Red Men\u27s March

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Evaluation of an integrated plantation forestry and beef production system

The profitability of timber plantations and combined timber and grazing enterprises were compared to conventional grazing. Scenarios were considered at two sites (one near Kingaroy and one near Nambour) where hardwood plantation forests have been established. At each site a number of contrasting variables were considered. These were: (1) plantation rotation lengths (20, 25 and 30 years); (2) plantation establishment costs (high and low); and (3) prices paid for the timber at harvest (high and low stumpage price). A spreadsheet-based investment analysis tool was used to compare these scenarios. The marginal NPV (net present value) and marginal IRR (internal rate of return) were calculated to indicate the difference in return between the traditional land use of grazing and the introduction of plantation hardwood trees into the traditional just grazing system. Marginal internal rate of return, which is a measure of the marginal return to the extra funds invested, ranged from 0.46% under the most pessimistic option without cattle, to 10.7% under the most optimistic option with cattle, at the Kingaroy site, and from 2.8% to 13.3% under contrasting options at the Nambour site. The more profitable scenarios occurred when planted forests were coupled with cattle grazing systems. The internal rate of return and net present value were particularly sensitive to the price received for the final product when the trees are harvested. Engineered wood products may provide a future high-value option for the hardwood plantation resource and revenues from commercial thinning may be brought forward if an existing technology (i.e. spindle-less lathe technology) is taken up by industry. Expansion of hardwood plantation forests could help meet the increasing demand for hardwood products in Australia if investments in plantation forests are made. The scenarios considered here demonstrate that there is potential for profitable agroforestry systems in the two regions where plantation forests have been successfully established

Using fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) to diagnose steroid-responsive disease and guide asthma management in routine care

Acknowledgements We thank Robin Taylor for his informative thinking and publications on FeNO, which have helped to influence and direct the thinking of the authors. Funding Extraction of the real-life dataset was funded by Research in Real Life Limited, the analysis of the dataset and the writing of this manuscript were co-funded (50:50) by Research in Real Life Limited and Aerocrine.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

PTPN22 R620W minor allele is a genetic risk factor for giant cell arteritis

Published online 7 April 2016.Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is one of the commonest forms of vasculitis in the elderly, and may result in blindness and stroke. The pathogenesis of GCA is not understood, although environmental, infectious and genetic risk factors are implicated. One gene of interest is PTPN22, encoding lymphoid protein tyrosine phosphatase (Lyp), expressed exclusively in immune cells, which is proposed to be an 'archetypal non-HLA autoimmunity gene'. The minor allele of a functional PTPN22 single nucleotide polymorphism (rs2476601, R620W), which disrupts an interaction motif in the protein, was originally reported to be associated with biopsy-proven GCA in Spanish patients, with supporting data from three replicate Northern European studies. Recently, this observation was extended with additional patients and controls, and studies encompassing European, Scandinavian, UK and American patients. The aim of our study was to determine the association between PTPN22 rs2476601 (R620W) and biopsy-proven GCA in an Australian case cohort.Susan Lester, Alex W Hewitt, Carlee D Ruediger, Linda Bradbury, Elisabeth De Smit, Michael D Wiese, Rachel Black, Andrew Harrison, Graeme Jones, Geoffrey O Littlejohn, Tony R Merriman, Bain Shenstone, Malcolm D Smith, Maureen Rischmueller, Matthew A Brown, Catherine L Hil

Cardiovascular risk factors and metabolic syndrome in people with established psychotic illnesses: baseline data from the IMPaCT randomized controlled trial

The National Institute for Health Research funds the IMPaCT programme at King's College London and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (ref. RP-PG-0606-1049)

Entrance Channel X-HF (X=Cl, Br, and I) Complexes studied by High-Resolution Infrared Laser Spectroscopy in Helium Nanodroplets

Rotationally resolved infrared spectra are reported for halogen atom - HF free radical complexes formed in helium nanodroplets. An effusive pyrolysis source is used to dope helium droplets with Cl, Br and I atoms, formed by thermal dissociation of Cl$_2$, Br$_2$ and I$_2$. A single hydrogen fluoride molecule is then added to the droplets, resulting in the formation of the X-HF complexes of interest. Analysis of the resulting spectra confirms that the observed species have $^2\Pi_{3/2}$ ground electronic states, consistent with the linear hydrogen bound structures predicted from theory. Stark spectra are also reported for these species, from which the permanent electric dipole moments are determined.Comment: 41 pages, 16 figures, 5 table

Spectrophotometric Distances to Galactic H\,{\sc{ii}} Regions

We present a near infrared study of the stellar content of 35 H\,{\sc{ii}} regions in the Galactic plane. In this work, we have used the near infrared domain $J-$, $H-$ and $K_{s}-$ band color images to visually inspect the sample. Also, color-color and color-magnitude diagrams were used to indicate ionizing star candidates, as well as, the presence of young stellar objects such as classical TTauri Stars (CTTS) and massive young stellar objects (MYSOs). We have obtained {\it Spitzer} IRAC images for each region to help further characterize them. {\it Spitzer} and near infrared morphology to place each cluster in an evolutionary phase of development. {\it Spitzer} photometry was also used to classify the MYSOs. Comparison of the main sequence in color-magnitude diagrams to each observed cluster was used to infer whether or not the cluster kinematic distance is consistent with brightnesses of the stellar sources. We find qualitative agreement for a dozen of the regions, but about half the regions have near infrared photometry that suggests they may be closer than the kinematic distance. A significant fraction of these already have spectrophotometric parallaxes which support smaller distances. These discrepancies between kinematic and spectrophotometric distances are not due to the spectrophotometric methodologies, since independent non-kinematic measurements are in agreement with the spectrophotometric results. For instance, trigonometric parallaxes of star-forming regions were collected from the literature and show the same effect of smaller distances when compared to the kinematic results. In our sample of H\,{\sc{ii}} regions, most of the clusters are evident in the near infrared images. Finally, it is possible to distinguish among qualitative evolutionary stages for these objects.Comment: 59 pages, 146 figures and 4 tables. MNRAS accepte