Ethical Principles for the Conduct of Research in the North

Since the publication of the Ethical Principles in 1982, they have proven their worth by becoming the most widely cited and adopted among northern researchers in Canada. Since then, however, the situation in the North has changed significantly. Many First Nations, the Inuvialuit, and the Inuit have settled land claims and, in many cases, related Self-Government Agreements. Land and other regimes have altered. Researchers now find the research context shifting, often unpredictably. Communities have sometimes found themselves and their concerns disregarded by researchers. A renewed research relationship has been called for and is emerging. A new spirit of partnership between northerners and researchers is emerging in northern research. Of course, the nature of any particular partnership will depend on the specific project. The new partnership ethic, however, emphasizes the need to create meaningful relationships with the people and communities affected by research. Another change is the increasing involvement of northerners not only as subjects or passive observers of research but in all aspects of the research process. Northerners are actively involved in research from conception to reporting, from funding to licensing. For all parties to benefit fully from research partnerships, mutual understanding is critical. High quality research depends both on communities understanding the needs and concerns of researchers and on researchers understanding the needs and concerns of communities. Guidelines, or principles, are needed to provide a foundation for and to foster a mutual understanding of community and researcher needs and goals and to ensure that research is carried out with the least friction and social disruption and the most co-operation and support. The 20 principles presented here are intended to encourage the development of co-operation and mutual respect between researchers and the people of the North. They are also intended to encourage partnership between northern peoples and researchers that, in turn, will promote and enhance northern scholarship

The human side of small and medium enterprises

The limited research conducted on Human Resource Management (HRM) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) suggests that acquiring, developing, compensating and retaining employees is a major problem. A Queensland-wide study of Human Resource Management Practices in SMEs (with a sample of 431) found a surprisingly high take-up of human resource management practices. The present paper discusses this study, presents the results obtained and reflects on its implications for human resource management in SMEs

Knowledge, management and intelligent decision support for protection scheme design and application in electrical power systems

The paper describes a research project carried out inconjunction with two major UK utilities, focusing on the introduction of knowledge management and intelligent decision support to the existing protection design and application processes operated within both companies. A brief overview is provided of the generic design process, and the development of the web-based Design Engineering Knowledge Application System (DEKAS). This system incorporates intelligent case based reasoning (CBR) functionality to address the knowledge management and decision support requirements of each company's design process. The perceived key benefits of DEKAS relating to the management and utilisation of the data, information and knowledge throughout the protection design process is also discussed

Graphite core brick crack detection through automated load trace analysis

This presentation looks at graphite core brick crack detection through automated load trace analysi

A Prairie Dog Abatement Program in San Juan County, Utah

Four species of prairie dogs are native to the plains and plateaus of the western United States. The most abundant and widely distributed of these is the blacktailed prairie dog, (Cynomys ludovicianus). This species has been a frequent topic of discussion at previous Great Plains Wildlife Damage Control workshops. Black-tailed prairie dog ecology and management was the topic of a panel discussion held at the Fifth Great Plains Wildlife Damage Control Workshop, in Lincoln, Nebraska (Timm and Johnson 1982) and the theme topic at the Eighth Great Plains Wildlife Damage Control Workshop in Rapid City, South Dakota (Uresk et al. 1988). The remaining three prairie dog species, all in the white-tail group, occur in Utah. These are the white-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys leucurus) in eastern and northeastern Utah, the Zuni Or Gunnison\u27s prairie dog (C. gunnisonii) in southeastern Utah, and the Utah prairie dog (C. parvidens in southcentral Utah. Of these, the Utah prairie dog is federally recognized as a threatened species. Although the ecology of the white-tail prairie dog group has been studied, much of the information reported deals with behavioral aspects. Very few studies deal directly with population ecology (Longhurst 1944, Tileston and Lechleitner 1966, Clark 1977, Elmore et al. 1976, Menkens et al. 1988). Although aspects of white-tail group and black-tailed ecology may be similar, their life histories differ (Longhurst 1944, Tileston and Lechleitner 1966, Campbell and Clark 1981, Hoogland et al. 1988, Menkens et al. 1988). Knowledge of these differences are important in designing and implementing programs to manage the damage caused by species of the white-tail prairie dog group. The purpose of this paper therefore is twofold. First, I will review and compare the ecology of the white-tail prairie dog groups as they occur in Utah and the West to that of the black-tailed prairie dog. Secondly, I will discuss management of the damage caused by the white-tail prairie dog group in Utah through the implementation of coordinated county-wide abatement programs. This latter discussion will describe program efforts conducted in southeastern Utah\u27s San Juan County to manage damage associated with the Gunnison\u27s prairie dog

Sheep pregnancy checking by ultrasonic sound

Maurice A. Alexander, Jim Thompson, and Cynde McDonald (Department of Animal Husbandry, College of Agriculture)New 10/79/8

SEAD Virtual Archive: Building a Federation of Institutional Repositories for Long Term Data Preservation

Major research universities are grappling with their response to the deluge of scientific data emerging through research by their faculty. Many are looking to their libraries and the institutional repository as a solution. Scientific data introduces substantial challenges that the document-based institutional repository may not be suited to deal with. The Sustainable Environment - Actionable Data (SEAD) Virtual Archive specifically addresses the challenges of “long tail” scientific data. In this paper, we propose requirements, policy and architecture to support not only the preservation of scientific data today using institutional repositories, but also its rich access and use into the future

PROGARDES\u3csup\u3eTM\u3c/sup\u3e: A Legume for Tropical/Subtropical Semi-Arid Clay Soils

The range of available sown pasture legumes for the vast heavy clay soil regions of northern Australia has long been regarded as being deficient (Burt 1993; Jones and Clem 1997; Pengelly and Conway 2000). Indeed immense areas of northern Australia’s semi-arid clay soil regions have no sown pasture legume with proven adaptation and persistence through the long annual dry seasons (Gardiner and Swan 2008). The genus Desmanthus is a Mimosaceae legume containing some 24 species which are native to the Americas and range from being herbaceous to suffruticose in habit (Luckow 1993). Desmanthus is one of the very few legumes consistently observed to persist under heavy grazing on clay soils in their native environments (Pengelly and Conway 2000). Numerous accessions of Desmanthus were collected and introduced into Australia by various institutions, notably CSIRO and QDPI, over the past 50 years (Reid 1983; Pengelly and Liu 2001), as potential legumes for clay soils. After years of multi-site field evaluation of Desmanthus and other species, in 1991 QDPI released 3 Desmanthus cultivars, cvv. Marc (D. virgatus), Bayamo (D. leptophyllus) and Uman (D. pubescens), which were marketed as a blend named “Jaribu” (Cook et al. 1993). Currently, only cv. Marc is available commercially with a focus on southern subtropical Queensland markets. How-ever, Pengelly and Conway (2000) state that, owing to Marc’s low dry matter production, its contribution to animal diets and soil N is limited

Project TransmiT : Academic Review of Transmission Charging Arrangements

This report has been commissioned by the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority in support of the ‘Project TransmiT’ initiative, a review of transmission charging and associated connection arrangements. The terms of reference of this report are reproduced in Appendix 1. The objectives of Project TransmiT are to ensure that we have in place charging arrangements that facilitate the timely move to a low carbon energy sector whilst continuing to provide safe, secure, high quality network services at value for money to existing and future consumers

A computer tool to support safe isolation for maintenance

Unsafe maintenance in process plants can cause release of dangerous materials, pipe-work failure and deviations from normal operations, etc (Hale, et al., 1998). It is reported that 30% of accidents are maintenance-related and 50% of them release harmful substances (Wallace and Merritt, 2003). Therefore, it is important that systematic hazard identification is carried out and precaution is taken before maintenance work commences. A computer-aided tool is developed as part of the HAZID system (a knowledge based software system used to identify hazards by emulating conventional HAZOP study) to help the task of identifying hazards related to maintenance work. This tool focuses on safe isolation. It serves two functions. One is to suggest an isolation boundary for maintenance. Given specific equipment items to be maintained, the system will analyze the process and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) to identify the boundary that needs to be closed off for safe maintenance. The other function is to identify the potential hazards related to the isolation tasks. This paper describes in detail how this tool is developed and a case study is used to illustrate how it works