Where's the government on domestic violence?

A year ago today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged his government would treat the battle against domestic violence as a matter of national security. A year on, new threats have taken centre stage. The scourge of domestic violence remains, but it is disappearing from policies designed to keep Australians safeAs a policy area, domestic violence doesn't come with big guns blazing (quite literally) as foreign threats to our national security do. But there is equivalence in the damage wrought. And history holds important lessons in how government approaches can be reimagined

Structural impacts of farm program payment limitation

Cover title."11/82/1M."Includes bibliographical references (page [31])

High order splitting methods for SDEs satisfying a commutativity condition

In this paper, we introduce a new simple approach to developing and establishing the convergence of splitting methods for a large class of stochastic differential equations (SDEs), including additive, diagonal and scalar noise types. The central idea is to view the splitting method as a replacement of the driving signal of an SDE, namely Brownian motion and time, with a piecewise linear path that yields a sequence of ODEs − which can be discretised to produce a numerical scheme. This new way of understanding splitting methods is inspired by, but does not use, rough path theory. We show that when the driving piecewise linear path matches certain iterated stochastic integrals of Brownian motion, then a high order splitting method can be obtained. We propose a general proof methodology for establishing the strong convergence of these approximations that is akin to the general framework of Milstein and Tretyakov. That is, once local error estimates are obtained for the splitting method, then a global rate of convergence follows. This approach can then be readily applied in future research on SDE splitting methods. By incorporating recently developed approximations for iterated integrals of Brownian motion into these piecewise linear paths, we propose several high order splitting methods for SDEs satisfying a certain commutativity condition. In our experiments, which include the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model and additive noise SDEs (noisy anharmonic oscillator, stochastic FitzHugh-Nagumo model, underdamped Langevin dynamics), the new splitting methods exhibit convergence rates of O(h^{3/2}) and outperform schemes previously proposed in the literature

Detoxification and stress response genes expressed in a western North American bumble bee, Bombus huntii (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

BACKGROUND: The Hunt bumble bee (Bombus huntii Greene, Hymenoptera: Apidae) is a holometabolous, social insect important as a pollinator in natural and agricultural ecosystems in western North America. Bumble bees spend a significant amount of time foraging on a wide variety of flowering plants, and this activity exposes them to both plant toxins and pesticides, posing a threat to individual and colony survival. Little is known about what detoxification pathways are active in bumble bees, how the expression of detoxification genes changes across life stages, or how the number of detoxification genes expressed in B. huntii compares to other insects. RESULTS: We found B. huntii expressed at least 584 genes associated with detoxification and stress responses. The expression levels of some of these genes, such as those encoding the cytochrome P450s, glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) and glycosidases, vary among different life stages to a greater extent than do other genes. We also found that the number of P450s, GSTs and esterase genes expressed by B. huntii is similar to the number of these genes found in the genomes of other bees, namely Bombus terrestris, Bombus impatiens, Apis mellifera and Megachile rotundata, but many fewer than are found in the fly Drosophila melanogaster. CONCLUSIONS: Bombus huntii has transcripts for a large number of detoxification and stress related proteins, including oxidation and reduction enzymes, conjugation enzymes, hydrolytic enzymes, ABC transporters, cadherins, and heat shock proteins. The diversity of genes expressed within some detoxification pathways varies among the life stages and castes, and we typically identified more genes in the adult females than in larvae, pupae, or adult males, for most pathways. Meanwhile, we found the numbers of detoxification and stress genes expressed by B. huntii to be more similar to other bees than to the fruit fly. The low number of detoxification genes, first noted in the honey bee, appears to be a common phenomenon among bees, and perhaps results from their symbiotic relationship with plants. Many flowering plants benefit from pollinators, and thus offer these insects rewards (such as nectar) rather than defensive plant toxins

Foraging Economics of the Hunt Bumble Bee, a Viable Pollinator for Commercial Agriculture

Globally, there are only five bumble bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae, Bombus) species that have been successfully commercialized for agriculture. The Hunt bumble bee, Bombus huntii Green, 1860, has been recognized as a suitable pollinator of crops and has a broad distribution in western North America, making it a viable candidate for commercialization. In this study, our goal was to characterize the foraging dynamics of B. huntii female workers under open field conditions. To accomplish this goal, we monitored three B. huntii colonies over an 8-wk period in the summer of 2012 in northern Utah. Using marked bees, we studied the relationship between foraging duration/offloading and pollen/nonvisible pollen collection. In total, we observed 921 foraging events across all three colonies. Of our observations, 82% (n = 756) were foraging events that included both a departure and arrival time observation. Average duration of pollen and nonpollen (i.e., nectar) trips across foragers is 41.86 ± 5.65 min (±SE) and 32.18 ± 5.89 min, respectively. Workers spent a significantly longer time offloading pollen in the nest after a foraging trip relative to workers without pollen present on their corbicula. Pollen foraging rate increases over the course of the day, likely due to the time it takes to learn how to forage on a diverse array of flower morphologies. Our study provides data on how long it takes for B. huntii to forage in open field conditions and will be useful when comparing foraging rates in controlled crop systems

The effect of photobleaching on bee (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) setae color and its implications for studying aging and behavior

Historically, bee age has been estimated using measurements of wing wear and integument color change.  These measurements have been useful in studies of foraging ecology and plant-pollinator interactions.  Wing wear is speculated to be affected by the behaviors associated with foraging, nesting, and mating activities.  Setal color change may be an additional parameter used to measure bee age if it is affected by sun exposure during these same activities.  The objectives of this study were to experimentally assess the effect of direct sun exposure on setal color, unicellular hair-like processes of the integument, and determine whether wing wear and integument photobleaching are correlated.  To quantify photobleaching of setae, we measured changes in hue of lab-reared Bombus huntii Greene (Apidae) exposed to natural sunlight.  We found that sun exposure was a significant variable in determining setal bleaching.  To assess the relationship between wing wear and setal photobleaching, we scored wing wear and measured setal hue of B. huntii, Melecta pacifica fulvida Cresson (Apidae), and Osmia integra Cresson (Megachilidae) from museum specimens.  Wing wear and setal hue values were positively correlated for all three species; however, the strength of the relationship varies across bee species as indicated by correlation coefficient estimates.  Our results suggest that setal color change is affected by sun exposure, and is likely an accurate estimate of bee age.  We suggest that future investigations of bee aging consider a suite of morphometric characteristics due to differences in natural history and sociobiology that may be confounded by the use of a single characteristic

Anomalous conductance oscillations and half-metallicity in atomic Ag-O chains

Using spin density functional theory we study the electronic and magnetic properties of atomically thin, suspended chains containing silver and oxygen atoms in an alternating sequence. Chains longer than 4 atoms develop a half-metallic ground state implying fully spin polarized charge carriers. The conductances of the chains exhibit weak even-odd oscillations around an anomalously low value of 0.1G_0 (G_0 = 2e^2h) which coincide with the averaged experimental conductance in the long chain limit. The unusual conductance properties are explained in terms of a resonating-chain model which takes the reflection probability and phase-shift of a single bulk-chain interface as the only input. The model also explains the conductance oscillations for other metallic chains.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Bumble Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Foraging Distance and Colony Density Associated With a Late-Season Mass Flowering Crop

Foraging behaviors of bumble bee workers have been examined in natural habitats, whereas agricultural landscapes, which can provide insights on flight distances to fragmented patches of bloom, have received limited attention. In particular, information on worker flight distances to crops blooming several months after nests have been established is invaluable. Here, we examined foraging patterns of Bombus vosnesenskii Radoszkowski in late-season blooming clover in the agricultural-dominated Willamette Valley in Oregon. Workers from 10 fields collected over 2 yr were assigned to full sibling families (colonies) by using eight microsatellite loci. With estimation of numbers of unseen species, we inferred the presence of 189 colonies from 433 bees genotyped in year 1, and 144 from 296 genotyped the next year. Worker foraging distance was estimated to be at least 11.6 km, half the distance between the most remote fields visited by the same colonies. Numbers of nests contributing workers to each field ranged from 15 to 163. Overall, 165 (50%) colonies foraged in two or more fields, and thus used common resources within the landscape. Estimates of average nest densities in the landscape each year ranged from 0.76/km² to 22.16/km², and highlighted the influences of various study parameters incorporated into the calculation including sample size, distances between sites, and analytical tools used to estimate unsampled individuals. Based on the results, bumble bees can fly long distances, and this could facilitate their survival in fragmented agricultural landscapes. This has important implications for the scale of habitat management in bumble bee conservation programs.Keywords: clover, Bombus, pollinators, microsatellitesKeywords: clover, Bombus, pollinators, microsatellite

A Nonlethal Method to Examine Non-Apis Bees for Mark-Capture Research

Studies of bee movement and activities across a landscape are important for developing an understanding of their behavior and their ability to withstand environmental stress. Recent research has shown that proteins, such as egg albumin, are effective for mass-marking bees. However, current protein mass-marking techniques require sacrificing individual bees during the data collection process. A nonlethal sampling method for protein mark-capture research is sorely needed, particularly for vulnerable, sensitive, or economically valuable species. This study describes a nonlethal sampling method, in which three non-Apis bee species (Bombus bifarius Cresson [Hymenoptera: Apidae], Osmia lignaria Say [Hymenoptera: Megachilidae], and Megachile rotundata Fabricius [Hymenoptera: Megachilidae]) were tested for a unique protein marker by immersing them momentarily in saline buffer and releasing them. Results showed that an egg albumin-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was 100% effective at detecting the protein on bees that were sampled nonlethally. Furthermore, this sampling method did not have an impact on bee survivorship, suggesting that immersing bees in buffer is a reliable and valid surrogate to traditional, destructive sampling methods for mark-capture bee studies

Comparison of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and suicide in children and young people in care and non-care populations: systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence

Suicide in children and young people is a major public health concern. However, it is unknown whether individuals who have been in the care of the child welfare system are at an elevated risk. Care is presently defined as statutory provision of in-home care (e.g. child living with birth family but in receipt of legal order involving supervision by social workers) or out-of-home care (e.g. foster care, residential care and kinship care). This present paper presents a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing the prevalence of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and suicide in children and young people placed in care with non-care populations. A systematic search was conducted of 14 electronic bibliographic databases and 32 websites. Of 2811 unique articles identified, five studies published between 2001 and 2011 met the inclusion criteria. Studies reported on 2448 incidents of suicidal ideation, 3456 attempted suicides and 250 suicides. The estimated prevalence of suicidal ideation was 24.7% in children and young people in care compared to 11.4% in non-care populations. The prevalence of suicide attempt was 3.6% compared to 0.8%. Two studies reported on suicide. Suicide risk in children and young people in care was lower in one study (0% vs 0.9%) and higher in the second (0.27% vs 0.06%). The results of the systematic review and metaanalysis confirm that suicide attempts are more than three times as likely in children and young people placed in the care compared to non-care populations. Targeted interventions to prevent or reduce suicide attempt in this population may be required. Further comparative studies are needed to establish if children and young people in care are at an elevated risk of suicidal ideation and suicide