Pathways to apprenticeships and traineeships for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

Western Australia is experiencing a substantial shortage of skilled labour. The State Government is committed to increasing participation in the workforce across the board, through schemes such as the Plans 4 Jobs, especially because of the current severe skills shortage in the economy. The State Government is also committed, through the four principles of civic values, fairness, equality, and participation enshrined in the WA Charter of Multiculturalism, to promoting the full participation of all groups in all aspects of our community – social, economic, and civil – and to removing any systemic barriers to full participation. This commitment is also embodied in the multi‐departmental Policy Framework for Substantive Equality. Aside from equity, denying equal opportunity also engenders resentment and hostility within our community, diminishes human value, and denies the state the full benefits of all its members’ talents. The cost of discrimination accrues to those who are denied opportunity and to the society which tolerates discrimination. Members of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) communities in this state, in particular those from new and emerging communities, do not currently participate in apprenticeships and traineeships in significant numbers; this is regrettable and it is recommended that measures be taken to remedy this. The Western Australian Department of Education and Training (DET) commissioned this report to investigate barriers to apprenticeships and traineeships confronting people from CaLD backgrounds, and to recommend strategies to improve their participation in apprenticeships and traineeships. The project was undertaken by the Australian Academy of Race Relations (AARR) at Murdoch University, for DET, during the period July – November 2005. DET has many good programmes to promote apprenticeships and traineeships, including to members of CaLD communities. However, the array and complexity of these can be daunting, resulting in a lack of awareness of all the programmes available

Determining the superconducting gap structure in Sr2RuO4 from sound attenuation studies below Tc

This work presents a quantitative theoretical study of the sound attenuation in the unconventional multiband superconductor Sr2RuO4 below the superconducting transition temperature Tc. Sound attenuation in this material is shown to have the remarkable property of being able to identify different nodal structures on different bands. The nodal structures on the \gamma band on the one hand, and on the \alpha and \beta bands on the other, are both found to be characterized by the existence of point nodes, but are significantly different in their quantitative aspects.Comment: 7 pages, REVTe

Role of Spontaneous Emission in Ultracold Two-Color Optical Collisions

We have observed violet photon emission resulting from energy-pooling collisions between ultracold Rb atoms illuminated by two colors of near-resonant infrared laser light. We have used this emission as a probe of doubly excited state ultracold collision dynamics. By varying the detuning of the lasers, we have clearly identified the effect of spontaneous emission on the collision process

Short-Chained Oligo(Ethylene Oxide)-Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles: Realization Of Significant Protein Resistance

Protein corona formed on nanomaterial surfaces play an important role in the bioavailability and cellular uptake of nanomaterials. Modification of surfaces with oligoethylene glycols (OEG) are a common way to improve the resistivity of nanomaterials to protein adsorption. Short-chain ethylene oxide (EO) oligomers have been shown to improve the protein resistance of planar Au surfaces. We describe the application of these EO oligomers for improved protein resistance of 30 nm spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Functionalized AuNPs were characterized using UV-Vis spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and zeta potential measurements. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) was used for separation and quantitation of AuNPs and AuNP-protein mixtures. Specifically, nonequilibrium capillary electrophoresis of equilibrium mixtures (NECEEM) was employed for the determination of equilibrium and rate constants for binding between citrate-stabilized AuNPs and two model proteins, lysozyme and fibrinogen. Semi-quantitative CE analysis was carried out for mixtures of EO-functionalized AuNPs and proteins, and results demonstrated a 2.5-fold to 10-fold increase in protein binding resistance to lysozyme depending on the AuNP surface functionalization and a 15-fold increase in protein binding resistance to fibrinogen for both EO oligomers examined in this study

Respiration of aged soil carbon during fall in permafrost peatlands enhanced by active layer deepening following wildfire but limited following thermokarst

Permafrost peatlands store globally significant amounts of soil organic carbon (SOC) that may be vulnerable to climate change. Permafrost thaw exposes deeper, older SOC to microbial activity, but SOC vulnerability to mineralization and release as carbon dioxide is likely influenced by the soil environmental conditions that follow thaw. Permafrost thaw in peat plateaus, the dominant type of permafrost peatlands in North America, occurs both through deepening of the active layer and through thermokarst. Active layer deepening exposes aged SOC to predominately oxic conditions, while thermokarst is associated with complete permafrost thaw which leads to ground subsidence, inundation and soil anoxic conditions. Thermokarst often follows active layer deepening, and wildfire is an important trigger of this sequence. We compared the mineralization rate of aged SOC at an intact peat plateau (∼70 cm oxic active layer), a burned peat plateau (∼120 cm oxic active layer), and a thermokarst bog (∼550 cm anoxic peat profile) by measuring respired 14C-CO2. Measurements were done in fall when surface temperatures were near-freezing while deeper soil temperatures were still close to their seasonal maxima. Aged SOC (1600 yrs BP) contributed 22.1 ± 11.3% and 3.5 ± 3.1% to soil respiration in the burned and intact peat plateau, respectively, indicating a fivefold higher rate of aged SOC mineralization in the burned than intact peat plateau (0.15 ± 0.07 versus 0.03 ± 0.03 g CO2-C m−2 d−1). None or minimal contribution of aged SOC to soil respiration was detected within the thermokarst bog, regardless of whether thaw had occurred decades or centuries ago. While more data from other sites and seasons are required, our study provides strong evidence of substantially increased respiration of aged SOC from burned peat plateaus with deepened active layer, while also suggesting inhibition of aged SOC respiration under anoxic conditions in thermokarst bogs

The Origin of Anomalous Low-Temperature Downturns in the Thermal Conductivity of Cuprates

We show that the anomalous decrease in the thermal conductivity of cuprates below 300 mK, as has been observed recently in several cuprate materials including Pr$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_{7-\delta}$ in the field-induced normal state, is due to the thermal decoupling of phonons and electrons in the sample. Upon lowering the temperature, the phonon-electron heat transfer rate decreases and, as a result, a heat current bottleneck develops between the phonons, which can in some cases be primarily responsible for heating the sample, and the electrons. The contribution that the electrons make to the total low-$T$ heat current is thus limited by the phonon-electron heat transfer rate, and falls rapidly with decreasing temperature, resulting in the apparent low-$T$ downturn of the thermal conductivity. We obtain the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the low-$T$ thermal conductivity in the presence of phonon-electron thermal decoupling and find good agreement with the data in both the normal and superconducting states.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

The Ising-Kondo lattice with transverse field: an f-moment Hamiltonian for URu2Si2?

We study the phase diagram of the Ising-Kondo lattice with transverse magnetic field as a possible model for the weak-moment heavy-fermion compound URu2Si2, in terms of two low-lying f singlets in which the uranium moment is coupled by on-site exchange to the conduction electron spins. In the mean-field approximation for an extended range of parameters, we show that the conduction electron magnetization responds logarithmically to f-moment formation, that the ordered moment in the antiferromagnetic state is anomalously small, and that the Neel temperature is of the order observed. The model gives a qualitatively correct temperature-dependence, but not magnitude, of the specific heat. The majority of the specific heat jump at the Neel temperature arises from the formation of a spin gap in the conduction electron spectrum. We also discuss the single-impurity version of the model and speculate on ways to increase the specific heat coefficient. In the limits of small bandwidth and of small Ising-Kondo coupling, we find that the model corresponds to anisotropic Heisenberg and Hubbard models respectively.Comment: 20 pages RevTeX including 5 figures (1 in LaTeX, 4 in uuencoded EPS), Received by Phys. Rev. B 19 April 199

Coarse-graining the dynamics of coupled oscillators

We present an equation-free computational approach to the study of the coarse-grained dynamics of {\it finite} assemblies of {\it non-identical} coupled oscillators at and near full synchronization. We use coarse-grained observables which account for the (rapidly developing) correlations between phase angles and oscillator natural frequencies. Exploiting short bursts of appropriately initialized detailed simulations, we circumvent the derivation of closures for the long-term dynamics of the assembly statistics.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let