The Living Murray NSW Market Purchase Measure: A survey of participants in permanent water trading for the environment

The Living Murray Initiative was established to recover 500 Gigalitres in average annual flows to address the declining environmental health of the Murray-Darling river system. The NSW Market Purchase Measure was initiated by the New South Wales Government as part of The Living Murray Initiative with the aim of purchasing up to 125 Gigalitres of high and medium reliability entitlements within the NSW southern connected part of the Murray-Darling Basin. The commencement of this measure provided an opportunity to survey participants in permanent water trading for an environmental outcome to determine general land use and socio-economic information as well as specific information regarding their current water use, future intentions and their opinion of the implementation of the water purchase process. The results of the survey will also assist in understanding the nature of the participants in this process relative to the broader irrigator/regional population. Importantly, the survey outcomes will help to improve understanding of participant circumstances and provide important lessons for future water purchase programs.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

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Retail Shop Outlets in Calabar Municipality: Environmental Challenges to City Dwellers

Calabar, the capital city of Cross River State is in the Southeastern part of Nigeria. It is a charming, quiet and peaceful place, and despite the great poverty, the people of Calabar are friendly and hardworking. Calabar is one of the oldest trading cities in Nigeria, set on a hill overlooking the river. It is quite picturesque. Calabar was established as a centre of slave trade by the British in the 17th century; it grew to become one of the biggest. At the end of the slave trade, the city was a major port for Palm Oil trade from the South East of Nigeria. Calabar holds great socio-economic significance in Nigeria. It is a city of great opportunities and enormous possibilities for wealth creation and other human endevours. As a growing and industrializing city, Calabar is faced with major challenges such as balanced land use, land degradation, soil erosion, congestion, overcrowding, infrastructural decay, and a host of other problems. Presently Calabar is witnessing acute land scarcity in its long history; and the demand for such land is on the increase. The challenges currently being faced in Calabar have brought to the fore the fact that human needs must be satisfied on fixed land and development must be located on limited land. Activities have to compete for the use of the best sites for their location; hence the optimal use principle has to be adhered to at the expense of specified space standards and permissible development.  It is in the light of these challenges that this paper assesses the level of compliance to space standards for urban development and development control measures in view of recent indiscriminate erection of retail shop outlets along major streets in Calabar Metropolis. The paper seeks to address this trend and its concomitant effects on the health, safety and beauty of the town and its environs. Key Words: Calabar; Shop out Lets; Major Streets; Development Control; Congestion; Environmental Hazards and Land Degradation

Faxen relations in solids - a generalized approach to particle motion in elasticity and viscoelasticity

A movable inclusion in an elastic material oscillates as a rigid body with six degrees of freedom. Displacement/rotation and force/moment tensors which express the motion of the inclusion in terms of the displacement and force at arbitrary exterior points are introduced. Using reciprocity arguments two general identities are derived relating these tensors. Applications of the identities to spherical particles provide several new results, including simple expressions for the force and moment on the particle due to plane wave excitation.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Location of Plastic Hinges in Axially Loaded Steel Members

New Zealand and Australian steel structure design standards contain equations to encourage yielding at the ends of steel members rather than along their lengths. This paper evaluates the accuracy of these equations using a commercially available computer program as well as an analytical procedure. The analytical procedure considers non-linear geometric effects and material effects of the member stiffness by considering stability functions in conjunction with residual stress effects. New equations to prevent yielding away from the member ends, which are less conservative than the current code equations, are developed. Simplifications of these equations being considered for adoption into the New Zealand steel structure design standard are described

Unbound states of 32Cl and the 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate

The 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction is expected to provide the dominant break-out path from the SiP cycle in novae and is important for understanding enrichments of sulfur observed in some nova ejecta. We studied the 32S(3He,t)32Cl charge-exchange reaction to determine properties of proton-unbound levels in 32Cl that have previously contributed significant uncertainties to the 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate. Measured triton magnetic rigidities were used to determine excitation energies in 32Cl. Proton-branching ratios were obtained by detecting decay protons from unbound 32Cl states in coincidence with tritons. An improved 31S(p,\gamma)32Cl reaction rate was calculated including robust statistical and systematic uncertainties

Attractiveness of periodic orbits in parametrically forced systemswith time-increasing friction

We consider dissipative one-dimensional systems subject to a periodic force and study numerically how a time-varying friction affects the dynamics. As a model system, particularly suited for numerical analysis, we investigate the driven cubic oscillator in the presence of friction. We find that, if the damping coefficient increases in time up to a final constant value, then the basins of attraction of the leading resonances are larger than they would have been if the coefficient had been fixed at that value since the beginning. From a quantitative point of view, the scenario depends both on the final value and the growth rate of the damping coefficient. The relevance of the results for the spin-orbit model are discussed in some detail.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figure

Guiding neutral atoms around curves with lithographically patterned current-carrying wires

Laser-cooled neutral atoms from a low-velocity atomic source are guided via a magnetic field generated between two parallel wires on a glass substrate. The atoms bend around three curves, each with a 15-cm radius of curvature, while traveling along a 10-cm-long track. A maximum flux of 2*10^6 atoms/sec is achieved with a current density of 3*10^4 A/cm^2 in the 100x100-micrometer-cross-section wires. The kinetic energy of the guided atoms in one transverse dimension is measured to be 42 microKelvin.Comment: 9 page

Transport of a quantum degenerate heteronuclear Bose-Fermi mixture in a harmonic trap

We report on the transport of mixed quantum degenerate gases of bosonic 87Rb and fermionic 40K in a harmonic potential provided by a modified QUIC trap. The samples are transported over a distance of 6 mm to the geometric center of the anti-Helmholtz coils of the QUIC trap. This transport mechanism was implemented by a small modification of the QUIC trap and is free of losses and heating. It allows all experiments using QUIC traps to use the highly homogeneous magnetic fields that can be created in the center of a QUIC trap and improves the optical access to the atoms, e.g., for experiments with optical lattices. This mechanism may be cascaded to cover even larger distances for applications with quantum degenerate samples.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Time to go global: a consultation on global health competencies for postgraduate doctors

BACKGROUND: Globalisation is having profound impacts on health and healthcare. We solicited the views of a wide range of stakeholders in order to develop core global health competencies for postgraduate doctors. METHODS: Published literature and existing curricula informed writing of seven global health competencies for consultation. A modified policy Delphi involved an online survey and face-to-face and telephone interviews over three rounds. RESULTS: Over 250 stakeholders participated, including doctors, other health professionals, policymakers and members of the public from all continents of the world. Participants indicated that global health competence is essential for postgraduate doctors and other health professionals. Concerns were expressed about overburdening curricula and identifying what is 'essential' for whom. Conflicting perspectives emerged about the importance and relevance of different global health topics. Five core competencies were developed: (1) diversity, human rights and ethics; (2) environmental, social and economic determinants of health; (3) global epidemiology; (4) global health governance; and (5) health systems and health professionals. CONCLUSIONS: Global health can bring important perspectives to postgraduate curricula, enhancing the ability of doctors to provide quality care. These global health competencies require tailoring to meet different trainees' needs and facilitate their incorporation into curricula. Healthcare and global health are ever-changing; therefore, the competencies will need to be regularly reviewed and updated