Fire history of the northern part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its associated regions

Fire history (from the 1820s to 2000) in the northern quarter of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its associated regions is discussed in this paper. This area includes Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Granite Tor Conservation Area, Walls of Jerusalem National Park and the Central Plateau Conservation Area west of Great Lake. In common with fire history in southwest Tasmania, there have been major changes in fire regimes during the last 180 years, with major fires in the 1890s (most probably in 1896-97 or 1897-98 or both) and the 1930s (most probably in 1933-34). However, in contrast to southwest Tasmania, there were major fires until the early 1960s: in the early 1950s in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and Granite Tor Conservation Area, and in 1960-61 in the Walls of Jerusalem National Park and the Central Plateau Conservation Area. Between the 1930s and 1960s over 40% of the study area or about 129 000 ha was burnt. About half of the study area's fire-sensitive vegetation (i.e., alpine, subalpine heath, subalpine rainforest, rainforest and native conifer) was burnt in these fires. The last of these fires - the 1960-61 Central Plateau fire was the biggest and most destructive fire in the World Heritage Area since the 1930s. Less than 3% of the study area was burnt between 1970 and 2000

Discovery-led refinement in e-discovery investigations: sensemaking, cognitive ergonomics and system design.

Given the very large numbers of documents involved in e-discovery investigations, lawyers face a considerable challenge of collaborative sensemaking. We report findings from three workplace studies which looked at different aspects of how this challenge was met. From a sociotechnical perspective, the studies aimed to understand how investigators collectively and individually worked with information to support sensemaking and decision making. Here, we focus on discovery-led refinement; specifically, how engaging with the materials of the investigations led to discoveries that supported refinement of the problems and new strategies for addressing them. These refinements were essential for tractability. We begin with observations which show how new lines of enquiry were recursively embedded. We then analyse the conceptual structure of a line of enquiry and consider how reflecting this in e-discovery support systems might support scalability and group collaboration. We then focus on the individual activity of manual document review where refinement corresponded with the inductive identification of classes of irrelevant and relevant documents within a collection. Our observations point to the effects of priming on dealing with these efficiently and to issues of cognitive ergonomics at the human–computer interface. We use these observations to introduce visualisations that might enable reviewers to deal with such refinements more efficiently

Template-Stripped Multifunctional Wedge and Pyramid Arrays for Magnetic Nanofocusing and Optical Sensing

We present large-scale reproducible fabrication of multifunctional ultrasharp metallic structures on planar substrates with capabilities including magnetic field nanofocusing and plasmonic sensing. Objects with sharp tips such as wedges and pyramids made with noble metals have been extensively used for enhancing local electric fields via the lightning-rod effect or plasmonic nanofocusing. However, analogous nanofocusing of magnetic fields using sharp tips made with magnetic materials has not been widely realized. Reproducible fabrication of sharp tips with magnetic as well as noble metal layers on planar substrates can enable straightforward application of their material and shape-derived functionalities. We use a template-stripping method to produce plasmonic-shell-coated nickel wedge and pyramid arrays at the wafer-scale with tip radius of curvature close to 10 nm. We further explore the magnetic nanofocusing capabilities of these ultrasharp substrates, deriving analytical formulas and comparing the results with computer simulations. These structures exhibit nanoscale spatial control over the trapping of magnetic microbeads and nanoparticles in solution. Additionally, enhanced optical sensing of analytes by these plasmonic-shell-coated substrates is demonstrated using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. These methods can guide the design and fabrication of novel devices with applications including nanoparticle manipulation, biosensing, and magnetoplasmonics

Improved timed-mating, non-invasive method using fewer unproven female rats with pregnancy validation via early body mass increases

For studies requiring accurate conception-timing, reliable, efficient methods of detecting oestrus reduce time and costs, whilst improving welfare. Standard methods use vaginal cytology to stage cycle, and breeders are paired–up using approximately five proven females with proven males to achieve at least one conception on a specific day. We describe an alternative, fast, consistent, non-invasive method of timed-mating using detection of lordosis behaviour in Wistar and Lister-Hooded rats that used unproven females with high success rates. Rats under reverse-lighting had body masses recorded pre-mating, day (d) 3-4, d8, d10 and d18 of pregnancy. Using only the presence of the oestrus dance to time-mate females for 24-hrs, 89% Wistar and 88% Lister-Hooded rats successfully conceived. We did not observe behavioural oestrus in Sprague-Dawleys without males present. Significant body mass increases following mating distinguished pregnant from non-pregnant rats, as early as d4 of pregnancy (10% ± 1.0 increase cf 3% ± 1.2). The pattern of increases throughout gestation was similar for all pregnant rats until late pregnancy, when there were smaller increases for primi- and multiparous rats (32% ± 2.5; 25% ± 2.4), whereas nulliparous rats had highest gains (38% ± 1.5). This method demonstrated a distinct refinement of the previous timed-mating common practice used, as disturbance of females was minimised. Only the number required of nulli-, primi- or multiparous rats were mated, and body mass increases validated pregnancy status. This new breeding-management method is now established practice for two strains of rat and resulted in a reduction in animal use

The vegetation and flora of the Coal River nature reserve

The Coal River Gorge Nature Reserve occupies most of a sandstone gorge and some adjacent hilltops in a dry part of Tasmania, the vegetation of which is poorly documented. Three dry sclerophyll and two wet sclerophyll plant communities were selected from a TWIN SPAN analysis of higher plant species presence-absence data from 200 quadrats. The plant communities formed a continuum from heathy Eucalyptus tenuiramis, heathy E. amygdalina and grassy/shrubby E. obliqua dry sclerophyll communities to E. obliqua-Pomaderris and E. oliqua-Olearia wet sclerophyll communities. This continuum was related to the catena from the cliff top environments (altitude 3 50-4 5 0 m) to the base of the gorge (approximately 200 m). Soil moisture appeared to be a major variable related to the change in floristics and structure of the vegetation. The reserve, being small and downslope of developed land, has management problems related to nutrient drift, stock grazing and fire

Unusual Formation of Point-Defect Complexes in the Ultrawide-Band-Gap Semiconductor β-Ga2 O3

Understanding the unique properties of ultra-wide band gap semiconductors requires detailed information about the exact nature of point defects and their role in determining the properties. Here, we report the first direct microscopic observation of an unusual formation of point defect complexes within the atomic-scale structure of β-Ga2O3 using high resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Each complex involves one cation interstitial atom paired with two cation vacancies. These divacancy-interstitial complexes correlate directly with structures obtained by density functional theory, which predicts them to be compensating acceptors in β-Ga2O3. This prediction is confirmed by a comparison between STEM data and deep level optical spectroscopy results, which reveals that these complexes correspond to a deep trap within the band gap, and that the development of the complexes is facilitated by Sn doping through increased vacancy concentration. These findings provide new insight on this emerging material's unique response to the incorporation of impurities that can critically influence their properties

Ray and wave chaos in asymmetric resonant optical cavities

Optical resonators are essential components of lasers and other wavelength-sensitive optical devices. A resonator is characterized by a set of modes, each with a resonant frequency omega and resonance width Delta omega=1/tau, where tau is the lifetime of a photon in the mode. In a cylindrical or spherical dielectric resonator, extremely long-lived resonances are due to `whispering gallery' modes in which light circulates around the perimeter trapped by total internal reflection. These resonators emit light isotropically. Recently, a new category of asymmetric resonant cavities (ARCs) has been proposed in which substantial shape deformation leads to partially chaotic ray dynamics. This has been predicted to give rise to a universal, frequency-independent broadening of the whispering-gallery resonances, and highly anisotropic emission. Here we present solutions of the wave equation for ARCs which confirm many aspects of the earlier ray-optics model, but also reveal interesting frequency-dependent effects characteristic of quantum chaos. For small deformations the lifetime is controlled by evanescent leakage, the optical analogue of quantum tunneling. We find that the lifetime is much shortened by a process known as `chaos-assisted tunneling'. In contrast, for large deformations (~10%) some resonances are found to have longer lifetimes than predicted by the ray chaos model due to `dynamical localization'.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX with 7 Postscript figure

Detection, occurrence, and fate of emerging contaminants in agricultural environments (2019)

A review of 82 papers published in 2018 is presented. The topics ranged from detailed descriptions of analytical methods, to fate and occurrence studies, to ecological effects and sampling techniques for a wide variety of emerging contaminants likely to occur in agricultural environments. New methods and studies on veterinary pharmaceuticals, microplastics, and engineered nanomaterials in agricultural environments continue to expand our knowledge base on the occurrence and potential impacts of these compounds. This review is divided into the following sections: Introduction, Analytical Methods, Fate and Occurrence, Pharmaceutical Metabolites, Anthelmintics, Microplastics, and Engineered Nanomaterials

Strategies used as spectroscopy of financial markets reveal new stylized facts

We propose a new set of stylized facts quantifying the structure of financial markets. The key idea is to study the combined structure of both investment strategies and prices in order to open a qualitatively new level of understanding of financial and economic markets. We study the detailed order flow on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange of China for the whole year of 2003. This enormous dataset allows us to compare (i) a closed national market (A-shares) with an international market (B-shares), (ii) individuals and institutions and (iii) real investors to random strategies with respect to timing that share otherwise all other characteristics. We find that more trading results in smaller net return due to trading frictions. We unveiled quantitative power laws with non-trivial exponents, that quantify the deterioration of performance with frequency and with holding period of the strategies used by investors. Random strategies are found to perform much better than real ones, both for winners and losers. Surprising large arbitrage opportunities exist, especially when using zero-intelligence strategies. This is a diagnostic of possible inefficiencies of these financial markets.Comment: 13 pages including 5 figures and 1 tabl