Victorian index of estuary condition : recommended themes and measures

Deakin University was engaged by the Department of Sustainability and Environment to develop an Index of Estuary Condition (IEC) for evaluating the environmental condition of Victorian estuaries. The Index will ultimately complement the existing Index of Stream Condition (ISC) by providing a consistent statewide assessment of the environmental condition of estuaries. This will better enable:&bull; Estuarine condition to be reported at regional, state and national levels.&bull; Prioritisation of resource allocation.&bull; Strategic evaluation of management interventions in estuaries.Workshops involving participants with expertise in a variety of disciplines were convened to integrate learnings from assessment programs currently being developed interstate and overseas. This report synthesises and builds on the output from those workshops which: &bull; Identified key components (themes) of estuaries that contribute to estuarine condition. &bull; Contributed to development of a broad conceptual model for Victorian estuaries &bull; Identified possible measures of each themeIn keeping with the sub-indices of the ISC, six themes were identified for use in the IEC: Physical form, Hydrology, Water quality, Sediment, Flora and Fauna. Several measures within each theme are recommended to assess estuary condition.Implementation of particular measures in the IEC partly depends on the investment required to both collect and interpret the required data. With regard to data collection, each measure was assessed according to whether there is an established sampling procedure, how frequently data need to be collected and the level of expertise required for collection and processing. For interpreting the data, measures were scored on whether baseline condition is established and whether descriptions and scores are developed which reflect the extent of deviation from that condition. These scores were used to indicate which measures are feasible to implement immediately and which require further investigation. A trial of the recommended IEC measures in a selection of estuaries is recommended as it would provide an opportunity to test the measures and their suitability for application statewide. It is suggested that the trial is conducted in estuaries subject to various levels of threats within each of the four estuary classes described by Barton et al. (2008)<br /

Applying the Verona Coding Definitions of Emotional Sequences (VR-CoDES) in the dental context involving patients with complex communication needs : an exploratory study

This study was conducted as part of a larger collaborative study funded by the EPSRC, between the University of St Andrews and the University of Dundee.Objective The VR-CoDES has been previously applied in the dental context. However, we know little about how dental patients with intellectual disabilities (ID) and complex communication needs express their emotional distress during dental visits. This is the first study explored the applicability of the VR-CoDES to a dental context involving patients with ID. Methods Fourteen dental consultations were video recorded and coded using the VR-CoDES, assisted with the additional guidelines for the VR-CoDES in a dental context. Both inter- and intra-coder reliabilities were checked on the seven consultations where cues were observed. Results Sixteen cues (eight non-verbal) were identified within seven of the 14 consultations. Twenty responses were observed (12 reducing space) with four multiple responses. Cohen's Kappa were 0.76 (inter-coder) and 0.88 (intra-coder). Conclusion With the additional guidelines, cues and responses were reliably identified. Cue expression was exhibited by non-verbal expression of emotion with people with ID in the literature. Further guidance is needed to improve the coding accuracy on multiple providers’ responses and to investigate potential impacts of conflicting responses on patients. Practice implications The findings provided a useful initial step towards an ongoing exploration of how healthcare providers identify and manage emotional distress of patients with ID.PostprintPeer reviewe

The dynamical evolution of massive black hole binaries - I. Hardening in a fixed stellar background

The stellar ejection rate and the rates of change of the binary semimajor axis and eccentricity are derived from scattering experiments for the restricted three-body problem. They are used to study the evolution of binaries in simple models for galactic nuclei, starting soon after the black holes become bound and continuing until the evolution is dominated by the emission of gravitational radiation, or until the ejected mass is too large for the galaxy to be considered fixed. The eccentricity growth is found to be unimportant unless the binary forms with a large eccentricity. The scattering results are compared with predictions from Chandrasekhar's dynamical-friction formula and with previous work on the capture and scattering of comets by planetary systems. They suggest that a binary with masses $m_1\geq m_2$ should not be considered hard until its orbital velocity exceeds the background velocity dispersion by a factor that scales as $(1+m_1/m_2)^{1/2}$.Comment: includes 9 postscript figures, mn.sty, fixup.sty, psfig.st

RESOLVE: Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction

Regolith & Environment Science and Oxygen & Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) is an internationally developed payload that is intended to prospect for resources on other planetary bodies. RESOLVE is a miniature drilling and chemistry plant packaged onto a medium-sized rover to collect and analyze soil for volatile components such as water or hydrogen that could be used in human exploration efforts

Shifting patterns of genomic variation in the somatic evolution of papillary thyroid carcinoma

Shows Single Nucleotide Substitutions in the MAPK Pathway. (XLSX 43 kb