Arresting woodland bird decline in Australian agricultural landscapes: potential application of the European agri-environment model

This paper considered the applicability of the European model of land stewardship payments, in particular its support for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes, to an Australian context. More broadly, the research approach described in the paper may also be applied to assessing the suitability of overseas stewardship schemes to the provision of any ecoservice in Australia, such as carbon sequestration and floodwater regulation

From evidence to practice:development of web-based Dutch lipid reference values

Introduction: In the Netherlands, the total number of yearly measured lipid profiles exceeds 500,000. While lipid values are strongly affected by age and sex, until recently, no up-to-date age- and sex-specific lipid reference values were available. We describe the translation of big-cohort lipid data into accessible reference values, which can be easily incorporated in daily clinical practice. Methods: Lipid values (total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides) from all healthy adults and children in the LifeLines cohort were used to generate age- and sex-specific percentiles. A combination of RStudio, Cascading Style Sheets and HyperText Markup Language was used to interactively display the percentiles in a responsive web layout. Results: After exclusion of subjects reporting cardiovascular disease or lipid-lowering therapy at baseline, 141,611 subjects were included. On the website, input fields were created for age, sex and all main plasma lipids. Upon input of these values, corresponding percentiles are calculated, and output is displayed in a table and an interactive graph for each lipid. The website has been made available in both Dutch and English and can be accessed at www.lipidtools.com. Conclusion: We constructed the first searchable, national lipid reference value tool with graphical display in the Netherlands to use in screening for dyslipidaemias and to reduce the underuse of lipid-lowering therapy in Dutch primary prevention. This study illustrates that data collected in big-cohort studies can be made easily accessible with modern digital techniques and preludes the digital health revolution yet to come

The domestic and gendered context for retirement

Against a global backdrop of population and workforce ageing, successive UK governments have encouraged people to work longer and delay retirement. Debates focus mainly on factors affecting individuals’ decisions on when and how to retire. We argue that a fuller understanding of retirement can be achieved by recognizing the ways in which individuals’ expectations and behaviours reflect a complicated, dynamic set of interactions between domestic environments and gender roles, often established over a long time period, and more temporally proximate factors. Using a qualitative data set, we explore how the timing, nature and meaning of retirement and retirement planning are played out in specific domestic contexts. We conclude that future research and policies surrounding retirement need to: focus on the household, not the individual; consider retirement as an often messy and disrupted process and not a discrete event; and understand that retirement may mean very different things for women and for men

Pressure responses and phase transitions during the release of high pressure CO2 from a large-scale pipeline

As part of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) process, pipeline transportation is the safest and most economic option for delivering captured CO2 to a storage site. However, in the event of pipeline rupture an enormous mass of CO2 may be released very rapidly, presenting several risks to the pipeline and surrounding population including the significantly increased risk of brittle fracture in the pipe wall. The study of pressure variation and phase change in CO2 during pipeline blowdown can contribute to the understanding of fracture initiation and propagation, as well as downstream CO2 diffusion behavior. As part of the CO2QUEST project, a reusable, industrial scale pipeline experimental apparatus with a total length of 258 m and the inner diameter of 233 mm was fabricated to study pure CO2 pipeline blowdown. A dual-disc blasting device was used to remotely control the opening of the pipeline. The instantaneous pressure response following release was measured with high frequency pressure transducers. Variation in fluid temperature at the top and bottom of pipeline was also recorded. Six groups of pure CO2 pipeline release experiments were conducted with initially gaseous and dense phase inventories with three orifice diameters (15 mm, 50 mm and Full Bore Rupture). The typical waveform characteristics of pressure responses accompanying by the process of phase transitions in gaseous and dense CO2 leakage were observed during the release as results of the propagation of a series of expansion waves. The complicated phase transitions were obtained during depressurization of gaseous and dense CO2 releases. The gas-solid phase or gas-liquid-solid phase appeared when the pressure was below the triple point during the dense CO2 release. Keyword

Behavioral Modernity and the Cultural Transmission of Structured Information: The Semantic Axelrod Model

Cultural transmission models are coming to the fore in explaining increases in the Paleolithic toolkit richness and diversity. During the later Paleolithic, technologies increase not only in terms of diversity but also in their complexity and interdependence. As Mesoudi and O'Brien (2008) have shown, selection broadly favors social learning of information that is hierarchical and structured, and multiple studies have demonstrated that teaching within a social learning environment can increase fitness. We believe that teaching also provides the scaffolding for transmission of more complex cultural traits. Here, we introduce an extension of the Axelrod (1997} model of cultural differentiation in which traits have prerequisite relationships, and where social learning is dependent upon the ordering of those prerequisites. We examine the resulting structure of cultural repertoires as learning environments range from largely unstructured imitation, to structured teaching of necessary prerequisites, and we find that in combination with individual learning and innovation, high probabilities of teaching prerequisites leads to richer cultural repertoires. Our results point to ways in which we can build more comprehensive explanations of the archaeological record of the Paleolithic as well as other cases of technological change.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to "Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution during the Paleolithic", edited by Kenichi Aoki and Alex Mesoudi, and presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin TX. Revised 5/14/1

Flow characteristics and dispersion during the leakage of high pressure CO2 from an industrial scale pipeline

Pressurized pipelines represent a key way of transporting CO2 from emitter to storage site. Leakage of CO2 through a small puncture is the most common form of pipeline failure during normal operation; such failures could lead to fracture. The study of pipeline depressurization and dispersion behavior is of paramount importance for assessing the possibility of fracture propagation and the impact of CO2 releases on the surrounding environment. A large-scale pipeline (258 m long, 233 mm i.d.) was constructed to study the flow characteristics and dispersion of gaseous, dense and supercritical phase CO2 during vertical leakage through a 15 mm diameter orifice. The fluid pressures, fluid temperatures and wall temperatures along the pipeline were recorded to study the pressure responses, phase transitions and thermodynamic properties during the release. Video cameras and CO2 concentration sensors were used to monitor the formation of the visible cloud and the concentration distribution in the far-field. There was a “two cold, intermediate hot” phenomenon during the vertical leakage in the dense and supercritical release due to the dry ice particle accumulation near the orifice. The intersection of the jet flow and settling CO2 mixture resulted in complex visible cloud forms in dense CO2 release

Under-expanded jets and dispersion in high pressure CO2 releases from an industrial scale pipeline

The widespread implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in industry will require extensive long-distance CO2 pipeline networks to integrate the component technologies. The potential for pipeline rupture and leakage, possibly resulting in catastrophic accidents, will inevitably increase as networks become more extensive. The study of near-field source terms and dispersion behavior after pipeline rupture is an essential foundation of CO2 pipeline risk assessment and will provide effective technical support for the implementation of large-scale CCS projects and contribute to pipeline safety. In the CO2QUEST project under-expanded CO2 jets, cloud dispersion characteristics and the formation of dry ice particles in the near field were investigated during releases from a 258 m long, fully instrumented pipeline. Experimental data including cloud temperature, CO2 concentration and the visual evolution of the cloud (recorded on film), was gathered to investigate cloud behavior and to support future work in the field of CO2 pipeline safety. Experiments included the release of gaseous and dense phase CO2 through three orifice diameters: 15 mm, 50 mm and Full Bore Rupture (FBR). The lower limit of gaseous CO2 concentration for adverse effects in humans is 5% v/v. Safety distances from the release, based on this threshold concentration limit, are determined and reported for each experiment conducted

Rice Molecular Breeding Laboratories in the Genomics Era: Current Status and Future Considerations

Using DNA markers in plant breeding with marker-assisted selection (MAS) could greatly improve the precision and efficiency of selection, leading to the accelerated development of new crop varieties. The numerous examples of MAS in rice have prompted many breeding institutes to establish molecular breeding labs. The last decade has produced an enormous amount of genomics research in rice, including the identification of thousands of QTLs for agronomically important traits, the generation of large amounts of gene expression data, and cloning and characterization of new genes, including the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms. The pinnacle of genomics research has been the completion and annotation of genome sequences for indica and japonica rice. This information—coupled with the development of new genotyping methodologies and platforms, and the development of bioinformatics databases and software tools—provides even more exciting opportunities for rice molecular breeding in the 21st century. However, the great challenge for molecular breeders is to apply genomics data in actual breeding programs. Here, we review the current status of MAS in rice, current genomics projects and promising new genotyping methodologies, and evaluate the probable impact of genomics research. We also identify critical research areas to “bridge the application gap” between QTL identification and applied breeding that need to be addressed to realize the full potential of MAS, and propose ideas and guidelines for establishing rice molecular breeding labs in the postgenome sequence era to integrate molecular breeding within the context of overall rice breeding and research programs

Charge Symmetry Breaking in 500 MeV Nucleon-Trinucleon Scattering

Elastic nucleon scattering from the 3He and 3H mirror nuclei is examined as a test of charge symmetry violation. The differential cross-sections are calculated at 500 MeV using a microsopic, momentum-space optical potential including the full coupling of two spin 1/2 particles and an exact treatment of the Coulomb force. The charge-symmetry-breaking effects investigated arise from a violation within the nuclear structure, from the p-nucleus Coulomb force, and from the mass-differences of the charge symmetric states. Measurements likely to reveal reliable information are noted.Comment: 5 page