Indigenous Workforce Participation at a Mining Operation in Northern Australia

The potential of the Australian minerals industry to generate considerable national revenue can be jeopardised in periods of economic growth by fostering a shortage of relevant educated and skilled personnel. Legal reforms of the 1990s, public pressure, and benefits by employing local Aboriginal people has driven the installation of work-integrated learning programs designed to reduce the skill shortage by increasing the employment rate of Indigenous people in the mining industry. This article reports five years of primary data to detail nationally accredited attainments and relevant job outcomes of an Indigenous education-vocation program that has delivered sustainable jobs in a substantive remote mining operation in Northern Australia. Identified barriers for applicants and vocational career choices that are framed by values and priorities held by regional Indigenous people are discussed to focus on a conclusion challenging the mining industry and the government to disclose how Indigenous training schemes are ameliorating the skills gap in the Australian mining industry

Balancing Sustainable Global Mining Business with Social Good: The Rio Tinto Alcan Venture in Northern Australia

Global mining corporations have contributed significantly to Austrlian economic development and national infrastructure, and it is touted they are one of the few organisations delivering training and employment opportunities for Indigenous people in the remote mining areas. Persistently advanced is globalisation will enable these marginalised people to substaintially reduce their socio economic disadvantage, but the evidence is they continue to have unsuitable housing, poorer health status and lesser life expectancy, while greater access to wealth is linked to substance abuse, which manifests as heightened violence, greater incarceration, and more suicides than experienced in the non Indigenous population. In this paper is reported findings from a four year study with Indigenous people, who have exercised an opportunity for engagement in an educational programme and employment in a mainstream job in a remote Australian mining operation. The results demonstrate allowing global mining corporations to operate in remote regions of Australia may lead to a resurgence of interest in Indigenous employment, but an expectation their representation in the mining workforce will increase and/or their social disadvantage will be significantly reduced is worthy of revisitation

Imparting gas selective and pressure dependent porosity into a non-porous solid: Via coordination flexibility

Using a simple hard-soft acid-base concept we have deliberately designed gas-specific and pressure dependent porosity into a non-porous solid via coordination flexibility. This creates distinct gate-openings wherein the CO2 molecule opens-up the framework pores by rotating the ligand about the weaker hard-soft bonds (hard-soft gate control). For this, we have studied the CO2 gating behaviour of M(4-PyC)2 (M = Mg, Mn and Cu), which represent metals of varying hardness. A combination of quantum chemical calculations, molecular dynamics and Grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations were performed to examine the gate opening of the isonicotinate ligands in Mg(4-PyC)2. The simulations show that interaction of the CO2 molecules with the isonicotinate ligands at different CO2 loadings can result in pressure-dependent gate opening. Furthermore, the simulated CO2 uptake values calculated using the partially gate-opened structures at different loadings showed good agreement with the experimental uptake values. This provides an effective strategy for designing highly-stable dynamic porous solids employing rigid frameworks

Spatial variability in sustainable development trajectories in South Africa:provincial level safe and just operating spaces

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represents the first globally agreed framework to address human development and environmental stewardship in an integrated way. One approach to summarising national SDG status is our “barometer for inclusive sustainable development in South Africa”. The barometer downscales global social and planetary boundaries to provide status and trends for 20 critical indicators of environmental stress and social deprivation. In this paper, we explore the sub-national heterogeneity in sustainable development indicators by creating barometers defining the ‘safe and just operating space’ for South Africa’s nine provinces. Our results show that environmental stress varies significantly and provinces need to focus on quite different issues. Although generally environmental stress is increasing, there are areas where it is decreasing, most notably, marine harvesting. Social deprivation results show more of a pattern with high levels of deprivation in employment, income and safety across the provinces, and historically disadvantaged provinces showing the most deprivation overall. Although deprivation is generally decreasing, there are notable exceptions such as food security in six provinces. Our provincial barometers and trend plots are novel in that they present comparable environmental and social data on key indicators over time for all South Africa’s provinces. They are visual tools that communicate the range of key challenges and risks that provincial governments face, and are non-specialist and accessible to a range of audiences. In addition, the paper provides a critical case study of spatial disaggregation of national data that is required for the SDGs implementation

The structure and regulation of the Irish equine industries: Links to considerations of equine welfare

The equine industries in Ireland are vibrant and growing. They are broadly classified into two sectors: Thoroughbred racing, and sports and leisure. This paper describes these sectors in terms of governance, education and training in equine welfare, and available data concerning horse numbers, identification, traceability and disposal. Animal welfare, and specifically equine welfare, has received increasing attention internationally. There is general acceptance of concepts such as animal needs and persons' responsibilities toward animals in their care, as expressed in the 'Five Freedoms'. As yet, little has been published on standards of equine welfare pertaining to Ireland, or on measures to address welfare issues here. This paper highlights the central role of horse identification and legal registration of ownership to safeguard the health and welfare of horses

Activation and inactivation of neuronal nitric oxide synthase: characterization of Ca2+-dependent [125I]Calmodulin binding

Constitutive isoforms of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) are activated by transient binding of Ca(2+)/Calmodulin. Here, we characterize the binding of Calmodulin to purified neuronal NOS (nNOS). [125I]Calmodulin bound to a single class of non-interacting and high affinity sites on nNOS. [125I]Calmodulin binding achieved rapid saturation, was linear with nNOS concentration, and exhibited a strict dependence on [Ca(2+)]. Neither affinity nor extent of [125I]Calmodulin binding was affected by L-arginine, NADPH or Tetrahydrobiopterin. Native Calmodulin and engineered Calmodulin homologs [i.e., duplicated N-terminal (CaMNN)] potently displaced [125I]Calmodulin. CaMNN supported nNOS catalysis, but required approximately five-fold more Ca(2+) for comparable activity with native Calmodulin. Taken with results from kinetic analyses of [125I]Calmodulin association and dissociation, our findings suggest four sequential steps in activation of nNOS by Calmodulin: (1) Ca(2+) binds to Calmodulin's C-lobe, (2) the C-lobe of Calmodulin binds NOS, (3) Ca(2+) binds to the N-lobe of Calmodulin, and (4) the N-lobe binds to nNOS. Activation of nNOS only occurs after completion of step (4), with the displacement of nNOS's autoinhibitory insert. Upon intracellular Ca(2+) sequestration, deactivation of nNOS would proceed in reverse order

Magnetic field dependent cycloidal rotation in pristine and Ge doped CoCr2O4

We report a soft x ray resonant magnetic scattering study of the spin configuration in multiferroic thin films of Co0.975Ge0.025Cr2O4 Ge CCO and CoCr2O4 CCO under low and high magnetic fields from 0.2 to 6.5 T. A characterization of Ge CCO at a low magnetic field was performed, and the results were compared with those of pure CCO. The ferrimagnetic phase transition temperature TC amp; 8776;95K and the multiferroic transition temperature TS amp; 8776;27K in Ge CCO are comparable with those observed in CCO. In Ge CCO, the ordering wave vector qq0 observed below TS is slightly larger compared with that of CCO, and unlike CCO, the diffraction intensity consists of two contributions that show a dissimilar x ray polarization dependence. In Ge CCO, the coercive field observed at low temperatures was larger than the one reported for CCO. In both compounds, an unexpected reversal of the spiral helicity, and therefore the electric polarization, was observed on simply magnetic field cooling. In addition, we find a change in the helicity as a function of momentum transfer in the magnetic diffraction peak of Ge CCO, indicative of the presence of multiple magnetic spiral

Low back pain status in elite and semi-elite Australian football codes: a cross-sectional survey of football (soccer), Australian rules, rugby league, rugby union and non-athletic controls

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Our understanding of the effects of football code participation on low back pain (LBP) is limited. It is unclear whether LBP is more prevalent in athletic populations or differs between levels of competition. Thus it was the aim of this study to document and compare the prevalence, intensity, quality and frequency of LBP between elite and semi-elite male Australian football code participants and a non-athletic group.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional survey of elite and semi-elite male Australian football code participants and a non-athletic group was performed. Participants completed a self-reported questionnaire incorporating the Quadruple Visual Analogue Scale (QVAS) and McGill Pain Questionnaire (short form) (MPQ-SF), along with additional questions adapted from an Australian epidemiological study. Respondents were 271 elite players (mean age 23.3, range 17–39), 360 semi-elite players (mean age 23.8, range 16–46) and 148 non-athletic controls (mean age 23.9, range 18–39).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Groups were matched for age (p = 0.42) and experienced the same age of first onset LBP (p = 0.40). A significant linear increase in LBP from the non-athletic group, to the semi-elite and elite groups for the QVAS and the MPQ-SF was evident (p < 0.001). Elite subjects were more likely to experience more frequent (daily or weekly OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.29–2.42) and severe LBP (discomforting and greater OR 1.75, 95% CI 1.29–2.38).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Foolers in Australia have significantly more severe and frequent LBP than a non-athletic group and this escalates with level of competition.</p