Historical geography of Yellagonga Regional Park, Western Australia

The principle aim of this study was to reconstruct the land use history of the Yellagonga Regional Park wetland landscape. Located approximately twenty kilometres north of Perth, covering about 1400 hectares, the Park lies within the North-West Corridor of the metropolitan area. This research, assisted by archival sources, demonstrates that prior to early European settlement the Yellagonga wetlands were quintessential summer hunting and gathering sites for the Nyoongar Aboriginal people. The wetlands were utilised for water, food gathering, hunting, corroborees and rituals that governed their tribal lives. Early European settlers, market gardeners, and later subdivision for urban development, have adversely transformed the Park over time. These pressures stem as a result of groundwater abstraction (bores), pollution, removal of native vegetation, invasion of weeds, stormwater drainage from residential and industrial areas, and more recently climate change, a global phenomenon. Consequently, the environmental quality of the Park has been undermined and it faces significant challenges for current and future management of its ecological and cultural values. This study offers an ecological perspective on the Park\u27s wetlands, chronologically measures the human footprint on its landscape, and maps the changes faced by the Park since the Aboriginal people\u27s sustainable ecology and guardianship was removed. Research such as this is essential to ensure that disappearing wetland landscapes such as the Yellagonga Regional Park are maintained and protected. The information from this study might be applied to other localities and environment

A comparative study of indigenous people\u27s and early European settlers\u27 usage of three Perth wetlands, Western Australia, 1829-1939

This study takes as its focus the contrasting manner in which the Nyoongar indigenous people and the early European settlers utilised three wetland environments in southwest Australia over the century between 1829 and 1939. The thesis offers both an ecological and a landscape perspective to changes in the wetlands of Herdsman Lake, Lake Joondalup and Loch McNess. The chain of interconnecting linear lakes provides some of the largest permanent sources of fresh water masses on the Swan Coastal Plain. This thesis acknowledges the importance of the wetland system to the Nyoongar indigenous people. The aim of this research is to interpret the human intervention into the wetland ecosystems by using a methodology that combines cultural landscape, historical and biophysical concepts as guiding themes. Assisted by historical maps and field observations, this study offers an ecological perspective on the wetlands, depicting changes in the human footprint on its landscape, and mapping the changes since the indigenous people’s sustainable ecology and guardianship were removed. These data can be used and compared with current information to gain insights into how and why modification to these wetlands occurred. An emphasis is on the impact of human settlement and land use on natural systems. In the colonial period wetlands were not generally viewed as visually pleasing; they were perceived as alien and hostile environments. Settlers saw the land as an economic commodity to be exploited in a money economy. Thus the effects of a sequence of occupances and their transformation of environments as traditional Aboriginal resource use gave way to early European settlement, which brought about an evolution and cultural change in the wetland ecosystems, and attitudes towards them

Multivariate prediction of cognitive performance from the sleep electroencephalogram.

Human cognitive performance is a key function whose biological foundations have been partially revealed by genetic and brain imaging studies. The sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) is tightly linked to structural and functional features of the central nervous system and serves as another promising biomarker. We used data from MrOS, a large cohort of older men and cross-validated regularized regression to link sleep EEG features to cognitive performance in cross-sectional analyses. In independent validation samples 2.5-10% of variance in cognitive performance can be accounted for by sleep EEG features, depending on the covariates used. Demographic characteristics account for more covariance between sleep EEG and cognition than health variables, and consequently reduce this association by a greater degree, but even with the strictest covariate sets a statistically significant association is present. Sigma power in NREM and beta power in REM sleep were associated with better cognitive performance, while theta power in REM sleep was associated with worse performance, with no substantial effect of coherence and other sleep EEG metrics. Our findings show that cognitive performance is associated with the sleep EEG (r = 0.283), with the strongest effect ascribed to spindle-frequency activity. This association becomes weaker after adjusting for demographic (r = 0.186) and health variables (r = 0.155), but its resilience to covariate inclusion suggest that it also partially reflects trait-like differences in cognitive ability

Multivariate prediction of cognitive performance from the sleep electroencephalogram.

Human cognitive performance is a key function whose biological foundations have been partially revealed by genetic and brain imaging studies. The sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) is tightly linked to structural and functional features of the central nervous system and serves as another promising biomarker. We used data from MrOS, a large cohort of older men and cross-validated regularized regression to link sleep EEG features to cognitive performance in cross-sectional analyses. In independent validation samples 2.5-10% of variance in cognitive performance can be accounted for by sleep EEG features, depending on the covariates used. Demographic characteristics account for more covariance between sleep EEG and cognition than health variables, and consequently reduce this association by a greater degree, but even with the strictest covariate sets a statistically significant association is present. Sigma power in NREM and beta power in REM sleep were associated with better cognitive performance, while theta power in REM sleep was associated with worse performance, with no substantial effect of coherence and other sleep EEG metrics. Our findings show that cognitive performance is associated with the sleep EEG (r = 0.283), with the strongest effect ascribed to spindle-frequency activity. This association becomes weaker after adjusting for demographic (r = 0.186) and health variables (r = 0.155), but its resilience to covariate inclusion suggest that it also partially reflects trait-like differences in cognitive ability.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe