Behavioural and ecological energetics of elasmobranchs

Understanding the capacity of animals to behaviourally and physiologically cope with environmental change is becoming crucial for developing process-based approaches to wildlife management. Energy is one of the most basic resources of animals, and the need to acquire energy to fuel daily activities, growth, and reproduction drives many aspects of ecology. Decades of comparative physiology work have shown the metabolic rates of animals systematically vary based on a suite of organismal traits and environmental factors. However, it is poorly understood how such metabolic variation influences animal’s behaviours in the wild, and as such, their capacity to adapt to environmental change. Recently, novel technologies have allowed physiological research to be conducted in the field, facilitating investigations of how animal physiology drives the behaviours of animals in natural settings. In this thesis, I present a number of studies that investigate how the three primary factors governing the physiology of ectotherms, namely body size, temperature, and habitat shape an animals’ capacity to cope with anthropogenic threats and environmental change. Using a combination of respirometry experiments, on-animal motion-sensing, biotelemetry tracking tools, and sophisticated behavioural modelling, I examined how changes in metabolism drive the behavioural and spatial ecology of sharks. First, I demonstrate how local environmental pressures place constraints on a species ability to expand home ranges to escape local resource limitations. Second, investigations of the drivers of behavioural and activity patterns of sharks revealed that within these spatial constraints, sharks’ ability to adjust their foraging and resting patterns are relatively limited. While metabolic changes associated with increased environmental temperatures pressure sharks to forage more often, functional traits limit their ability to forage outside short temporal windows. Taken together, these results indicate that physiological requirements place substantial constraints on the behavioural flexibility of sharks, which will likely have serious impacts on their life history, fitness, and survival in the face of continued environmental change. Lastly, I discuss the implications of physiological and behavioural constraints for the management of threatened shark population

Reductions in criminality subsequent to group, individual, and family therapy in adolescent residential and day treatment settings

Journal ArticleThe complete population of adolescents in a residential and day-treatment program over a 4-year period, 532youths, served in two studies. Along with residential and day-treatment settings, predictive variables of interest were the number of hours spent in group, individual, and family therapy. A total of227 adolescents qualified for Study 1 which found a reduction of rates of criminal charges from pre- to post-treatment. Study 1 also found that hours in group therapy explained the most variance in the reduction in rates of criminal charges, followed closely by hours in individual therapy. Hours in family therapy was not a significant predictor. A total of430 adolescents qualified for Study 2, which found that residential treatment was associated with greater reductions in adult correctional commitments than day treatment. Implications stress the need for further research examining the relationships between therapeutic components of residential treatment and behavioral outcomes

Provenance study of late Eocene arkosic sandstones in southwest and central Washington

The purpose of this study is to compare the sandstone composition and trace element geochemistry between samples representing the Summit Creek sandstone, Naches, Chumstick, and Carbonado Formations in order to determine if these sediments were all derived from the same provenance, and to determine the composition of the source rocks in hopes to identify the present day location of the source areas

Putting Water to Work: A Study of Relative Economic Efficiency in the Urban Water and Wastewater Sectors of Regional New South Wales and Victoria

This economic efficiency study seeks to estimate the level and determinants of technical (as opposed to allocative) efficiency in the urban water and wastewater sectors of regional New South and Victoria. To the author's knowledge, it represents the first attempt in the given context using frontier measurement techniques. The main research question relates to the influence of divergent regulatory and governance structures on relative efficiency in the industry. It finds that Victorian utilities are relatively more efficient in terms of both water and wastewater provision, after having controlled for a number of external factors. Furthermore, access to groundwater as a source of water supply, and water consumed per connection, are both found to be positively related to relative efficiency

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics: a roadmap

The grand challenges of contemporary fundamental physics—dark matter, dark energy, vacuum energy, inflation and early universe cosmology, singularities and the hierarchy problem—all involve gravity as a key component. And of all gravitational phenomena, black holes stand out in their elegant simplicity, while harbouring some of the most remarkable predictions of General Relativity: event horizons, singularities and ergoregions. The hitherto invisible landscape of the gravitational Universe is being unveiled before our eyes: the historical direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration marks the dawn of a new era of scientific exploration. Gravitational-wave astronomy will allow us to test models of black hole formation, growth and evolution, as well as models of gravitational-wave generation and propagation. It will provide evidence for event horizons and ergoregions, test the theory of General Relativity itself, and may reveal the existence of new fundamental fields. The synthesis of these results has the potential to radically reshape our understanding of the cosmos and of the laws of Nature. The purpose of this work is to present a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the relevant fields of research, summarize important open problems, and lay out a roadmap for future progress. This write-up is an initiative taken within the framework of the European Action on 'Black holes, Gravitational waves and Fundamental Physics'

Local Government Failure in Australia?: An Empirical Analysis of New South Wales

The complexities of contemporary local governance in Australia and other advanced democracies provide social scientists with significant theoretical and empirical challenges. Drawing on recent developments, including public choice theory, economists have sought to develop taxonomic systems of government failure specifically tailored to local government circumstances. This paper seeks to extend the Dollery and Wallis (2001b) taxonomy of local government failure by invoking Olson’s (1965) concept of political entrepreneurship. The paper then attempts to determine the empirical validity of the augmented taxonomy by examining it in the context of NSW local government

Alternatives to Amalgamation in Australian Local Government: The Case of Walkerville

Structural reform chiefly through council amalgamation has long been the most favoured means of enhancing municipal efficiency by Australian state government policy makers. However, the results of most amalgamation programs have led to a growing scepticism in the local government community and a search for alternative methods of improving council efficiency. Not only have scholars designed generic models suitable for Australian conditions, but individual councils and groups of councils around the country have also developed several de facto alternatives to amalgamation. An embryonic body of research has now begun to examine the efficacy of these alternative organizational arrangements. The present paper seeks to augment this nascent literature by evaluating the outcomes achieved by Walkerville, an Adelaide suburban council exempted from the South Australian merger program completed in 1998