Women and Intellectual Life in New South Wales - 1835-1868 Ann Rusden

Ann Rusden arrived in the colony of New South Wales in 1834 and was to form part of society on the Hunter River near Newcastle. Her letters allow mapping of her intellectual life in theology, science and politics, and indicate widespread discussion among the women of the valley, separate from men. In Ann’s letters we have access to a colonising mindset where God was unfathomable in his actions, science and literature opened up possibilities, and women’s opinions mattered.

Mortality, development and morphological effects of carbaryl and acephate on Podisus maculiventris (SAY)

Successful incorporation of Podisus maculiventris (Say) in an integrated pest management program requires testing of recommended insecticides for selectivity to the predator. Acephate (Orthene 75 S) at 0.59 g (AI)/1 and 3.0 g (AI)/1 and carbaryl (Sevin 50 WP) at 1.5 g (AI)/1 and 7.5 g (AI)/1 were ingested by Epilachna varivestis Mulsant larvae from treated snapbean foliage. Second, third, fourth, and fifth instar P. maculiventris nymphs were reared on the pesticide treated larvae to determine mortality and development times of nymphs and morphology of adults. Both concentrations of acephate, as injested by prey subsequently fed to predators, induced significantly greater mortality (P \u3c 0.05) than the carbaryl. There was no significant difference in mortality of nymphs in carbaryl and control treatments. Developmental times for nymphs ingesting both toxins at each formulation were significantly longer (P \u3c 0.05) than nymphs in the control treatment. Adults in control treatments were somewhat larger than adults from pesticide treatments. Mortality of nymphs in carbaryl treatments was not significantly different from those in the control treatments thus making it a candidate for incorporation in an integrated pest management program

The activity of human rhinovirus 14 3C protease in artificial polyproteins

HRV14 3C acts as a protease and has a role in RNA replication in vivo, interacting with a cloverleaf structure in picornaviral genomic RNA. Picornaviral 3C proteases are able to cleave both N- and C-terminally producing 3CDpro, or, 3Cpro and 3DPol, respectively. In order to investigate the mechanisms whereby these alternative processing pathways are adopted an artificial polyprotein system was constructed, composed of viral sequences from the P3 region of the viral polyprotein flanked by reporter genes. Two antibiotic resistance genes (KanR, TetR) were cloned to act as reporter genes flanking the viral region of interest. Analysis of the cleavage products in a coupled TnT system showed whether N- or C-terminal cleavage had occurred. 3Cpro cleaved preferentially at its N-terminus in [KanR3CproTetR] with a lesser degree of cleavage at its C-terminus. When 3ABC was used as the viral component of the system cleavage at the N-terminus of 3Cpro was also observed. The use of 3CDpro as the viral component also had a regulatory effect on the site (N- or C-terminal) of cleavage by 3Cpro. With 3CDpro as the viral component of the artificial reporter polyprotein cleavage occurred at both the N-and C-termini of 3Cpro as well as at the C-terminus of 3Dpol. This surprising result has led to comparisons with the proteolytic action of viral proteases in the caliciviruses and some plant viruses and the proposal of possible evolutionary links between these viruses. The use of the antibiotic resistance genes as reporters allowed investigation into the use of antibiotic resistance phenotypes in E.coli for monitoring cleavage of the artificial polyprotein. Preliminary results indicated that the system may be useful as a genetic screen to quantify large numbers of mutants

Variational data assimilation of sea surface height into a regional storm surge model: Benefits and limitations

Storm surges are coastal sea-level variations caused by meteorological conditions. It is vital that they are forecasted accurately to reduce the potential for financial damage and loss of life. In this study, we investigate how effectively the variational assimilation of sparse sea level observations from tide gauges can be used for operational forecasting in the North Sea. Novel data assimilation ideas are considered and evaluated: a new shortest-path method for generating improved distance-based correlations in the presence of coastal boundaries and an adaptive error covariance model. An assimilation setup is validated by removing selections of tide gauges from the assimilation procedure for a North Sea case study. These experiments show widespread improvements in RMSE and correlations, reaching up to 16 cm and 0.7 (respectively) at some locations. Simulated forecast experiments show RMSE improvements of up to 5 cm for the first 24 h of forecasting, which is useful operationally. Beyond 24 h, improvements quickly diminish however. Using the setup based on the shortest path algorithm shows little difference when compared to a simpler Euclidean method at most locations. Analysis of this event shows that improvements due to data assimilation are bounded and relatively short lived