Survey of the vertebrate fauna of the Dotswood area, North Queensland

The results of a survey of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish of the Dotswood area west of Townsville are presented. Habitats included in the survey were woodland, open forest, tall open forest, closed forest (rainforest), riparian forest and rocky outcrops. A total of 297 species of vertebrates were observed using a variety of survey techniques including live trapping, pit trapping, observational transects, mist netting and spotlighting. Exact locations of observation and indices of relative abundance of each species are included

Vertebrate fauna of three mountain tops in the Townsville region, north Queensland : Mount Cleveland, Mount Elliot and Mount Halifax

Vertebrate fauna surveys were carried out on the summits of Mount Cleveland, Mount Elliot and Mount Halifax in north Queensland. The main focus was on mammals and birds, but observations on all vertebrate groups are included. Habitats included rainforest and open eucalypt/casuarina forest. The surveys recorded a total of 136 species of vertebrates including 17 mammal, 77 bird, 32 reptile and 10 frog species. Habitat descriptions and measures of relative abundance for mammals and birds are included

The Cosmic Censor Forbids Naked Topology

For any asymptotically flat spacetime with a suitable causal structure obeying (a weak form of) Penrose's cosmic censorship conjecture and satisfying conditions guaranteeing focusing of complete null geodesics, we prove that active topological censorship holds. We do not assume global hyperbolicity, and therefore make no use of Cauchy surfaces and their topology. Instead, we replace this with two underlying assumptions concerning the causal structure: that no compact set can signal to arbitrarily small neighbourhoods of spatial infinity (``$i^0$-avoidance''), and that no future incomplete null geodesic is visible from future null infinity. We show that these and the focusing condition together imply that the domain of outer communications is simply connected. Furthermore, we prove lemmas which have as a consequence that if a future incomplete null geodesic were visible from infinity, then given our $i^0$-avoidance assumption, it would also be visible from points of spacetime that can communicate with infinity, and so would signify a true naked singularity.Comment: To appear in CQG, this improved version contains minor revisions to incorporate referee's suggestions. Two revised references. Plain TeX, 12 page

Just how long can you live in a black hole and what can be done about it?

We study the problem of how long a journey within a black hole can last. Based on our observations, we make two conjectures. First, for observers that have entered a black hole from an asymptotic region, we conjecture that the length of their journey within is bounded by a multiple of the future asymptotic ``size'' of the black hole, provided the spacetime is globally hyperbolic and satisfies the dominant-energy and non-negative-pressures conditions. Second, for spacetimes with ${\Bbb R}^3$ Cauchy surfaces (or an appropriate generalization thereof) and satisfying the dominant energy and non-negative-pressures conditions, we conjecture that the length of a journey anywhere within a black hole is again bounded, although here the bound requires a knowledge of the initial data for the gravitational field on a Cauchy surface. We prove these conjectures in the spherically symmetric case. We also prove that there is an upper bound on the lifetimes of observers lying ``deep within'' a black hole, provided the spacetime satisfies the timelike-convergence condition and possesses a maximal Cauchy surface. Further, we investigate whether one can increase the lifetime of an observer that has entered a black hole, e.g., by throwing additional matter into the hole. Lastly, in an appendix, we prove that the surface area $A$ of the event horizon of a black hole in a spherically symmetric spacetime with ADM mass $M_{\text{ADM}}$ is always bounded by $A \le 16\pi M_{\text{ADM}}^2$, provided that future null infinity is complete and the spacetime is globally hyperbolic and satisfies the dominant-energy condition.Comment: 20 pages, REVTeX 3.0, 6 figures included, self-unpackin

A Brief Report: Preliminary Findings for Pathways to Resilience among Critical Incident Stress Management Responders

Previous research by Burnett, Pichot, and Bailey (2019) found support for several innate well-being and behavioral action variables that contribute to Everly’s Psychological Body Armor’s (PBA) two unique interacting human protective pathways (proactive and reactive resilience) among a non-disaster mental health response population. However, research is limited regarding the unique proactive and reactive pathway variables that contribute to resilience capacity among trained disaster mental health responders. Participants (N = 63) were novice and experienced disaster mental health responders who attended a Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) training conference in Michigan that completed the same 14 measures used in the original Burnett, Pichot, and Bailey study. Similar to the Burnett, Pichot, and Bailey study, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that for the proactive pathway, self-acceptance and subjective happiness were significant unique predictors for resilience capacity, while psychological distress and perceived stress were significant unique predictors for the reactive pathway. A qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) found that all but one of the cases met the observation criteria for having high resilience. However, when the dataset for this study was combined with the original study (NCombined = 265), QCA revealed that overall; having professional CISM training contributed more to strong resilience making the proactive pathway irrelevant

Greenhouse gas balance over thaw-freeze cycles in discontinuous zone permafrost

Peat in the discontinuous permafrost zone contains a globally significant reservoir of carbon that has undergone multiple permafrost-thaw cycles since the end of the mid-Holocene (~3700 years before present). Periods of thaw increase C decomposition rates which leads to the release of CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere creating potential climate feedback. To determine the magnitude and direction of such feedback, we measured CO2 and CH4 emissions and modeled C accumulation rates and radiative fluxes from measurements of two radioactive tracers with differing lifetimes to describe the C balance of the peatland over multiple permafrost-thaw cycles since the initiation of permafrost at the site. At thaw features, the balance between increased primary production and higher CH4 emission stimulated by warmer temperatures and wetter conditions favors C sequestration and enhanced peat accumulation. Flux measurements suggest that frozen plateaus may intermittently (order of years to decades) act as CO2 sources depending on temperature and net ecosystem respiration rates, but modeling results suggest that—despite brief periods of net C loss to the atmosphere at the initiation of thaw—integrated over millennia, these sites have acted as net C sinks via peat accumulation. In greenhouse gas terms, the transition from frozen permafrost to thawed wetland is accompanied by increasing CO2 uptake that is partially offset by increasing CH4 emissions. In the short-term (decadal time scale) the net effect of this transition is likely enhanced warming via increased radiative C emissions, while in the long-term (centuries) net C deposition provides a negative feedback to climate warming

Empowering Frontline Trauma Responders: Keys to Resilience

CISM teams and responders play a vital role in helping those who have been affected by traumatic to successfully manage their stress reactions. It is important that individual CISM responders, along with teams, take time to incorporate an active resilience-based approach which makes use of well-being traits

Optical scalars in spherical spacetimes

Consider a spherically symmetric spacelike slice through a spherically symmetric spacetime. One can derive a universal bound for the optical scalars on any such slice. The only requirement is that the matter sources satisfy the dominant energy condition and that the slice be asymptotically flat and regular at the origin. This bound can be used to derive new conditions for the formation of apparent horizons. The bounds hold even when the matter has a distribution on a shell or blows up at the origin so as to give a conical singularity

Simplest cosmological model with the scalar field II. Influence of cosmological constant

Continuing the investigation of the simplest cosmological model with the massive real scalar non-interacting inflaton field minimally coupled to gravity we study an influence of the cosmological constant on the behaviour of trajectories in closed minisuperspace Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model. The transition from chaotic to regular behaviour for large values of cosmological constant is discussed. Combining numerical calculations with qualitative analysis both in configuration and phase space we present a convenient classification of trajectories.Comment: 12 pages with 2 gif figures and 2 eps figures, mprocl.sty, To appear in International Journal of Modern Physics