Managing and reversing the decline in funding for on-farm R&D

When considering the issue of managing and reversing the decline in funding for on-farm R&D, the first question to consider is how much has on-farm R&D declined and over what time period – and are we also talking extension services? Unfortunately this first question is not easily answered as data at the appropriate scale (beef, on-farm, northern Australia) and over an appropriate time period is not easily accessed. The best published data comes from ABARES (Millist et al. 2017) where they reported national rural expenditure for both extension (2005-2015) and R&D (2006-2015). What this report documented is that total national rural R&D expenditure has been increasing, extension expenditure has been generally stagnant, and that the private sector has been the main driver behind the increase in R&D expenditure (Fig. 1). What has declined is the funding by State and Territory governments for R&D

The Age of Onset of Substance Use Disorders

Illicit drug use frequently starts during adolescence and young adulthood. Early initiation of illicit drug use in this period is associated with continued drug use in adulthood, the development of dependence, polydrug use and a number of adverse social, educational and mental health outcomes. Understanding when and why illicit drug use starts has important implications for preventing a major source of personal and financial cost to individuals, families and communities. In this chapter, we review research on the prevalence of drug use in the early years, the impact of early illicit drug use on psychosocial outcomes in young adulthood and widely researched models that explain the early initiation of drug use. We explore the implications of evidence-based models for prevention of the early initiation of illicit drug use

Quasars in the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release

Using the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release, we have searched for near infrared counterparts to 13214 quasars from the Veron-Cetty & Veron(2000) catalog. We have detected counterparts within 4 arcsec for 2277 of the approximately 6320 quasars within the area covered by the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release. Only 1.6% of these are expected to be chance coincidences. Though this sample is heterogeneous, we find that known radio-loud quasars are more likely to have large near-infrared-to-optical luminosity ratios than radio-quiet quasars are, at a statistically significant level. This is consistent with dust-reddened quasars being more common in radio-selected samples than in optically-selected samples, due to stronger selection effects against dust-reddened quasars in the latter. We also find a statistically significant dearth of optically luminous quasars with large near-infrared-to-optical luminosity ratios. This can be explained in a dust obscuration model but not in a model where synchrotron emission extends from the radio into the near-infrared and creates such large ratios. We also find that selection of quasar candidates from the B-J/J-K color-color diagram, modelled on the V-J/J-K selection method of Warren, Hewett & Foltz (2000), is likely to be more sensitive to dust-obscured quasars than selection using only infrared-infrared colors.Comment: To be published in May issue of Astronomical Journal (26 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables) Replaced Figure 6 and

Climate Change in Queensland's Grazing Lands. I. Approaches and Climatic Trends

Climate change is an important global issue but is yet to be recognised as such by many rangelands users. This paper reviews some of the uncertainties relating to pre-instrumental and future climate change and documents current trends and fluctuations in climate of Queensland's grazing lands. Analysis of daily climate surfaces for Queensland's pastoral/cropping zone shows high variability in annual rainfall which is influenced by the El NiHo-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. This relationship, when examined using moving windows, has changed during this century with the 1930-40s being a period of low correlation. Minimum temperatures taken from the climate surfaces also changed, showing a significant (P<0.01) increase over time especially in May. Over the 40 years since 1957, annual minimum temperatures have increased by l.0°C for the pastoral/cropping zone and coastal sub-zone, winter minimum temperatures by 1.2°C for the pastoral/cropping zone (1.3°C for the coastal sub-zone), summer minimum temperatures by 0.7°C for the pastoral/cropping zone and coastal sub-zone, and May minimum temperatures by 2.8°C for the pastoral/cropping zone (3.0°C for the coastal sub-zone). Consistent significant trends in vapour pressure (increasing, P<0.001) and solar radiation (decreasing, P<0.05) also occurred in May. The mechanisms for the identified climate trends and unusual behaviour of ENS0 are the subject of speculation with attribution of causes to natural variability or the enhanced greenhouse effect being unresolved. Continued monitoring of these trends and fluctuations will be important for the future management of Queensland's grazing lands with this analysis highlighting the need for discrimination of trends from natural variability. In terms of grazing management and degradation processes, this work also highlights that general changes in climate averages may disguise important variation at yearly and decadal time scales

Climate Change in Queensland's Grazing Lands: II. An Assessment of the Impact on Animal Production From Native Pastures

The 160 million ha of grazing land in Queensland support approximately 10 million beef equivalents (9.8 million cattle and 10.7 million sheep) with treed and cleared native pastures as the major forage source. The complexity of these biophysical systems and their interaction with pasture and stock management, economic and social forces limits our ability to easily calculate the impact of climate change scenarios. We report the application of a systems approach in simulating the flow of plant dry matter and utilisation of forage by animals. Our review of available models highlighted the lack of suitable mechanistic models and the potential role of simple empirical relationships of utilisation and animal production derived from climatic and soil indices. Plausible climate change scenarios were evaluated by using a factorial of rainfall (f 10%) * 3260C temperature increase * doubling CO, in sensitivity studies at property, regional and State scales. Simulation of beef cattle liveweight gain at three locations in the Queensland black speargrass zone showed that a *lo% change in rainfall was magnified to be a f 15% change in animal production (liveweight gain per ha) depending on location, temperature and CO, change. Models of 'safe' carrying capacity were developed from property data and expert opinion. Climate change impacts on 'safe' carrying capacity varied considerably across the State depending on whether moisture, temperature or nutrients were the limiting factors. Without the effect of doubling CO,, warmer temperatures and +lo% changes in rainfall resulted in -35 to +70% changes in 'safe' carrying capacity depending on location. With the effect of doubling CO, included, the changes in 'safe' carrying capacity ranged from -12 to +115% across scenarios and locations. When aggregated to a whole-of-State carrying capacity, the combined effects of warmer temperature, doubling CO, and +lo% changes in rainfall resulted in 'safe' carrying capacity changes of +3 to +45% depending on rainfall scenario and location. A major finding of the sensitivity study was the potential importance of doubling CO, in mitigating or amplifying the effects of warmer temperatures and changes in rainfall. Field studies on the impact of CO, are therefore a high research priority. Keywords: climate change, Queensland, simulation, rangelands, beef production, cattle, carrying capacity, CO,, utilisatio

Improving Phrap-Based Assembly of the Rat Using “Reliable” Overlaps

The assembly methods used for whole-genome shotgun (WGS) data have a major impact on the quality of resulting draft genomes. We present a novel algorithm to generate a set of “reliable” overlaps based on identifying repeat k-mers. To demonstrate the benefits of using reliable overlaps, we have created a version of the Phrap assembly program that uses only overlaps from a specific list. We call this version PhrapUMD. Integrating PhrapUMD and our “reliable-overlap” algorithm with the Baylor College of Medicine assembler, Atlas, we assemble the BACs from the Rattus norvegicus genome project. Starting with the same data as the Nov. 2002 Atlas assembly, we compare our results and the Atlas assembly to the 4.3 Mb of rat sequence in the 21 BACs that have been finished. Our version of the draft assembly of the 21 BACs increases the coverage of finished sequence from 93.4% to 96.3%, while simultaneously reducing the base error rate from 4.5 to 1.1 errors per 10,000 bases. There are a number of ways of assessing the relative merits of assemblies when the finished sequence is available. If one views the overall quality of an assembly as proportional to the inverse of the product of the error rate and sequence missed, then the assembly presented here is seven times better. The UMD Overlapper with options for reliable overlaps is available from the authors at http://www.genome.umd.edu. We also provide the changes to the Phrap source code enabling it to use only the reliable overlaps

Spectroscopic Characterization of Aqua [ fac-Tc(CO)3]+ Complexes at High Ionic Strength.

Understanding fundamental Tc chemistry is important to both the remediation of nuclear waste and the reprocessing of nuclear fuel; however, current knowledge of the electronic structure and spectral signatures of low-valent Tc compounds significantly lags behind the remainder of the d-block elements. In particular, identification and treatment of Tc speciation in legacy nuclear waste is challenging due to the lack of reference data especially for Tc compounds in the less common oxidation states (I-VI). In an effort to establish a spectroscopic library corresponding to the relevant conditions of extremely high ionic strength typical for the legacy nuclear waste, compounds with the general formula of [ fac-Tc(CO)3(OH2)3- n(OH) n]1- n (where n = 0-3) were examined by a range of spectroscopic techniques including 99Tc/13C NMR, IR, XPS, and XAS. In the series of monomeric aqua species, stepwise hydrolysis results in the increase of the Tc metal center electron density and corresponding progressive decrease of the Tc-C bond distances, Tc electron binding energies, and carbonyl stretching frequencies in the order [ fac-Tc(CO)3(OH2)3]+ &gt; [ fac-Tc(CO)3(OH2)2(OH)] &gt; [ fac-Tc(CO)3(OH2)(OH)2]-. These results correlate with established trends of the 99Tc upfield chemical shift and carbonyl 13C downfield chemical shift. The lone exception is [ fac-Tc(CO)3(OH)]4 which exhibits a comparatively low electron density at the metal center attributed to the μ3-bridging nature of the -OH ligands causing less σ-donation and no π-donation. This work also reports the first observations of these compounds by XPS and [ fac-Tc(CO)3Cl3]2- by XAS. The unique and distinguishable spectral features of the aqua [ fac-Tc(CO)3]+ complexes lay the foundation for their identification in the complex aqueous matrixes

User characteristics and effect profile of Butane Hash Oil:An extremely high-potency cannabis concentrate

Background Recent reports suggest an increase in use of extremely potent cannabis concentrates such as Butane Hash Oil (BHO) in some developed countries. The aims of this study were to examine the characteristics of BHO users and the effect profiles of BHO. Design Anonymous online survey in over 20 countries in 2014 and 2015. Participants aged 18 years or older were recruited through onward promotion and online social networks. The overall sample size was 181,870. In this sample, 46% (N\ua0=\ua083,867) reported using some form of cannabis in the past year, and 3% reported BHO use (n\ua0=\ua05922). Measurements Participants reported their use of 7 types of cannabis in the past 12 months, the source of their cannabis, reasons for use, use of other illegal substances, and lifetime diagnosis for depression, anxiety and psychosis. Participants were asked to rate subjective effects of BHO and high potency herbal cannabis. Findings Participants who reported a lifetime diagnosis of depression (OR\ua0=\ua01.15, p\ua0=\ua00.003), anxiety (OR\ua0=\ua01.72, p\ua

Detectors for the James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Spectrograph I: Readout Mode, Noise Model, and Calibration Considerations

We describe how the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near-Infrared Spectrograph's (NIRSpec's) detectors will be read out, and present a model of how noise scales with the number of multiple non-destructive reads sampling-up-the-ramp. We believe that this noise model, which is validated using real and simulated test data, is applicable to most astronomical near-infrared instruments. We describe some non-ideal behaviors that have been observed in engineering grade NIRSpec detectors, and demonstrate that they are unlikely to affect NIRSpec sensitivity, operations, or calibration. These include a HAWAII-2RG reset anomaly and random telegraph noise (RTN). Using real test data, we show that the reset anomaly is: (1) very nearly noiseless and (2) can be easily calibrated out. Likewise, we show that large-amplitude RTN affects only a small and fixed population of pixels. It can therefore be tracked using standard pixel operability maps.Comment: 55 pages, 10 figure