Fixing Australia’s incredible defence policy

Australia’s new government must make tough decisions in defence policy. Australia’s broad national interests and the challenging strategic environment in Indo-Pacific Asia make it essential to modernise the Australian Defence Force. The nation’s defence capabilities remain underfunded and its strategic edge in the region is eroding. The gap between the nation’s interests and capabilities is widening, and it is getting harder to meet the demands of the US alliance. Australia’s new government needs to restore focus and funding to defence.Key findings: The Australian government will need a first-principles review to identify the military strategy and force structure required to protect and advance the nation’s interests. The Australian government must increase defence funding in order to modernise the Australian Defence Force\u27s capabilities. Otherwise it will need to make drastic cuts to planned defence capability. The government must also think deeply about the role of the US alliance in Australia\u27s security, and take the initiative in shaping that alliance in Australia’s interests

Fast Simulation of Gaussian-Mode Scattering for Precision Interferometry

Understanding how laser light scatters from realistic mirror surfaces is crucial for the design, com- missioning and operation of precision interferometers, such as the current and next generation of gravitational-wave detectors. Numerical simulations are indispensable tools for this task but their utility can in practice be limited by the computational cost of describing the scattering process. In this paper we present an efficient method to significantly reduce the computational cost of optical simulations that incorporate scattering. This is accomplished by constructing a near optimal representation of the complex, multi-parameter 2D overlap integrals that describe the scattering process (referred to as a reduced order quadrature). We demonstrate our technique by simulating a near-unstable Fabry-Perot cavity and its control signals using similar optics to those installed in one of the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors. We show that using reduced order quadrature reduces the computational time of the numerical simulation from days to minutes (a speed-up of $\approx 2750 \times$) whilst incurring negligible errors. This significantly increases the feasibility of modelling interferometers with realistic imperfections to overcome current limits in state-of-the-art optical systems. Whilst we focus on the Hermite-Gaussian basis for describing the scattering of the optical fields, our method is generic and could be applied with any suitable basis. An implementation of this reduced order quadrature method is provided in the open source interferometer simulation software Finesse.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figure

Edge modes and non local conductance in graphene superlattices

We study the existence of edge modes in gapped Moir\'e superlattices in graphene monolayer ribbons. We find that the superlattice bands acquire finite Chern numbers, which lead to a Valley Hall Effect. The presence of dispersive edge modes is confirmed by calculations of the band structure of realistic nanoribbons using tight binding methods. These edge states are only weakly sensitive to disorder, as short-range scattering processes lead to mean free paths of the order of microns. The results explain the existence of edge currents when the chemical potential lies within the bulk superlattice gap, and offer an explanation for existing non-local resistivity measurements in graphene ribbons on boron nitride

The Individual Decision-making Process of Refugees in YOGYAKARTA

The imminent situation faced by asylum seekers is a crucial factor in understanding their decision making process. This study has adopted Bronfenbrenner's ecological model to map out the circumfix of influence affecting refugees in Yogyakarta. In particular, this study makes use of rational choice, social strain and migration theory to better understand individual choice. Through the scope of behavioural analysis, this study finds that asylum seekers arriving in Indonesia begin utilising legal avenues of refugee migration and resettlement to a third party state once their ecological setting became more stable

Spreading dynamics of an infection in a growing population

Models of front propagation like the famous FKPP equation have extensive applications across scientific disciplines e.g., in the spread of infectious diseases. A common feature of such models is the existence of a static state into which to propagate, e.g., the uninfected host population. Here, we instead model an infectious front propagating into a growing host population. The infectious agent spreads via self-similar waves whereas the amplitude of the wave of infected organisms increases exponentially. Depending on the population under consideration, wave speeds are either advanced or retarded compared to the non-growing case. We identify a novel selection mechanism in which the shape of the infectious wave controls the speeds of the various waves and we propose experiments with bacteria and bacterial viruses to test our predictions. Our work reveals the complex interplay between population growth and front propagation.Comment: Main text: 6 pages, 2 figures Supplementary material: 8 pages, 3 figure

Why did the animal turn? Time‐varying step selection analysis for inference between observed turning‐points in high frequency data

Step selection analysis (SSA) is a fundamental technique for uncovering the drivers of animal movement decisions. Its typical use has been to view an animal as ‘selecting’ each measured location, given its current (and possibly previous) locations. Although an animal is unlikely to make decisions precisely at the times its locations are measured, if data are gathered at a relatively low frequency (every few minutes or hours) this is often the best that can be done. Nowadays, though, tracking data are increasingly gathered at very high frequencies, often ≥1 Hz, so it may be possible to exploit these data to perform more behaviourally-meaningful step selection analysis.Here, we present a technique to do this. We first use an existing algorithm to determine the turning-points in an animal's movement path. We define a ‘step’ to be a straight-line movement between successive turning-points. We then construct a generalised version of integrated SSA (iSSA), called time-varying iSSA (tiSSA), which deals with the fact that turning-points are usually irregularly spaced in time. We demonstrate the efficacy of tiSSA by application to data on both simulated animals and free-ranging goats Capra aegagrus hircus, comparing our results to those of regular iSSA with locations that are separated by a constant time-interval.Using (regular) iSSA with constant time-steps can give results that are misleading compared to using tiSSA with the actual turns made by the animals. Furthermore, tiSSA can be used to infer covariates that are dependent on the time between turns, which is not possible with regular iSSA. As an example, we show that our study animals tend to spend less time between successive turns when the ground is rockier and/or the temperature is hotter.By constructing a step selection technique that works between observed turning-points of animals, we enable step selection to be used on high-frequency movement data, which are becoming increasingly prevalent in modern biologging studies. Furthermore, since turning-points can be viewed as decisions, our method places step selection analysis on a more behaviourally-meaningful footing compared to previous techniques

The individual decision-making process of refugees in Yogyakarta

The imminent situation faced by asylum seekers is a crucial factor in understanding their decision making process. This study has adopted Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model to map out the circumfix of influence affecting refugees in Yogyakarta. In particular, this study makes use of rational choice, social strain and migration theory to better understand individual choice. Through the scope of behavioural analysis, this study finds that asylum seekers arriving in Indonesia begin utilising legal avenues of refugee migration and resettlement to a third party state once their ecological setting became more stable.

The individual decision-making process of refugees in Yogyakarta

The imminent situation faced by asylum seekers is a crucial factor in understanding their decision making process. This study has adopted Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model to map out the circumfix of influence affecting refugees in Yogyakarta. In particular, this study makes use of rational choice, social strain and migration theory to better understand individual choice. Through the scope of behavioural analysis, this study finds that asylum seekers arriving in Indonesia begin utilising legal avenues of refugee migration and resettlement to a third party state once their ecological setting became more stable.

The Efficacy of emotional and instructional support (EIS) training and consultation on Head Start teacher-child interactions

There is an increased need for quality in the field of early care and education and, teachers interactions with his or her students are the catalyst for providing and ensuring quality within early childhood environments (La Paro, Pianta, & Hamre, 2008). The study examined the effect of training and consultation on Head Start teacher and child interactions as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, also known as the CLASS. Twenty-one Head Start teachers located in Southern Nevada served as participants in the study where non-threatening and evidence based training and consultation was provided over six weeks. Trainings were provided to participants once a week where they received specific training to improve the emotional and instructional support provided to their students through teacher-child interactions. As one of the procedures of this study, participant\u27s interactions with their students were video recorded to measure implementation of what they had been taught during trainings. Consultation sessions were provided at the end of each week after training had been provided. During the consultation sessions, there were discussions regarding the participant\u27s perspective of the video recorded interaction, acknowledgment of strengths, and opportunities for support that included what the student investigator would do during subsequent weeks to assist the participant\u27s performance while working with their students. At the conclusion of training and consultation and after pre and post assessment data were collected, an additional two weeks were provided as a maintenance phase to provide additional support and measure performance. The results of this study proved promising for increasing teacher-child interactions through emotional and instructional training and consultation. With an alpha level set at .05, there were significant differences among several of the dimensions from the CLASS instrument

Sex Cord-Gonadal Stromal Tumor of the Rete Testis

A 34-year-old tetraplegic patient with suppurative epididymitis was found on follow-up examination and ultrasonography to have a testicular mass. The radical orchiectomy specimen contained an undifferentiated spindled sex cord-stromal tumor arising in the rete testis. Testicular sex cord-stromal tumors are far less common than germ cell neoplasms and are usually benign. The close relationship between sex cords and ductules of the rete testis during development provides the opportunity for these uncommon tumors to arise anatomically within the rete tesis. This undifferentiated sex cord-stromal tumor, occurring in a previously unreported location, is an example of an unusual lesion mimicking an intratesticular malignant neoplasm