Review of Australian land use mapping and land management practice

Land use information plays a vital role in effective management of natural resources in any country. The land use and land cover mapping is always a dynamic issue in every country because of the changing nature of the land use. Australia is experiencing similar traits. Knowledge of land use change patterns has important implications for sustainable development and sustainable environmental management. It helps in the management of water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals and provides relationship between land use dynamics and economics and social condition in urban and regional area. Although Australia has a long history of land use mapping and land management practice, no systematic study of the land use mapping status and land management practice can be confirmed. With the establishment of the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on the Environment in June 1972, later known as the Australian Advisory Committee on the Environment, the Australian government gave prime importance to land use and the environment. The committee recommended to the government that “Land use is fundamental to any consideration of the environment.” The committee also found an urgent need for an efficient, co-ordinated, and comprehensive system of national and state land use planning. Subsequently, many organizations and institutions like BRS, ACLUMP, CSIRO, QDERM, and DPI started on land cover/land use mapping from national to catchment level and many Land Care groups began working on land management the local level. This study reviews the status of the land use mapping and land management practices as implemented in Australi

Congenital absence of the vermiform appendix: a rare but important entity

Although Congenital abnormalities of the vermiform appendix are rare it would stand surgeons in good stead to be familiar with these potentially perplexing entities. Absence of the vermiform appendix was found in a patient who underwent appendicular exploration. The rarity of the condition, its clinically perplexing potential and possible medicolegal implications have prompted this case report

Mitigating man-in-the-middle attacks on mobile devices by blocking insecure http traffic without using vpn

Mobile devices are constantly connected to the Internet, making countless connections with remote services. Unfortunately, many of these connections are in cleartext, visible to third-parties while in transit. This is insecure and opens up the possibility for man-in-the-middle attacks. While there is little control over what kind of connection running apps can make, this paper presents a solution in blocking insecure HTTP packets from leaving the device. Specifically, the proposed solution works on the device, without the need to tunnel packets to a remote VPN server, and without special privileges such as root access. Speed tests were performed to quantify how much network speed is being impacted while filtering. To investigate how blocking HTTP traffic can affect day-to-day usage, common tasks were put to the tests, tasks such as browsing, searching, emailing, instant messaging, social networking, consuming streaming content, and gaming. The results from the tests are interesting, websites that do not support HTTPS were exposed, apps that do not fully support HTTPS were also being uncovered. One surprisingly, and arguably pleasant, side effect was discovered – the filtering solution blocks out advertisements in all of the games being tested, hence contributing to an improved gaming experience

Use of Electrocautery to Facilitate Suture Passage Through the Greater Trochanter of the Femur: A Biomechanical Study

Introduction. The specific aims of this study were to evaluate (1) the axial force reduction of suture passage utilizing electrocautery when applied to hip abductor repair, (2) the temperature change caused while using electrocautery for suture passage, and (3) the failure loads and failure modes utilizing this technique. Methods. Five matched pairs of fresh-frozen femurs were used and classified into with electrocautery on needle (study group) and without electrocautery on needle (control group). Two bicortical osseous tunnels were made around the insertion of the gluteus medius tendon. Each specimen was sequentially tested in a needle penetration test and a single load-to-failure test. A No. 5 Ethibond suture with a straight needle was used. Results. Electrocautery reduced the peak axial force for bone penetration in 40% (near cortex) and 70% (far cortex) of the trials, and no significant difference was detected between groups or between two osseous tunnels. The average peak force was significantly higher for the far cortex for both groups and for both osseous tunnels compared to the near cortex. There was no significant change in temperature of the tunnel site with electrocautery. 90% of the samples experienced bone tunnel failure for the study group compared to 70% in the control group. The average ultimate failure load for the study group was lower compared with the control group, but this finding was not statistically significant (range: 6%-15%). Conclusions. Suture passage using electrocautery does not significantly decrease the peak force needed to pass a needle directly through the greater trochanter