Action learning in partnership with Landcare and catchment management groups to support increased pasture sowings in southern inland Queensland

The incorporation of sown pastures as short-term rotations into the cropping systems of northern Australia has been slow. The inherent chemical fertility and physical stability of the predominant vertisol soils across the region enabled farmers to grow crops for decades without nitrogen fertiliser, and precluded the evolution of a crop–pasture rotation culture. However, as less fertile and less physically stable soils were cropped for extended periods, farmers began to use contemporary farming and sown pasture technologies to rebuild and maintain their soils. This has typically involved sowing long-term grass and grass–legume pastures on the more marginal cropping soils of the region. In partnership with the catchment management authority, the Queensland Murray–Darling Committee (QMDC) and Landcare, a pasture extension process using the LeyGrain™ package was implemented in 2006 within two Grain & Graze projects in the Maranoa-Balonne and Border Rivers catchments in southern inland Queensland. The specific objectives were to increase the area sown to high quality pasture and to gain production and environmental benefits (particularly groundcover) through improving the skills of producers in pasture species selection, their understanding and management of risk during pasture establishment, and in managing pastures and the feed base better. The catalyst for increasing pasture sowings was a QMDC subsidy scheme for increasing groundcover on old cropping land. In recognising a need to enhance pasture knowledge and skills to implement this scheme, the QMDC and Landcare producer groups sought the involvement of, and set specific targets for, the LeyGrain workshop process. This is a highly interactive action learning process that built on the existing knowledge and skills of the producers. Thirty-four workshops were held with more than 200 producers in 26 existing groups and with private agronomists. An evaluation process assessed the impact of the workshops on the learning and skill development by participants, their commitment to practice change, and their future intent to sow pastures. The results across both project catchments were highly correlated. There was strong agreement by producers (>90%) that the workshops had improved knowledge and skills regarding the adaptation of pasture species to soils and climates, enabling a better selection at the paddock level. Additional strong impacts were in changing the attitudes of producers to all aspects of pasture establishment, and the relative species composition of mixtures. Producers made a strong commitment to practice change, particularly in managing pasture as a specialist crop at establishment to minimise risk, and in the better selection and management of improved pasture species (particularly legumes and the use of fertiliser). Producers have made a commitment to increase pasture sowings by 80% in the next 5 years, with fourteen producers in one group alone having committed to sow an additional 4893 ha of pasture in 2007–08 under the QMDC subsidy scheme. The success of the project was attributed to the partnership between QMDC and Landcare groups who set individual workshop targets with LeyGrain presenters, the interactive engagement processes within the workshops themselves, and the follow-up provided by the LeyGrain team for on-farm activities

Success factors for Participatory Farming Systems projects - field notes from the north

This paper documents three participatory farming systems project teams‟ perceptions of the key success factors for good participatory RD&E projects. The relative importance of each factor is scored and the current level of achievement benchmarked. The factors of most importance were participation, communication and leadership. The factors of lesser importance were project focus and outcomes, evaluation and philosophies of RD&E. Reasons for the importance and achievement scores are explored and may provide insights to other farming systems projects on where to focus their efforts

A New WIMP Population in the Solar System and New Signals for Dark-Matter Detectors

We describe in detail how perturbations due to the planets can cause a sub-population of WIMPs captured by scattering in surface layers of the Sun to evolve to have orbits which no longer intersect the Sun. We argue that such WIMPs, if their orbit has a semi-major axis less than 1/2 of Jupiter's, can persist in the solar system for cosmological timescales. This leads to a new, previously unanticipated WIMP population intersecting the Earth's orbit. The WIMP-nucleon cross sections required for this population to be significant are precisely those in the range predicted for SUSY dark matter, lying near the present limits obtained by direct underground dark matter searches using cyrogenic detectors. Thus, if a WIMP signal is observed in the next generation of detectors, a potentially measurable signal due to this new population must exist. This signal, lying in the keV range for Germanium detectors, would be complementary to that of galactic halo WIMPs. A comparison of event rates, anisotropies, and annual modulations would not only yield additional confirmation that any claimed signal is indeed WIMP-based, but would also allow one to gain information on the nature of the underlying dark matter model.Comment: Revtex, 37 pages including 6 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev D. (version to be published, including changes made in response to referees reports

Insightful D-branes

We study a simple model of a black hole in AdS and obtain a holographic description of the region inside the horizon. A key role is played by the dynamics of the scalar fields in the dual gauge theory. This leads to a proposal for a dual description of D-branes falling through the horizon of any AdS black hole. The proposal uses a field-dependent time reparameterization in the field theory. We relate this reparametrization to various gauge invariances of the theory. Finally, we speculate on information loss and the black hole singularity in this context.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures. v2: typos fixed, references and acknowledgements added, a few small changes in the tex

Infrared thermography system on DIII-D

Six infrared cameras measure temperature changes on the protective graphite armor inside the DIII-D vacuum vessel. Simultaneous time dependent temperature measurements are made on armor tiles located on the centerpost and divertor regions, and on both outboard limiters. The nearly-complete poloidal coverage is useful in measuring both the plasma heat flux distributions inside the vessel and the plasma power balance. Spatial resolution of each camera system is {approx lt}1 cm, while the minimum resolvable time is 125 {mu}sec. Data from the IR TV systems is recorded on video tape, and is post-processed serially, using an image processor with an AT-compatible microcomputer. The processing system controls all VCRs, interprets DIII-D timing pulses, digitizes video data in the pre-determined regions of interest, averages digitized signals to reduce noise, and constructs data files which are then stored as part of the permanent shot record

Mining Energy from a Black Hole by Strings

We discuss how cosmic strings can be used to mine energy from black holes. A string attached to the black hole gives rise to an additional channel for the energy release. It is demonstrated that when a string crosses the event horizon, its transverse degrees of freedom are thermally excited and thermal string perturbations propagate along the string to infinity. The internal metric induced on the 2D worldsheet of the static string crossing the horizon describes a 2D black hole. For this reason thermal radiation of string excitations propagating along the string can be interpreted as Hawking radiation of the 2D black hole. It is shown that the rate of energy emission through the string channel is of the same order of magnitude as the bulk radiation of the black hole. Thus, for N strings attached to the black hole the efficiency of string channels is increased by factor N. We discuss restrictions on N which exist because of the finite thickness of strings, the gravitational backreaction and quantum fluctuations. Our conclusion is that the energy emission rate by strings can be increased as compared to the standard emission in the bulk by the factor 10^3 for GUT strings and up to the factor 10^{31} for electroweak strings.Comment: 13 pages, no figures, final version to appear in Physical Revie

Yielded to Christ or conformed to this world? Postwar Mennonite responses to labour activism

This is the accepted version of the manuscript.The urbanization of North American Mennonites after the Second World War necessitated a reconsideration of Mennonite religious beliefs. Post-war concerns for social justice led to a greater emphasis on non-violence and agape at the expense of Gelassenheit. The tenor of Mennonite church conference resolutions regarding labour union membership changed; while skepticism remained regarding the wisdom of union involvement, the door was left open for participation in unions. The labour militancy of the 1970s led Manitoba Mennonites to re-examine their engagement with the labour movement, a process that has continued to the present day. Without further research on Mennonite workplaces, it cannot be known exactly how the change in religious emphases has affected Mennonite identity.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00084298070360020

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

The Standard Cosmological Model

The Standard Model of Particle Physics (SMPP) is an enormously successful description of high energy physics, driving ever more precise measurements to find "physics beyond the standard model", as well as providing motivation for developing more fundamental ideas that might explain the values of its parameters. Simultaneously, a description of the entire 3-dimensional structure of the present-day Universe is being built up painstakingly. Most of the structure is stochastic in nature, being merely the result of the particular realisation of the "initial conditions" within our observable Universe patch. However, governing this structure is the Standard Model of Cosmology (SMC), which appears to require only about a dozen parameters. Cosmologists are now determining the values of these quantities with increasing precision in order to search for "physics beyond the standard model", as well as trying to develop an understanding of the more fundamental ideas which might explain the values of its parameters. Although it is natural to see analogies between the two Standard Models, some intrinsic differences also exist, which are discussed here. Nevertheless, a truly fundamental theory will have to explain both the SMPP and SMC, and this must include an appreciation of which elements are deterministic and which are accidental. Considering different levels of stochasticity within cosmology may make it easier to accept that physical parameters in general might have a non-deterministic aspect.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, invited talk at "Theory Canada 1", June 2005, Vancouve