Regional economic impacts of a plant disease incursion using a general equilibrium approach

The present study uses a dynamic multiregional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to estimate the micro- andmacroeconomic effects of a hypothetical disease or pest outbreak. Our example is a Karnal bunt incursion in wheat in Western Australia. The extent of the incursion, the impact of the disease or pest on plant yields, the response of buyers, the costs of eradication and the time path of the scenario contribute to outcomes at the industry, regional, state and national levels. We decompose the contribution of these individual direct effects to the overall impact of the incursion. This might provide some guidance regarding areas for priority in attempting to eradicate or minimise the impacts of a disease or pest. The study also introduces a theory of dynamic regional labour adjustment in which economic events may lead to both real wage differentials and worker migration between regions.Crop Production/Industries,

Parametric optimization for terabit perpendicular recording

The design of media for ultrahigh-density perpendicular recording is discussed in depth. Analytical and semianalytical models are developed to determine the constraints upon the media to fulfill requirements of writability and thermal stability, and the effect of intergranular exchange coupling is examined. The role of vector fields during the write process is examined, and it is shown that one-dimensional models of perpendicular recording have significant deficiencies. A micromagnetic model is described and the results of simulations of recording undertaken with the model are presented. The paper demonstrates that there is no physical reason why perpendicular recording should not be possible at or above 1 Tb/in(2)

A Study of Ovarian Activity in the Pregnant Woman

Abstract Not Provided

"The distant pandemonium of the sun": the novels of Cormac McCarthy

Chapter One: (pp. 1 -87) Landscape, Society and the Individual in Cormac McCarthy's Novels This chapter considers the incursion of a form of Emersonian transcendentalism in the earlier Southern novels. The second part focuses on the Western novels and includes discussion of the relationship between man and nature and the influence of the ideologies which underpin both nationalism and Manifest Destiny. The gradual conflation of landscape and text in the western novels, the increasing internalisation of landscape and the tendency towards erasure that threatens to subsume/ absorb the traveller/ narrator, are also addressed. Chapter Two: (pp. 88 - 147) A Consideration of Corpses: Literary and Cinematic Autopsy in Cormac McCarthy's Prose The second chapter examines the various narratorial strategies employed by McCarthy, focusing on the image of the corpse in his first three novels. The influence of Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Joyce on McCarthy's narrative strategy and the role of the 'author' in his work are considered in the introduction. In The Orchard Keeper, the position of the reader as 'spectator' is examined and finds that the anamorphosis of the narrative style mimics cinematographic changes in perspective and point of view. The voice of a sadistic and misogynist narrator is addressed with reference to Child of God, which also draws on feminist theories of voyeurism and scopophilia. The relationship between the author and the 'spectator/ reader' is related to classic films (Hitchcock's Psycho and Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, for example) and issue of identification practices and specular relations are discussed with reference to film theory. The depiction of 'death hilarious' in Outer Dark compares McCarthy's conflation of horror and humour with both the earlier prose of Flannery O'Connor and contemporary cinema

Barley yellow dwarf virus in cereals

Worldwide, barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) is the most widespread and damaging virus disease of cereals. It infects wheat, barley, oats and grasses and is transmitted by several aphid species. The virus is not seed-borne and to persist from one growing season to the next it must survive in over-summering grasses. Barley yellow dwarf virus decreases grain yield and also causes shrivelled grain. Yield loss is greatest from infection early in the growing season

Efficacy and suitability of liquid ethyl formate for insect pest management

The Australian agricultural industry is critical to the nation’s economy. However, it is under significant threat from insect pests that damage crops both pre- and post-harvest. As a result, quarantine/biosecurity treatments in the form of fumigations form the vanguard of Australia’s defence against insect pests, both established and threatening to establish. The brown marmorated stink bug, an invasive pest yet to establish in Australia stands to cause enormous financial damage to multiple crops, an example being this thesis’ estimated cost over $300 million worth of damage to Australian wine grape production alone should poor biosecurity allow its establishment. Currently employed biosecurity treatments such as heat treatment, methyl bromide and sulfuryl fluoride are flawed when it comes to this pest. This has prompted evaluation of the organic and food-grade compound ethyl formate. Ethyl formate trials found that Probit 9 could be achieved in low temperatures against tolerant diapausing brown marmorated stink bug at 23.51 mg/L. It was then important to evaluate the potential of ethyl formate to protect one of Australia’s most valuable agricultural exports, grain. Currently the export grains value chain relies on phosphine to meet federally mandate nil-tolerance for live insects, but this future of this fumigant is threatened by resistance development. The simulated grain silo bioassay found that grain sorption of the fumigant did not prevent ethyl formate from effectively controlling adult stored grain insect pests. Finally, it was important to evaluate the potential inter-reaction between ethyl formate and representative materials / products encountered in biosecurity treatments. Results from this evaluation found no deleterious effects on the integrity and function of various plastics and metals. In conclusion, ethyl formate was shown to be a safe, reliable and effective fumigant with a range of applications, and needs to be considered as potential mainstay biosecurity treatment for both import and exports

ACFM above a hemispherical pit in an aluminum block

Much of the recent research at the NDE Centre at UCL has revolved round the study of the scattering of thin skin electromagnetic fields by a fatigue crack. The early work concentrated on the perturbations to the surface electric field (ACPD), while the more recent work involved the scattered magnetic field (ACFM). The Centre has recently become involved in a collaborative project, a part of which involves the detection and sizing of pits in mild steels using ACFM and other inspection techniques, and the purpose of this paper is to study the complementary problem of pit detection in non-magnetic conductors. The case of a hemispherical pit was initially chosen on grounds of simplicity, since the modeling work can be done in spherical polar coordinates, whereas the more general case of a spherical cap would require the use of bipolar coordinates. As was the case with most of the fatigue crack modeling, it was assumed initially that the unperturbed magnetic field was uniform