The life history and agricultural importance of the small lucerne weevil, (Atrichonotus taeniatulus (Coleoptera : Curculionidae) in Western Australia

The small lucerne weevil, Atrichonotus taeniatulus, has caused considerable damage to lucerne and subterranean clover in recent years. This study reviews the taxonomy of the insect, the damage it causes and the various stages of its life cycl

Delivering a collaborative monitoring program with industry to manage and facilitate trade

The current project represents national resistance monitoring for a period of 12 months with the purpose of transitioning this important program to a long term, self-sustainable model and establishing an enduring legacy. The findings from this research are addendum to the previously submitted final report for project PBCRC3035. While new data on resistance spread and frequency for the period 2015-16 are presented here, the methodology remains the same and the response from the end-user advocate is quite similar to the previous one. The following are the highlights from the 2015-16 season. The project has been proven to be a highly successful program as the outputs from this form the basis for development and deployment of major pest and resistance management strategies

Raman Spectroscopy in Liquid Ammonia Solutions. Vibrational Frequencies and Force Constants for Isotopic Species of the Borohydride Ion Having Tetrahedral Symmetry

All fundamentals of the ions 11BH4—, 11BD4—, 10BH4—, and 10BD4— have been observed in the Raman spectra of some alkali metal salts dissolved in liquid NH3 or ND3 at —50°C. A complete assignment of all observed frequencies has been made and force constants have been calculated by the FG method of Wilson.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/70986/2/JCPSA6-28-6-1029-1.pd

The Effects of Joint Training on Career and Technical Education and Special Education Professionals

Abstract Young adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities who leave high school have limited options in adulthood. Their rates of competitive employment in inclusive community settings is very low compared to their counterparts without disabilities. Involvement in postsecondary education and independent, community living is likewise limited. They need teams of trained professionals representing relevant disciplines who work together to support the student along college, career, and community pathways. Not only should special educators (SPED) be trained, but career technical education (CTE) professionals should be jointly trained in how to collaborate effectively and provide well-coordinated services. The purpose of this research was to explore the effects of joint training involving both CTE and SPED professionals on their knowledge and attitudes regarding collaboration in serving students with disabilities in transition from high school to adulthood. Researchers evaluated pre- and post-measures of a joint training group (CTE plus SPED participants) and a control group. Results demonstrated increased knowledge of joint training group participants and improved attitudes about collaboration in comparison to control group participants. Qualitative analysis yielded four themes: (a) barriers to collaboration, (b) the important role of CTE, (c) the need for increased collaboration, and (d) the need to involve administrators and guidance counselors in collaborative efforts alongside SPED and CTE teachers. Authors discuss implications of results to improve collaboration

Gender Politics and Child Custody: The Puzzling Persistence of the Best-Interest Standard Child Custody Decisionmaking

The best-interests-of-the-child standard has been the prevailing legal rule for resolving child-custody disputes between parents for nearly forty years. Almost from the beginning, it has been the target of academic criticism. As Robert Mnookin famously argued in a 1976 article, best interests are vastly indeterminate – more a statement of an aspiration than a legal rule to guide custody decisionmaking. The vagueness and indeterminacy of the standard make outcomes uncertain and gives judges broad discretion to consider almost any factor thought to be relevant to the custody decision. This encourages litigation in which parents are motivated to produce hurtful evidence of each other\u27s deficiencies that might have a lasting, deleterious impact on their ability to act cooperatively in the actual best interests of their children. Despite these deficiencies, the best-interests standard has proved to be remarkably durable. Although scholars as well as the American Law Institute (ALI) have proposed reforms, legislative efforts to narrow the best-interests standard have been largely unsuccessful. A few states have adopted a rule that bases custody on parents\u27 caretaking, but at least one legislature has responded to a courts\u27 imposition of a primary-caretaking rule by rejecting that rule and reviving the best-interests standard. Repeated efforts by fathers\u27 groups to enact laws favoring joint custody have usually failed as well. The persistence of the best-interests standard presents a puzzle: Are the academic critics wrong or does something other than the utility of the rule explain the reluctance of policymakers to change the status quo? In this article, we confirm the deficiencies of the best-interests standard and seek to explain its persistence despite its obvious limitations. First we argue that the standard\u27s entrenchment is the product of a gender war that has played out in legislatures and courts across the country for decades. Most substantive reforms have been perceived (usually accurately) as favoring either fathers or mothers, and thus have generated political battles between their respective advocates. The primary front in this war has been a protracted battle over joint custody. Fathers\u27 groups have lobbied hard for statutes favoring joint physical custody, but they have been opposed vigorously by women\u27s advocates. As a result of the standoff, little progress has been made (in any direction) toward replacing the best-interests standard with a custody decision rule that would narrow and guide the judicial inquiry. Mothers\u27 and fathers\u27 supporters have also battled over the formulation of the best-interests standard itself, with each group arguing for presumptions that can trump other factors when the standard is applied. Mothers\u27 advocates, allied with law-enforcement groups, have lobbied effectively for a statutory presumption disfavoring the parent who has engaged in acts of domestic violence. Fathers\u27 groups have responded by seeking to persuade courts and legislatures to assign substantial negative weight to one parent\u27s concerted efforts to alienate the child from the other parent. Each of these factors implicates a key policy concern and, in theory, might bring greater determinacy to custody doctrine in important categories of cases. But domestic-violence and alienation claims are difficult to verify, and courts are often ill equipped to separate valid claims from those that are weak or false. This uncertainty encourages contesting parents to raise marginal claims, which, if successful, can trump other factors relevant to the best-interests determination. In turn, excessive use of domestic-violence and parental-alienation claims threatens to diminish the credibility of genuine claimants

Gender Politics and Child Custody: The Puzzling Persistence of the Best-Interests Standard

Part I being the introduction, this article proceeds as follows. Part II describes the deficiencies of the best-interests standard, focusing on the daunting verifiability challenges judges face in applying the standard. Part III explores the political-economy explanation for the persistence of the best-interests standard. It examines the gender war in legislatures, focusing particularly on the repeated battles over joint custody in recent decades. Part IV explores the struggles to elevate the importance of domestic violence and parental alienation respectively as key factors in applying the standard, efforts that create a veneer of determinacy important categories of cases. Part V focuses on the illusion of mental-health expertise as the second key to the entrenchment of the best-interests standard. We challenge the assumption that MHPs enable courts to escape the indeterminacy of best interests and can guide them toward good custody decisions. Part VI proposes substantive and procedural reforms that can improve custody decisionmaking, potentially resulting in arrangements th at conform more closely to the law's policy goal

A method for continuous monitoring of the Ground Reaction Force during daily activity

Theoretical models and experimental studies of bone remodeling have identified peak cyclic force levels (or cyclic tissue strain energy density), number of daily loading cycles, and load (strain) rate as possible contributors to bone modeling and remodeling stimulus. To test our theoretical model and further investigate the influence of mechanical forces on bone density, we have focused on the calcaneus as a model site loaded by calcaneal surface tractions which are predominantly determined by the magnitude of the external ground reaction force (GRF)