Simulation of monolayer distribution for use in evaporation reduction

The use of monolayers to reduce evaporation was originally developed in 1925 (Frenkiel 1965). The major problem with using monolayers is the difficulty associated with the prediction and control of the distribution of the monolayer to the water surface. Full scale experiments are not very successful due to difficulties quantitatively measuring the evaporation resistance the monolayer provides to different areas of the water surface. A simulation of the monolayer as it disperses and degrades on the water surface can be used to predict the long term performance as well as a real time control system. The model was created in MATLAB and simulates the behaviour of the monolayer based on experimental results. The simulation selects the optimal application rate for each individual applicator based on maximising the amount of money saved by comparing the money gained from all possible permutations of applicator rates and applicator positions. The money saved has two parts, the cost associated with distributing the monolayer and the value of the water saved from evaporation. This comparison is performed for each small time step. After the optimal permutation of rates has been found, the optimal permutation of rates for the following time step is calculate

Quantifying the Effectiveness of a Mesh in Mitigating Burning Capabilities of Firebrand Shower

The broad aim of this research is to quantify the effectiveness of fences made of metal mesh around buildings in mitigating risks associated with firebrand showers created in wildland fires. This paper aims to (1) quantify the effectiveness of a mesh complying with Australian Standard 3959:2018 against firebrand showers and (2) identify behaviors of firebrands interacting with the mesh. The study was conducted using Red Gum and Cypress Pinewood firebrands inside a wind tunnel at 40 km/h with and without a mesh present for a total of 50 experiments. Two types of effectiveness were defined using the number of holes and their area burnt by the firebrand. The results show the mesh was highly effective against both large and small firebrands except for some long needle shape firebrands. The results are aligned with AS 3959:2018 and show an effectiveness ratio of the mesh in the range 93.2–98.8% for Red Gum and Cypress Pine firebrands at a wind speed of 40 km/h. It was documented that firebrands in interaction with the mesh show one or a combination of eight different mechanisms: passing, stopping, splitting, shattering, pausing, bouncing, slipping and wandering

Graphene-based Nanomaterials: Uses, Environmental Fate, and Human Health Hazards

Graphene-based materials (GBMs) possess remarkable physiochemical properties, making them promising for diverse applications in biomedicine, agriculture, food, and industrial applications. Human and environmental exposure to GBMs is increasing at an unprecedented rate, yet there is still a knowledge gap regarding the safety of GBMs. This review summarizes the physiochemical properties of GBMs and critically examines the possible effects of GBMs, both at the level of molecular mechanism and at the level of the organism. While oxidative stress-mediated cell damage has been proposed as a primary cytotoxicity mechanism for GBMs, various in vivo biodistribution and cytotoxicity mechanisms are also highlighted. This review of the literature provides an overview of the cytotoxicity of GBMs, raising concerns about their widespread application with potential hazardous consequences on the environment and in human health

Total and tropospheric ozone changes: observations and numerical modelling

A survey has been made of total and tropospheric ozone dynamics in the context of its impacts on climate, human health and ecosystems. Observation data on total ozone content (TOZ) in the atmosphere and relevant numerical modelling results have been discussed as well as similar information for tropospheric ozone, whose formation and changes are being determined by quite different causes. A necessity has been emphasized to get more adequate global observational data on TOZ and tropospheric ozone (this is especially important in the latter case, because information on tropospheric ozone is far from being complete). Unsolved problems relevant to both total and tropospheric ozone have been briefly considered

Vermont Legislators\u27 Opinions Regarding the Opioid Epidemic

Introduction • The VT General Assembly includes 180 legislators: 150 representatives and 30 senators • State legislators have substantial power to create opioid-related policies • During the 2017-18 VT legislative session 22 opioid related bills were introduced and 9 were passed • No data currently exist on how VT legislators gather information and formulate public health decisions regarding opioid policies Purpose • Examine VT legislators’ understanding of the opioid epidemic • Identify what drives legislators to draft legislation, including beliefs, priorities, and voting decisions • Inform health and human services professionals to best respond to legislators’ knowledge gaps and continuing education needshttps://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1270/thumbnail.jp

ISBS 2018 AUCKLAND CONFERENCE KIWIANA & INDUSTRY PARTNER PLAYING FIELD OPENING RECEPTION - ORDER OF PROCEEDINGS

The aim of the Kiwiana and Industry Partner Playing Field Opening Reception is to enable conference delegates to meet colleagues, make new acquaintances, learn about New Zealand (NZ) culture, experience quality NZ cuisine, and interact with new digital technology. The informative speeches (e.g. wine and food matching, cloudy bay clam research, Kiwiana research), thematic food stations (i.e. beach bach, farm, modern Kiwiana), interactive “ice-breaking” activities and competitions (e.g. jig saw building, gum boot throwing, number 8 wire sculpture, fishing), and social media photo opportunities (e.g. Kiwiana photo booth with VUTA) have been designed to help delegates achieve these goals. Native bird songs play while delegates walk into the fern and flax adorned atrium after the official opening. Delegates will receive a bubbly, beer, juice or mineral water on entry. Mr Kelly Sheerin, as the coordinator of the ISBS 2018 Conference industry partnership engagement programme, will outline the evening’s fun activities in the “Industry Playing Field” interactive events, and opportunities to win prizes. Dr Sarah-Kate Millar will provide the Karakia—blessing of the food. AUT Group Chef Matthew Farley, AUT Hospitality Services will explain the food and the Sileni wine for the evening. There are three savoury and two sweet canapés from cookbooks written by lecturers at AUT’s School of Hospitality and Tourism. Food is available from the Beach Bach, Farm, and Kiwiana themed areas. Lindsay Neill, kiwiana and Kiwi identity researcher, School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events, will outline the importance of kiwiana to New Zealand. His showcase will include the famous Buzzy Bee and findings from his latest research on kiwiana. Lindsay will highlight the uses of beetroot, tomato sauce, chocolate fish, Tip Top ice cream, and hokey pokey – regular food items for many NZers! We are really excited to showcase a special modern kiwiana food station with finger food adapted from books by AUT School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events staff. Students from the School’s culinary programmes are assisting to prepare and serve the food for your enjoyment including: Cured salmon, rice cracker, pickled ginger, spring onion; Corn fritters; Suqaar Digaag Somali chicken; White chocolate tart with chocolate cremeux and Swiss merengue; Misiluki banana pudding with Siamu Popo. Professor Lindsay White, Cloudy Bay Clams researcher, School of Applied Sciences, will outline the research behind producing Cloudy Bay Clams. His showcase will provide tastings of fresh seafood. Surf clams is the collective term for seven commercially harvested molluscs that live on almost all of NZ sandy, high wave energy beaches. They live buried in the sand, just in or behind the breaking waves. Regional small-scale studies indicate that surf clams have the potential to be NZ’s most valuable fishery resource, but a lack of scientific knowledge about these species allows only a tiny fraction of the sustainable harvest to be currently harvested. Our research to date has had a huge impact on the national fishery, more than doubling the total catch of surf clams, which equates to increases in annual export earnings of over $27 million. Based on this work, in 2013 we jointly won the Kiwi Supreme Prize for Commercialisation of Research. Tim Davison’s team will introduce the interactive virtual AUTer (VUTA). VUTA is the virtual MC for the Opening Kiwiana event alongside Kelly Sheerin as the in-the-flesh MC! Tim will explain how delegates can interact with VUTA by scanning the code in messenger. VUTA can make announcements, answer questions, display messages, greet people, and move around. Tim has been able to customise her to do just about anything. Samsung flip screens (https://displaysolutions.samsung.com/digital-signage/e-board/flip) are used for directional information and Tim’s VUTA. Thanks to Industry partner Samsung for providing the hardware to enable VUTA to come to life. Professor Len Gillman, School of Applied Sciences - Conference Sustainability—ecological responsibility, will explain the food and waste compositing, no single use plastics, and vegan options for the conference. Len and Professor Thomas Neitzert (School of Engineering) have calculated the carbon footprint for international delegates flying to NZ for the conference is 186.5 tonnes of carbon! Therefore 1.86 hectares (4.6 acres) will need to be planted to offset the conference travel. Strategies undertaken by the ISBS 2018 conference organising committee to help offset the carbon cost include the planting of native trees, promotion of recycling of bottles and compositing of food during the conference, vegan meal options, use of low energy LED lights and solar lights, minimised use of plastic products with no single-use plastic, digital posters rather than printing posters, and puffer jackets as the ‘conference bag’ as a useful reusable item. Lindsey du Preez is the AUT Sustainability Officer. Lindsey has worked with the AUT Hospitality Services team to provide initiatives that have a strong focus on sustainability for the conference. Some of the key initiatives are: This is a paperless conference and all material is digital including conference proceedings and posters; AUT is working towards eliminating ‘single use plastic’, so this is avoided wherever possible. Water will be provided in jugs with glass containers, and unpacked teabags and chocolates have been sourced directly from suppliers to reduce unnecessary packaging; Reusable cutlery and crockery will be provided to avoid unnecessary waste; Serviettes are compostable; 25% of the food provided is vegetarian and food is sourced locally wherever possible; three bin-system will be provided for rubbish, mixed recycling (plastic bottles types 1 & 2, essentially milk bottles and drink bottles, glass, cans) and organic waste; All leftover food will be composted, and every effort made to avoid over catering; Support of Fair Trade and all coffee is Fair Trade; The conference is next to a major bus terminus for easy access to public transport. The Kiwiana interactive showcase photo competition will be run by Kylie Robinson. Post the best photo of you and fellow delegates in the Kiwiana interactive showcase photo booth that includes jandals, flora (flax, punga ferns), fauna (Tui, Kiwi, geko, pukeko, kea), paua, a rugby ball, NZ sliver fern, flags, sheep, swandri, gumboots, #8 wire, L&P bottle, chocolate fish, tomato sauce bottle, buzzy bee, kiwi fruit. Thanks to AMTI for the chocolate fish. We have taken a different approach to our “sponsors” for the conference, preferring to have engaged industry partners. Industry Partners are treated like any other conference delegates in terms of registration, with an expectation that there is active engagement and preparation of a workshop, applied session or industry partner playing field event – just like a delegate would prepare an oral podium or a poster pitch and digital poster. Our industry partners have adapted to this new format with enthusiasm. We hope that delegates take up the opportunity to interact with the Industry Partner delegates, particularly in the playing field sessions where there are participatory games. Aerobe will be demonstrating their simple to use active marker technology Codamotion system to track the knee and ankle joints during a series of jump activities. Thanks to the industry partners who have participated in the industry partner programme. Platinum industry partner VICON are providing the ISBS 2018 conference puffer jackets to those who registered by the standard registration date. Vicon are also providing beverages for conference events. Diamond industry partner SILENI are providing amazing wines for all the conference events. We have a large selection from the Sileni range including Marlborough Sauvignon blanc, pinot gris, pinot noir, sparkling cuvee brut, merlot etc. Diamond industry partner SAMSUNG are providing new FLIP technology screens, 55” screens for the digital poster sessions, and the Note9 and DeX station for social media interaction and prizes. Gold industry partner ACC is supporting the Keynote panel speakers and a round table luncheon. Gold industry partner KISTLER are supporting two round table luncheons, and Olympic athletes at the AUT Millennium event. Gold industry partners QUALISYS and NORAXON are providing workshops and AUT Millennium applied sessions. Gold industry partner AMTI are supporting the chocolate box stations and the student evening at the marae. Silver industry partner FORCEDECKS are supporting the Commercialisation and Funding Monday workshop. Bronze industry partner CHANUI are providing tea and biscuits for breaks. Bronze industry partner AEROBE are supporting the Wise Wizards keynote panel. Bronze industry partner TEKSCAN are supporting the Sports Technology long table luncheon. Bronze industry partner STT Systems are supporting the fruit baskets. Bronze industry partner ASICS are providing shoes for social media prizes and a chill-out zone. Bronze industry partner SIMI are showcasing their technology at an industry booth

Multiple emergences of genetically diverse amphibian-infecting chytrids include a globalized hypervirulent recombinant lineage

Batrachochytriumdendrobatidis (Bd) is a globally ubiquitous fungal infection that has emerged to become a primary driver of amphibian biodiversity loss. Despite widespread effort to understand the emergence of this panzootic, the origins of the infection, its patterns of global spread, and principle mode of evolution remain largely unknown. Using comparative population genomics, we discovered three deeply diverged lineages of Bd associated with amphibians. Two of these lineages were found in multiple continents and are associated with known introductions by the amphibian trade.We found that isolates belonging to one clade, the global panzootic lineage (BdGPL) have emerged across at least five continents during the 20th century and are associated with the onset of epizootics in North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Australia, and Europe. The two newly identified divergent lineages, Cape lineage (BdCAPE) and Swiss lineage (BdCH), were found to differ in morphological traits when compared against one another and BdGPL, and we show that BdGPL is hypervirulent. BdGPL uniquely bears the hallmarks of genomic recombination, manifested as extensive intergenomic phylogenetic conflict and patchily distributed heterozygosity. Wepostulate that contact between previously genetically isolated allopatric populations of Bd may have allowed recombination to occur, resulting in the generation, spread, and invasion of the hypervirulent BdGPL leading to contemporary disease-driven losses in amphibian biodiversity.Peer Reviewe

Pangolins in global camera trap data: Implications for ecological monitoring

Despite being heavily exploited, pangolins (Pholidota: Manidae) have been subject to limited research, resulting in a lack of reliable population estimates and standardised survey methods for the eight extant species. Camera trapping represents a unique opportunity for broad-scale collaborative species monitoring due to its largely non-discriminatory nature, which creates considerable volumes of data on a relatively wide range of species. This has the potential to shed light on the ecology of rare, cryptic and understudied taxa, with implications for conservation decision-making. We undertook a global analysis of available pangolin data from camera trapping studies across their range in Africa and Asia. Our aims were (1) to assess the utility of existing camera trapping efforts as a method for monitoring pangolin populations, and (2) to gain insights into the distribution and ecology of pangolins. We analysed data collated from 103 camera trap surveys undertaken across 22 countries that fell within the range of seven of the eight pangolin species, which yielded more than half a million trap nights and 888 pangolin encounters. We ran occupancy analyses on three species (Sunda pangolin Manis javanica, white-bellied pangolin Phataginus tricuspis and giant pangolin Smutsia gigantea). Detection probabilities varied with forest cover and levels of human influence for P. tricuspis, but were low (<0.05) for all species. Occupancy was associated with distance from rivers for M. javanica and S. gigantea, elevation for P. tricuspis and S. gigantea, forest cover for P. tricuspis and protected area status for M. javanica and P. tricuspis. We conclude that camera traps are suitable for the detection of pangolins and large-scale assessment of their distributions. However, the trapping effort required to monitor populations at any given study site using existing methods appears prohibitively high. This may change in the future should anticipated technological and methodological advances in camera trapping facilitate greater sampling efforts and/or higher probabilities of detection. In particular, targeted camera placement for pangolins is likely to make pangolin monitoring more feasible with moderate sampling efforts

Pangolins in Global Camera Trap Data: Implications for Ecological Monitoring

Despite being heavily exploited, pangolins (Pholidota: Manidae) have been subject to limited research, resulting in a lack of reliable population estimates and standardised survey methods for the eight extant species. Camera trapping represents a unique opportunity for broad-scale collaborative species monitoring due to its largely non-discriminatory nature, which creates considerable volumes of data on a relatively wide range of species. This has the potential to shed light on the ecology of rare, cryptic and understudied taxa, with implications for conservation decision-making. We undertook a global analysis of available pangolin data from camera trapping studies across their range in Africa and Asia. Our aims were (1) to assess the utility of existing camera trapping efforts as a method for monitoring pangolin populations, and (2) to gain insights into the distribution and ecology of pangolins. We analysed data collated from 103 camera trap surveys undertaken across 22 countries that fell within the range of seven of the eight pangolin species, which yielded more than half a million trap nights and 888 pangolin encounters. We ran occupancy analyses on three species (Sunda pangolin Manis javanica, white-bellied pangolin Phataginus tricuspis and giant pangolin Smutsia gigantea). Detection probabilities varied with forest cover and levels of human influence for P. tricuspis, but were low (M. javanica and S. gigantea, elevation for P. tricuspis and S. gigantea, forest cover for P. tricuspis and protected area status for M. javanica and P. tricuspis. We conclude that camera traps are suitable for the detection of pangolins and large-scale assessment of their distributions. However, the trapping effort required to monitor populations at any given study site using existing methods appears prohibitively high. This may change in the future should anticipated technological and methodological advances in camera trapping facilitate greater sampling efforts and/or higher probabilities of detection. In particular, targeted camera placement for pangolins is likely to make pangolin monitoring more feasible with moderate sampling efforts