160 research outputs found
Tracking Onslow: a community in transition. edition 3, late 2013
When change is happening, communities talk and some tales get taller in the telling. Opinions are often based on shared stories and collectively these opinions are the community sentiment that affects the way people live and act.
This magazine was produced by a collaboration between the ECU Journalism Program and the Shire of Ashburton that set out to track the shifts in the community sentiment in Onslow over the construction phase of the Wheatstone and Macedon gas hubs. The project aims to capture the stories being told in Onslow as the town changes, regardless of their factual accuracy. Where possible we have sought to verify facts and provide balance, but we have not excluded comments by community members on the grounds that they didn\u27t check out, because if we did that, then this would not be an accurate record of what people are saying. In all cases we have been careful to correctly report what people said in our interviews.
The result is a sometimes optimistic and sometimes disgruntled reaction to the town\u27s rapid, but in some ways not rapid enough, growth spurt. We hope that you enjoy this snapshot of what was being said in Onslow in the middle of 2013 and find it interesting food for thought about the impact of major resource projects on their host communities.
There is a digital version of the magazine available on the website so you can email a link to it to your family and friends in other places. The website also has soon-to-be updated galleries showing how parts of the town have changed almost beyond recognition and video interviews with Onslow locals.
We look forward to seeing you when we come back in early 2014
Integrating WASH and nutrition in market-based interventions: principles and results from the field
This paper outlines principles for integrating market-based approaches for improving WASH and
nutrition. It draws on iDEâs experience implementing such programs, and specifically highlights
learnings from iDE Bangladeshâs program Profitable Opportunities for Food Security (PROOFS),
implemented in partnership with ICCO Cooperation, BoP Inc., and Edukans. PROOFS leverages market
forces to increase food security, nutrition, and water and sanitation for smallholder farmers and base-ofpyramid
consumers. The program recently concluded a pilot in which Nutrition Sales Agents added a set
of WASH products to their existing âbasketâ of nutrition-related goods. The paper highlights principles
for leveraging markets to achieve outcomes in WASH and nutrition. Specific insights involve aligning
sales cycles, managing different sales and distribution channels, and ensuring that product margins
provide profit opportunity for businesses and sales agents. These principles are underscored by
observations from the WASH-Nutrition pilot, the final results of which will be available for the WEDC
Conference
A new method to distinguish gravitational-wave signals from detector noise transients with Gravity Spy
The Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors have enabled the confident
detection of dozens of mergers of black holes and neutron stars. However, the
presence of detector noise transients (glitches) hinders the search for these
gravitational wave (GW) signals. We prototyped a restructuring of Gravity Spy's
classification model to distinguish between glitches and astrophysical signals.
Our method is able to correctly classify three-quarters of retracted candidate
events in O3b as non-astrophysical and 100\% of the confirmed astrophysical
events as true signals. This approach will inform candidate event validation
efforts in the latest observing run.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PHYSICAL REVIEW
Evolutionary bursts in Euphorbia (Euphorbiaceae) are linked with photosynthetic pathway
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109954/1/evo12534.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109954/2/evo12534-sup-0001-SuppMAT.pd
Ants Sow the Seeds of Global Diversification in Flowering Plants
Background: The extraordinary diversification of angiosperm plants in the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods has produced an
estimated 250,000â300,000 living angiosperm species and has fundamentally altered terrestrial ecosystems. Interactions
with animals as pollinators or seed dispersers have long been suspected as drivers of angiosperm diversification, yet
empirical examples remain sparse or inconclusive. Seed dispersal by ants (myrmecochory) may drive diversification as it can reduce extinction by providing selective advantages to plants and can increase speciation by enhancing geographical
isolation by extremely limited dispersal distances.
Methodology/Principal Findings: Using the most comprehensive sister-group comparison to date, we tested the hypothesis that myrmecochory leads to higher diversification rates in angiosperm plants. As predicted, diversification rates
were substantially higher in ant-dispersed plants than in their non-myrmecochorous relatives. Data from 101 angiosperm
lineages in 241 genera from all continents except Antarctica revealed that ant-dispersed lineages contained on average
more than twice as many species as did their non-myrmecochorous sister groups. Contrasts in species diversity between
sister groups demonstrated that diversification rates did not depend on seed dispersal mode in the sister group and were
higher in myrmecochorous lineages in most biogeographic regions.
Conclusions/Significance: Myrmecochory, which has evolved independently at least 100 times in angiosperms and is
estimated to be present in at least 77 families and 11 000 species, is a key evolutionary innovation and a globally important driver of plant diversity. Myrmecochory provides the best example to date for a consistent effect of any mutualism on largescale diversification
Monitoring investments in Oregon's Federal Forest Restoration Program, 2021-2023 biennium
35 pagesThe Federal Forest Restoration (FFR) Program is a joint
effort among the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF),
federal forest managers, and public lands stakeholders to
increase the pace, scale, and quality of federal forest restoration
across Oregon. The program supports management
for forest resilience on federal lands as well as economic
opportunities for surrounding communities. This working
paper provides an update on FFR Program investments and
outcomes for the 2021-2023 biennium. Reports from the
previous biennium (2019-2021) can be found elsewhere.
Here we report: 1) FFR Program expenditures, 2) economic
activity from timber sales and the FFR grant investments,
3) on-the-ground accomplishments of the FFR Program,
and 4) stakeholdersâ perspectives on the FFR Programâs
successes and challenges.Funding for this study was provided by the Oregon Department of Forestry to the University of Oregonâs Ecosystem
Workforce Program (Agreement number M0177, Task order #5)
Primary physical education:Shifting perspectives to move forwards
Physical Education is widespread across the world yet despite its cultural variation it remains remarkably similar. The ability of the subject to replicate its practices makes it a potential site for exploration from a memetic perspective. The purpose of this paper is to examine documentary evidence such as research papers, policy documents and inspection reports and offer for consideration potential memes that are at work within the memeplex of UK primary school Physical Education. Four proposals are offered as potential memes; âsport as techniquesâ, âanyone can teach itâ, âbusy, happy and goodâ and ânowhere importantâ. It is concluded that the current environment in primary schooling within the UK serves to strengthen the proposed four primary Physical Education memes by reaffirming current practices. Moving beyond these memes requires significant rethinking about what constitutes primary Physical Education
Using structured eradication feasibility assessment to prioritize the management of new and emerging invasive alien species in Europe
Prioritizing the management of invasive alien species (IAS) is of global importance and within Europe integral to the EU IAS regulation. To prioritize management effectively, the risks posed by IAS need to be assessed, but so too does the feasibility of their management. While the risk of IAS to the EU has been assessed, the feasibility of management has not. We assessed the feasibility of eradicating 60 new (not yet established) and 35 emerging (established with limited distribution) species that pose a threat to the EU, as identified by horizon scanning. The assessment was carried out by 34 experts in invasion management from across Europe, applying the NonâNative Risk Management scheme to defined invasion scenarios and eradication strategies for each species, assessing the feasibility of eradication using seven key risk management criteria. Management priorities were identified by combining scores for risk (derived from horizon scanning) and feasibility of eradication. The results show eradication feasibility score and risk score were not correlated, indicating that risk management criteria evaluate different information than risk assessment. In all, 17 new species were identified as particularly high priorities for eradication should they establish in the future, whereas 14 emerging species were identified as priorities for eradication now. A number of species considered highest priority for eradication were terrestrial vertebrates, a group that has been the focus of a number of eradication attempts in Europe. However, eradication priorities also included a diverse range of other taxa (plants, invertebrates and fish) suggesting there is scope to broaden the taxonomic range of attempted eradication in Europe. We demonstrate that broad scale structured assessments of management feasibility can help prioritize IAS for management. Such frameworks are needed to support evidenceâbased decisionâmaking
The James Webb Space Telescope Mission: Optical Telescope Element Design, Development, and Performance
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared space telescope
that has recently started its science program which will enable breakthroughs
in astrophysics and planetary science. Notably, JWST will provide the very
first observations of the earliest luminous objects in the Universe and start a
new era of exoplanet atmospheric characterization. This transformative science
is enabled by a 6.6 m telescope that is passively cooled with a 5-layer
sunshield. The primary mirror is comprised of 18 controllable, low areal
density hexagonal segments, that were aligned and phased relative to each other
in orbit using innovative image-based wavefront sensing and control algorithms.
This revolutionary telescope took more than two decades to develop with a
widely distributed team across engineering disciplines. We present an overview
of the telescope requirements, architecture, development, superb on-orbit
performance, and lessons learned. JWST successfully demonstrates a segmented
aperture space telescope and establishes a path to building even larger space
telescopes.Comment: accepted by PASP for JWST Overview Special Issue; 34 pages, 25
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