The story of a small trout fishery

This article relates the experience of creating and developing a fishery in southern England. The fishery was made from a small stream which dries up from time to time, and marks the boundary between a Sussex farm and a large coniferous forest. The preparation of the site and creation of the impoundment are described, and early experiences outlined. The fishery was expanded in later years, as a result of its popularity, and records of its use by anglers are illustrated. The performance of the fishery is measured in terms of "good fish" (more than 675 g) taken, and their number has increased from 81 in 1984 to 226 in 1991. The aquatic plants, invertebrates, and birds of the fishery are discussed, as are the natural predators of the fish

Service Oriented Toolkit for Research Data Management Final Report

The Service Oriented Toolkit for Research Data Management project was co-funded by the JISC Managing Research Data Programme 2011-2013 and The University of Hertfordshire. The project focused on the realisation of practical benefits for operationalising an institutional approach to good practice in RDM. The objectives of the project were to audit current best practice, develop technology demonstrators with the assistance of leading UH research groups, and then reflect these developments back into the wider internal and external research community via a toolkit of services and guidance. The overall aim was to contribute to the efficacy and quality of research data plans, and establish and cement good data management practice in line with local and national policy

The Freshwater Biological Association at Wray Castle: Recollections of its first director

In 1937 the Development Commission provided an annual grant to the Freshwater Biological Association to pay for a director and secretary. The author moved to the Lake District in the same year, and at that time T.T. Macan was working on invertebrates; K.R. Allen on fish; C.H. Mortimer on chemistry and physics of the aquatic environment, and Marie Rosenberg on phytoplankton. They were backed by George Thompson as laboratory assistant and Rosa Bullen as secretary. The work of the Association continued and expanded throughout the Second World War with some far-reached discoveries made. For example, the recovery of lake sediment cores and the examination of diatom remains, so starting the discipline of archaeo-limnology. Also, a hydrological survey of the Windermere catchment area found significant traces of sulphuric acid in rain gauges. This was more than 30 years before "acid rain" became fashionable

Emergency Funds in Australian Households: An Empirical Analysis of Capacity and Sources

This paper examines demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as predictors of emergency fund adequacy in Australian households. The results indicate that the presence of children, the number of dependents and income-earning units, the age and ethnicity of the household head, income dependency upon retirement plans and investments and government pensions and benefits, homeownership and disposable income are significant determinants of the capacity to raise emergency funds. They are also important predictors of the likely source of emergency funds. However, they are generally better at predicting mainstay sources of funds such as own savings and loans from deposit-taking institutions and credit card usage than loans from family or friends

Elaphe subocularis

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Business expectations and preferences regarding the introduction of daylight saving in Queensland

This paper examines the role of organisational, industry and regional characteristics in determining business support for the introduction of daylight saving in Queensland, Australia. The data employed is drawn from a survey of seven hundred and eight businesspersons in 2002 that assayed support for the statewide introduction of daylight saving in Queensland and an alternative policy where daylight saving would be restricted to the more urbanised southeast regions of Brisbane and/or the Gold Coast. Organisational characteristics examined include assessment of current and future business conditions, expectations of the impact of daylight saving on profits, sales, administration costs and staffing and the number of employees. Industry and region identifiers were also specified. Binary logit models are used to identify the source and magnitude of factors associated with business support for the introduction of daylight saving. The evidence provided suggests that support for the introduction of daylight saving is a function of positive expectations regarding staffing, sales and administration costs and is primarily associated with businesses providing electricity, gas, water and communications, finance and insurance and cultural and recreational services. There also appears to be strong rural and regional resistance to the introduction of daylight saving in Queensland, even among the business community.daylight saving time; organisational, industry and regional characteristics

Losing sleep at the market: An empirical note on the daylight saving anomaly in Australia

The ‘daylight saving effect’ predicts that the mean weekend return following the spring and fall/autumn changes in daylight saving time is less than the mean weekend return throughout the rest of the year. With this market anomaly, the change in market participants’ behaviour is linked with sleep desynchronosis and the change in circadian rhythm and its negative impact on sleep patterns. This study investigates the purported daylight saving effect in Australian equity market returns over the period 1979/80-2002/03 using parametric testing and regression analysis. After adjustments are made for heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation in the data, neither the transition to nor the movement from daylight saving is associated with returns that differ from other days. The results also show the absence of any significant weekend effect in the Australian equity market.Daylight saving time, daylight saving effect, weekend effect, market anomalies.

AN EMPIRICAL SURVEY OF FRONTIER EFFICIENCY MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES IN HEALTHCARE SERVICES

Healthcare institutions worldwide are increasingly the subject of analyses aimed at defining, measuring and improving organisational efficiency. However, despite the importance of efficiency measurement in healthcare services, it is only relatively recently that the more advanced econometric and mathematical frontier techniques have been applied to hospitals, nursing homes, health management organisations and physician practices. This paper attempts to provide a synoptic survey of the comparatively few empirical analyses of frontier efficiency measurement in healthcare services. Both the measurement of inefficiency in healthcare services and the determinants of healthcare efficiency are examined.data envelopment analysis; stochastic frontiers; technical, allocative and productive efficiency