Funding coastal protection in a changing climate: lessons from three projects in Australia

ACCARNSI Research Associate, Dan Ware from Griffith University and Dr Zsuzsa Banhalmi-Zakar from James Cook University Townsville discuss the financing options of coastal protection in Australia using three existing case studies - the Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypass Project, the City of Gold Coast A-Line Seawall and the Toogoom Seawall, presenting the rationale, the basic project parameters and the different approaches to funding each project took. They compare funding features and outcomes achieved for each project as well as discussing the implications for coastal protection funding in the future

Contrasting funding and delivery models for coastal protection – case studies from Australia

Coastal Protection, Coastal Hazards and Climate Change - Coastal Protection - civil works that aim to reduce the impacts of coastal hazards e.g. Seawalls, Levees and Beach Nourishment - Coastal Hazards - Coastal process with negative consequences for use and development of coastal land e.g. Erosion and Inundation - Climate Change - will expand the area of land exposed to coastal hazards - Adaptation will impact all phases of coastal protection delivery – design, maintenance, upgrad

The Advanced LIGO timing system

Gravitational wave detection using a network of detectors relies upon the precise time stamping of gravitational wave signals. The relative arrival times between detectors are crucial, e.g. in recovering the source direction, an essential step in using gravitational waves for multi-messenger astronomy. Due to the large size of gravitational wave detectors, timing at different parts of a given detector also needs to be highly synchronized. In general, the requirement toward the precision of timing is determined such that, upon detection, the deduced (astro-) physical results should not be limited by the precision of timing. The Advanced LIGO optical timing distribution system is designed to provide UTC-synchronized timing information for the Advanced LIGO detectors that satisfies the above criterium. The Advanced LIGO timing system has modular structure, enabling quick and easy adaptation to the detector frame as well as possible changes or additions of components. It also includes a self-diagnostics system that enables the remote monitoring of the status of timing. After the description of the Advanced LIGO timing system, several tests are presented that demonstrate its precision and robustness

Molecular Survey on Leishmania Infantum Infection in Red Foxes (Vulpes Vulpes) From Romania

Leishmania spp. (Kinetoplastida, Trypanosomatidae) are parasitic protozoans transmitted by sand flies to animals and humans. In Europe, the predominant species is Leishmania infantum, the agent of canine leishmaniasis (CanL) and of visceral (VL) and cutaneous (CL) forms in humans. Despite being regarded as a non-endemic country, recent data from Romania have shown the occurrence of autochthonous cases of human and canine infections. The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of L.infantum in red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) from Romania. Between December 2016 and April 2017, 514 foxes originating from ten counties of Romania were evaluated and individual conjunctival swab samples were tested for the presence of L. infantum DNA by means of real-time PCR. All samples were negative. However, considering the new national epidemiological context, the importance of the red fox as sentinel and its potential role in the epidemiology of this disease in Romania should not be disregarded in the future

Anaplasma phagocytophilum in ticks and tissues collected from wild birds in Romania

Abstract. Anaplasma phagocytophilum are potentially emerging tick-borne pathogen, whereas many issues about ecology, reservoir host specificity, are still unclear. The material analyzed in this study was collected along 5 years (2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) of fieldwork from 88 locations, from 32 out of 42 counties of Romania. A total of 3,794 birds belonging to 125 species were assessed, made up by 879 carcasses and 2,915 alive birds. A total of 278 birds belonging to 37 species were found infested with ticks (9.53%), with individual prevalence ranging from 0 to 50%. Anaplasma spp. were detected in 8 cases (1.7%) of 459 analyzed ticks collected from two specimens of Rook one Robin, one Blackbird and one Chaffinch. The ticks found to carry Anaplasma spp., were Haemaphysalis concinna (1 larvae), I. arboricola (4 larvae), and I. ricinus (2 larvae and 2 nymphs). Tissue samples resulted in the detection of Anaplasma spp. from heart of one Robin and one Song Thrush, with a relative prevalence of 1.66%. The low prevalence of A. phagocytophilum in bird-fed ticks corresponds to previous investigations, suggesting that birds have a reduced reservoir competence for human granulocytic anaplasmosis agents

Strategies for the Follow-up of Gravitational Wave Transients with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The observation of the electromagnetic counterpart of gravitational-wave (GW) transient GW170817 demonstrated the potential in extracting astrophysical information from multimessenger discoveries. The forthcoming deployment of the first telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory will coincide with Advanced LIGO/Virgo's next observing run, O3, enabling the monitoring of gamma-ray emission at E > 20 GeV, and thus particle acceleration, from GW sources. CTA will not be greatly limited by the precision of GW localization as it will be be capable of rapidly covering the GW error region with sufficient sensitivity. We examine the current status of GW searches and their follow-up effort, as well as the status of CTA, in order to identify some of the general strategies that will enhance CTA's contribution to multimessenger discoveries.Comment: 10 page