Avon Park Air Force Range project: distribution and abundance of sensitive wildlife species at Avone Park Force Range

Executive Summary. We surveyed for seven species ofsensitve wildlife (Florida gopher frogs, gopher tortoise, eastern indigo snake, eastern diamondback rattlesnake, Florida mouse, Florida roundtail muskrat, Sherman's fox squirrel) between October 1996 and May 1998 at Avon Park Air Force Range (APR). The presence of 87 other species ofamphibians, reptiles, and mammals also were detected. Selected species ofbirds were noted, particularly if they were found dead on APR roads. We recorded nine new county records ofamphibians and reptiles from Polk and Highlands counties, based on range maps presented in Ashton and Ashton (1981, 1985, 1988). We discuss a biogeographic model based on the vertebrates recorded from APR, the Lake Wales Ridge, and the low dune region along SR 64 to explain some of the distributional anomalies associated with the Bombing Range Ridge and vicinity. (199 page document

"I Know My Clay": Some Musical Afterlives of Hamlet's Gravedigger

Robert Scarlett, a gravedigger at Peterborough Cathedral who died aged 98 in 1594, is commended in an epitaph on the building’s west wall for having “interd two Queenes within this place”: those royal bodies belonging respectively to Katherine of Aragon and Mary Queen of Scots. But along with figures of high significance, Scarlett – across a career of near-mythic length – was also said to have dug graves for so many ordinary Peterborians that their numbers constituted “his townes hovse holders in his lives space / Twice over.” As “probably the only sexton in any age to be found in the Dictionary of National Biography,” (Dixon 1997, 23), Scarlett has probably inspired a certain tendency towards exaggeration (he seems unlikely, for instance, to have physically buried Queen Mary at age 90), but he nonetheless emerges from his public epitaph and from George Dixon’s historical pamphlet as a singularly vivid figure through whom to consider the cultural image of the gravedigger in sixteenth-century England

BNew Developments in the Australian Labour Market in 2006

2006 generally represented a solid year in terms of macroeconomic performance and labour market indicators, even under the threat of increasing inflation and interest rates. However, some favourable aggregate labour market indicators disguised major disparities at disaggregated regional, sectoral or demographic levels. The major development in the labour market was the implementation and operation of the WorkChoices legislation which will shape the industrial relations landscape in Australia for many years to come. This article presents an analysis of the performance of the macroeconomy and labour market, and reviews the developments of the WorkChoices legislation.economic performance; industrial relations legislation; labour market; WorkChoices

Structural and electrostatic effects at the surfaces of size- and charge-selected aqueous nanodrops.

The effects of ion charge, polarity and size on the surface morphology of size-selected aqueous nanodrops containing a single ion and up to 550 water molecules are investigated with infrared photodissociation (IRPD) spectroscopy and theory. IRPD spectra of M(H2O) n where M = La3+, Ca2+, Na+, Li+, I-, SO42- and supporting molecular dynamics simulations indicate that strong interactions between multiply charged ions and water molecules can disrupt optimal hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) at the nanodrop surface. The IRPD spectra also reveal that "free" OH stretching frequencies of surface-bound water molecules are highly sensitive to the ion's identity and the OH bond's local H-bond environment. The measured frequency shifts are qualitatively reproduced by a computationally inexpensive point-charge model that shows the frequency shifts are consistent with a Stark shift from the ion's electric field. For multiply charged cations, pronounced Stark shifting is observed for clusters containing ∼100 or fewer water molecules. This is attributed to ion-induced solvent patterning that extends to the nanodrop surface, and serves as a spectroscopic signature for a cation's ability to influence the H-bond network of water located remotely from the ion. The Stark shifts measured for the larger nanodrops are extrapolated to infinite dilution to obtain the free OH stretching frequency of a surface-bound water molecule at the bulk air-water interface (3696.5-3701.0 cm-1), well within the relatively wide range of values obtained from SFG measurements. These cluster measurements also indicate that surface curvature effects can influence the free OH stretching frequency, and that even nanodrops without an ion have a surface potential that depends on cluster size

Elm Farm Organic Research Centre December 2006

The Organic Research Centre. Elm Farm Research Centre Bulletin with Technical Updates from The Organic Advisory Service is a regular publication from The Organic Research Centre. The current issue covers: Report from 2006 Cirencester Conference; Quest for more home produced organic food; in a world where bread matters; Improving wheat with plenty of parents; Unlocking the secrets of the ancient (cereal varieties); Brain food- a good read; Not to late to protect the future: The organic role; Bumper Oat yields- Tradis trials top ten tonnes; Multiage flocks- a viable solution to wheigh variability; Letters