The impact of biofuel production on the Western Australian livestock industry

The Western Australian biofuels industry is in its infancy. There is currently only one small commercial biodiesel manufacturer in the State but there have been several announcements of new biofuel projects in 2006 that will be commercialised by 2010. The projected growth of a new biofuels industry in Western Australia (WA), will create greater competition with other industries that rely on grain as an input in their enterprises. Intensive livestock industries such as beef cattle lot feeding, pig rearing, fattening lambs, growing poultry for meat and eggs and feeding dairy cows depend on a consistent supply of high quality whole or compound grain products and biofuels will create additional competition for these inputs. WA is the largest grain producer and most reliable and consistent marketer of grain in Australia. These conditions have provided a competitive advantage for Western Australian grain growers and livestock producers alike to enjoy continued growth in their respective businesses. This report identifies the opportunities and impacts of an emerging biofuels industry on the livestock feeding sectors in the State. These include: • WA produces 12.2 million tonnes of total grains per annum based on a five year average which represents 32 per cent of national grain production. • In WA, there is a large grain surplus particularly wheat, which allows opportunities such as the expansion of a biofuels industry. However the availability of high energy grains is currently restricted and a new industry such as biofuels will increase competition with the livestock industry to purchase this type of grain. • Western Australia’s livestock industry is small compared to other States in Australia. In total, all livestock sectors combined in WA utilise 0.6 million tonnes of feed grain for both energy and protein inputs in rations compared to 7.48 million tonnes in the Eastern States; Victoria (2.25 million tonnes), New South Wales (2.68 million tonnes) and Queensland (2.55 million tonnes) (Table 10). • The demand from a potential ethanol industry would create significant competition for low quality wheat on the domestic market in the absence of industrial wheat. • Western Australia’s current potential ethanol projects could deliver 740 million litres of ethanol per annum utilising 2 million tonnes of wheat. • This volume of ethanol would produce 587 000 tonnes of DDG potentially available for livestock compared to current potential inclusion in rations of 57 000 tonnes. This would mean that there would be some 525 000 tonnes surplus of DDG surplus to requirements for livestock. • Western Australia’s biodiesel projects are currently planned at approximately 200 million litres of biodiesel per annum. • If all of the canola crop was used for biodiesel, there would be over 275 000 tonnes of canola meal surplus to domestic livestock requirements. • It is unlikely that all the projected biodiesel plants will go ahead in WA due to the shortage of feedstocks, unless the biodiesel manufacturers could rely on lower priced imported palm oil. Therefore WA has a strong surplus of food quality wheat and some capacity to produce ethanol from lower quality wheat although the availability varies each year. This situation would improve significantly if new industrial wheats were bred and commercially available. There is not sufficient capacity to supply the State’s total demand for biodiesel from canola and other local feedstocks such as tallow and used cooking oil which highlights the current need for an industrial oilseed. In summary, there will be a significant surplus of co-products from the biofuels industry which will be readily and cheaply available for livestock feed. The supply of protein from dry distillers grains (DDG) will mainly benefit the ruminant livestock industry, because the variability of the amino acid profile makes it unsuitable currently as a feed source for monogastrics. However, researchers in the United States have started trialling DDG in monogastric diets, which if successful, could increase the market for DDG in WA in the future. There could also be a large surplus of canola meal which would also be a cheap protein source for the livestock industry in WA however there are limitations to inclusion rates in rations.https://researchlibrary.agric.wa.gov.au/bulletins/1226/thumbnail.jp

Constructing Nation Within States: The Quest for Federal Recognition by the Catawba and Lumbee Tribes

Creating and in some cases re-creating viable tribal political communities within the construct of modern nation-state has proven to be a troublesome task for indigenous populations worldwide. The task for indigenous governments in the United States has been further complication by federalism\u27s divisions of power between the states and the national government. Native American tribes often find themselves waging a two-front battle in which they must resist state encroachments over their lands and their inherent government authority; while at the same time they must lobby the federal government for protection of those same lands and powers. History is replete with attempts by the federal government to forcibly remove tribes from their ancestral and treaty-recognized homelands, to facilitate assimilation using acts of cultural genocide, and to sever the federal trust relationship with tribes. These often well-intentioned, but highly destructive policies have take their toll on tribes\u27 political status, economic resources, and cultural integrity. This is particularly true for many Eastern tribes, especially those in the mid-Atlantic region, that generally were not accorded federal recognition in the form of treaties and thus did not benefit from the accompanying protection of the federal trust relationship. In addition, many Eastern tribes never had reservations set aside for them, a major source of geographic security that many Western tribes have enjoyed

Summary of the First Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE1)

Challenges related to development, deployment, and maintenance of reusable software for science are becoming a growing concern. Many scientists’ research increasingly depends on the quality and availability of software upon which their works are built. To highlight some of these issues and share experiences, the First Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE1) was held in November 2013 in conjunction with the SC13 Conference. The workshop featured keynote presentations and a large number (54) of solicited extended abstracts that were grouped into three themes and presented via panels. A set of collaborative notes of the presentations and discussion was taken during the workshop. Unique perspectives were captured about issues such as comprehensive documentation, development and deployment practices, software licenses and career paths for developers. Attribution systems that account for evidence of software contribution and impact were also discussed. These include mechanisms such as Digital Object Identifiers, publication of “software papers”, and the use of online systems, for example source code repositories like GitHub. This paper summarizes the issues and shared experiences that were discussed, including cross-cutting issues and use cases. It joins a nascent literature seeking to understand what drives software work in science, and how it is impacted by the reward systems of science. These incentives can determine the extent to which developers are motivated to build software for the long-term, for the use of others, and whether to work collaboratively or separately. It also explores community building, leadership, and dynamics in relation to successful scientific software

Social Networks and Students’ Performance in Secondary Schools: Lessons from an Open Learning Centre, Kenya

Given the known positive and negative effects of uncontrolled social networking among secondary school students worldwide, it is necessary to establish the relationship between social network sites and academic performances among secondary school students. This study, therefore, aimed at establishing the relationship between secondary school students’ access to and use of social network sites at an Open Learning Centre in Kenya. The centre was located about 30km South West of Nairobi, the capital city. This site was selected because information technology was the designed mode of delivery of the courses at the school, hence, high exposure of the students to quantitative social networking among the young, knowledge and information-thirsty population. The study sought opinions of key informants, parents, teachers and policy-makers in Kenya at the school compound. In addition, it investigated the behaviour of the students to generate both quantitative and qualitative data. Findings in this study showed that secondary school students in Kenya were much more vulnerable to the adverse effects of social networks in a manner consistently and concurrently similar to that found elsewhere in the worldwide. This included conversion of academic into recreational sessions and subsequent poor academic performances among the majority of the secondary school students in Kenya. It is, therefore, necessary for the schools to vet, supervise, monitor, control, censor and restrict secondary school students’ access to available information on the SNS in Kenya to enable the students to concentrate on academic excellence. The government, on the other hand, should develop a learner-friendly policy to curb the downward spiraling of academic performances in secondary schools in Kenya attributable to uncensored access to social network sites. Key words: Social networks, secondary  students’, academic performance, social network site

Discovery of soft and hard X-ray time lags in low-mass AGNs

The scaling relations between the black hole (BH) mass and soft lag properties for both active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and BH X-ray binaries (BHXRBs) suggest the same underlying physical mechanism at work in accreting BH systems spanning a broad range of mass. However, the low-mass end of AGNs has never been explored in detail. In this work, we extend the existing scaling relations to lower-mass AGNs, which serve as anchors between the normal-mass AGNs and BHXRBs. For this purpose, we construct a sample of low-mass AGNs ($M_{\rm BH}<3\times 10^{6} M_{\rm \odot}$) from the XMM-Newton archive and measure frequency-resolved time delays between the soft (0.3-1 keV) and hard (1-4 keV) X-ray emissions. We report that the soft band lags behind the hard band emission at high frequencies $\sim[1.3-2.6]\times 10^{-3}$ Hz, which is interpreted as a sign of reverberation from the inner accretion disc in response to the direct coronal emission. At low frequencies ($\sim[3-8]\times 10^{-4}$ Hz), the hard band lags behind the soft band variations, which we explain in the context of the inward propagation of luminosity fluctuations through the corona. Assuming a lamppost geometry for the corona, we find that the X-ray source of the sample extends at an average height and radius of $\sim 10r_{\rm g}$ and $\sim 6r_{\rm g}$, respectively. Our results confirm that the scaling relations between the BH mass and soft lag amplitude/frequency derived for higher-mass AGNs can safely extrapolate to lower-mass AGNs, and the accretion process is indeed independent of the BH mass.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables, Published in MNRA

Male frequent attenders of general practice and their help seeking preferences

Background: Low rates of health service usage by men are commonly linked to masculine values and traditional male gender roles. However, not all men conform to these stereotypical notions of masculinity, with some men choosing to attend health services on a frequent basis, for a variety of different reasons. This study draws upon the accounts of male frequent attenders of the General Practitioner's (GP) surgery, examining their help-seeking preferences and their reasons for choosing services within general practice over other sources of support. Methods: The study extends thematic analysis of interview data from the Self Care in Primary Care study (SCinPC), a large scale multi-method evaluation study of a self care programme delivered to frequent attenders of general practice. Data were collected from 34 semi-structured interviews conducted with men prior to their exposure to the intervention. Results: The ages of interviewed men ranged from 16 to 72 years, and 91% of the sample (n= 31) stated that they had a current health condition. The thematic analysis exposed diverse perspectives within male help-seeking preferences and the decision-making behind men's choice of services. The study also draws attention to the large variation in men's knowledge of available health services, particularly alternatives to general practice. Furthermore, the data revealed some men's lack of confidence in existing alternatives to general practice. Conclusions: The study highlights the complex nature of male help-seeking preferences, and provides evidence that there should be no 'one size fits all' approach to male service provision. It also provides impetus for conducting further studies into this under researched area of interest. © 2011 WPMH GmbH

The 'Antiretrovirals, Sexual Transmission Risk and Attitudes' (ASTRA) study. Design, methods and participant characteristics.

Life expectancy for people diagnosed with HIV has improved dramatically however the number of new infections in the UK remains high. Understanding patterns of sexual behaviour among people living with diagnosed HIV, and the factors associated with having condom-less sex, is important for informing HIV prevention strategies and clinical care. In addition, in view of the current interest in a policy of early antiretroviral treatment (ART) for all people diagnosed with HIV in the UK, it is of particular importance to assess whether ART use is associated with increased levels of condom-less sex. In this context the ASTRA study was designed to investigate current sexual activity, and attitudes to HIV transmission risk, in a large unselected sample of HIV-infected patients under care in the UK. The study also gathered background information on demographic, socio-economic, lifestyle and disease-related characteristics, and physical and psychological symptoms, in order to identify other key factors impacting on HIV patients and the behaviours which underpin transmission. In this paper we describe the study rationale, design, methods, response rate and the demographic characteristics of the participants. People diagnosed with HIV infection attending 8 UK HIV out-patient clinics in 2011-2012 were invited to participate in the study. Those who agreed to participate completed a confidential, self-administered pen-and-paper questionnaire, and their latest CD4 count and viral load test results were recorded. During the study period, 5112 eligible patients were invited to take part in the study and 3258 completed questionnaires were obtained, representing a response rate of 64% of eligible patients. The study includes 2248 men who have sex with men (MSM), 373 heterosexual men and 637 women. Future results from ASTRA will be a key resource for understanding HIV transmission within the UK, targeting prevention efforts, and informing clinical care of individuals living with HIV