chinglish, Janglish, and other hybrid languages which emerge through translanguaging in Expanding Circle countries. EGL expands the simple binary of ESL/EFL, and IEs describe the modified languages of native speakers and fluent English learners that are used for international communication. I propose a Pyramid Continuum model to represent these languages, with GEs on the bottom with the narrowest usability, ENL and WEs in the middle with moderate usability, and IEs on the top with the widest possible usability. I demonstrate how language ideologies coalesce together to form indexical configurations of EFL and EGL. The case study focusses on a South Korean university and includes taped interviews, written homework assignments, a survey on taking an English name, over 10 years of participant observation, and an analysis of the ‘linguascape’: the linguistic soundscape in videos of buildings and streets, and the linguistic landscape in photographs of buildings, streets, products, road signs, public literature and graffiti. Discussion of future implications include how to do further studies of other GEs, what linguistic features are indicative of IEs, and why language testing must include the recognition and production of IEs

Operating limits for acoustic measurement of rolling bearing oil film thickness

An ultrasonic pulse striking a thin layer of liquid trapped between solid bodies will be partially reflected. The proportion reflected is a function of the layer stiffness, which in turn depends on the film thickness and its bulk modulus. In this work, measurements of reflection have been used to determine the thickness of oil films in elastohydrodynamic lubricated (EHL) contacts. A very thin liquid layer behaves like a spring when struck by an ultrasonic pulse. A simple quasi-static spring model can be used to determine the proportion of the ultrasonic waves reflected. Experiments have been performed on a model EHL contact between a ball and a flat surface. A transducer is mounted above the contact such that the ultrasonic wave is focused onto the oil film. The reflected signals are captured and passed to a PC for processing. Fourier analysis gives the reflection spectrum that is then used to determine the stiffness of the liquid layer and hence its thickness. In further testing, an ultrasonic transducer has been mounted in the housing of a deep-groove ball bearing to measure the film generated at the outer raceway as each ball passes. Results from both the ball-flat and ball bearing measurements agree well with steady-state theoretical EHL predictions. The limits of the measuring technique, in terms of the measurable rolling bearing size and operating parameters, have been investigated

Disciplinary Links Between Scientific Management and Strategy Development

We investigate the incidence of links between the historical discipline of scientific management and the modern study of strategy development. Despite a century’s separation, these two disciplines share noticeable commonality in their trajectories and their approach to management. We conducted a forward search of the impact of scientific management, finding influences on accounting, human resource management, and the creation of the modern MBA. We then conducted a backward search of the roots of strategy development, including a novel directed reference tree search by citation count. We find overlap between these two searches in organization theory, operations research, and industrial psychology. Further, we identify disciplinary oscillation between quantitative process studies and context-based ethnographic research in the study of management questions