South west Victoria 2012-2050 : are the settlements sustainable?

Over the past few decades coastal cities around the world have grown at an incredible rate. With this growth have come major challenges relating to land use planning, social relationships, economic development, bio diversity and the ecological footprint. The following paper selects three regional coastal towns (Warrnambool, Portland and Port Fairy) situated in the Australian state of Victoria, and addresses the issues of: increasing population and population density, open space requirements, residential density issues, public transport coverage, employment and employment density, a shifting economic climate, environment and climate change, water quality issues and building energy consumption with subsequent C02 emissions. Through a series of simulations the nine issues for each of the three cities will be examined from 2012 through to 2030. The goal is to highlight the current and simulated future impacts of the selected issues and propose solutions that could mitigate those impacts

Reconstructing El Niño Southern Oscillation using data from ships’ logbooks, 1815–1854. Part II: Comparisons with existing ENSO reconstructions and implications for reconstructing ENSO diversity

© 2017 The Author(s) A systematic comparison of El Niño Southern Oscillation reconstructions during the early to mid-nineteenth century is presented using a range of proxy and documentary sources. Reconstructions of the boreal winter Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) using data from ships’ logbooks presented in a companion paper are evaluated and compared to previous ENSO reconstructions. Comparisons between ENSO reconstructions and the instrumental SOI during a period of overlap (1876–1977) are made. These same proxy and documentary reconstructions are then compared to the logbook-based reconstructions, over 1815–1854. The logbook-based reconstructions compare best with a recent multi-proxy reconstruction that used signals taken from different teleconnection regions, and they have an improved agreement with multi-proxy records compared to a previous attempt to reconstruct the SOI from ships’ logbook data. The logbook-based and the multi-proxy reconstructions are found to capture El Niño events better than La Niña events, and East Pacific El Niño events better than Central Pacific El Niño events, thus suggesting a degree of bias in the historical reconstructions. These findings have important implications for future ENSO reconstructions, with a need for an increased understanding of the effects of different ENSO flavours for future reconstructions

Early-nineteenth-century southern African precipitation reconstructions from ships' logbooks

Atmospheric circulation in the oceans surrounding southern Africa plays an important role in determining its precipitation. This study uses wind information recorded in ships’ logbooks in order to statistically reconstruct summer and winter season precipitation at four southern African weather stations from 1796 to 1854. The reconstruction was obtained by first relating gridded 8° × 8° NCEP-DOE reanalysis seasonal mean wind vectors in the adjacent oceans to station precipitation. Over a 30-year calibration period (1979–2008), significant correlations between wind and precipitation at Cape Town, Mthatha and Royal National Park showed particular correspondence with those areas with the greatest concentration of logbook observations. Principal component regression was used to assess the potential of the dominant patterns of variability in the wind vectors as predictors to reconstruct precipitation. Cross-validation in the calibration period gave confidence that precipitation could be reconstructed at several stations across South Africa, meaning the regression relationships derived in the calibration period could be applied to the gridded seasonal mean logbook data to produce reconstructions of precipitation from 1796 to 1854. The reconstructions show a degree of correspondence with other regional data sets. For instance, the decade beginning in 1810 was the wettest of the period at Mthatha and Royal National Park, while the 1820s were the driest. At Cape Town, the 1820s were the wettest decade, with drier conditions observed in the 1830s. An index of west–east circulation in the summer season revealed correspondence with two documentary reconstructions of El Niño events and increased westerliness, although this did not always result in drier conditions. Attention is also drawn to the remaining 3000 yet to be digitised English East India Company logbooks which would provide a high-resolution picture of atmospheric circulation back to 1700 in the region under consideration

Maghemite-like regions at crossing of two antiphase boundaries in doped BiFeO3

We report the observation of a novel structure at the point where two antiphase boundaries cross in a doped bismuth ferrite of composition (Bi0.85Nd0.15)(Fe0.9Ti0.1)O0.3. The structure was investigated using a combination of high angle annular dark field imaging and electron energy loss spectroscopy spectrum imaging in the scanning transmission electron microscope. A three-dimensional model was constructed by combining the position and chemistry data with previous results and assuming octahedral coordination of all Fe and Ti atoms. The resulting structure shows some novel L shaped arrangements of iron columns, which are coordinated in a similar manner to FeO6 octahedra in maghemite. It is suggested that this may lead to local ferromagnetic orderings similar to those in maghemite

Modern seawater acidification: The response of foraminifera to high-CO<inf>2</inf> conditions in the Mediterranean Sea

The seas around the island of Ischia (Italy) have a lowered pH as a result of volcanic gas vents that emit carbon dioxide from the sea floor at ambient seawater temperatures. These areas of acidified seawater provide natural laboratories in which to study the long-term biological response to rising CO2 levels. Benthic foraminifera (single-celled protists) are particularly interesting as they have short life histories, are environmentally sensitive and have an excellent fossil record. Here, we examine changes in foraminiferal assemblages along pH gradients at CO2 vents on the coast of Ischia and show that the foraminiferal distribution, diversity and nature of the fauna change markedly in the living assemblages as pH decreases. © 2010 Geological Society of London

Voice parameters predict sex-specific body morphology in men and women

Studies of several mammalian species confirm that formant frequencies (vocal tract resonances) predict height and weight better than does fundamental frequency (F0, perceived as pitch) in same-sex adults due to differential anatomical constraints. However, our recent meta-analysis (Pisanski et al., 2014, Animal Behaviour, 95, 89–99) indicated that formants and F0 could explain no more than 10% and 2% of the variance in human height, respectively, controlling for sex and age. Here, we examined whether other voice parameters, many of which are affected by sex hormones, can indicate additional variance in human body size or shape, and whether these relationships differ between the sexes. Using a cross-cultural sample of 700 men and women, we examined relationships among 19 voice parameters (minimum–maximum F0, mean F0, F0 variability, formant-based vocal tract length estimates, shimmer, jitter, harmonics-to-noise ratio) and eight indices of body size or shape (height, weight, body mass index, hip, waist and chest circumferences, waist-to-hip ratio, chest-to-hip ratio). Our results confirm that formant measures explain the most variance in heights and weights of men and women, whereas shimmer, jitter and harmonics-to-noise ratio do not indicate height, weight or body mass index in either sex. In contrast, these perturbation and noise parameters, in addition to F0 range and variability, explained more variance in body shape than did formants or mean F0, particularly among men. Shimmer or jitter explained the most variance in men's hip circumferences (12%) and chest-to-hip ratios (6%), whereas harmonics-to-noise ratio and formants explained the most variance in women's waist-to-hip ratios (11%), and significantly more than in men's waist-to-hip ratios. Our study represents the most comprehensive analysis of vocal indicators of human body size to date and offers a foundation for future research examining the hormonal mechanisms of voice production in humans and perceptual playback experiments

Impaired nodule function in Medicago polymorpha L. infected with alfalfa mosaic virus

The effects of alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV) on growth, nodule formation and nodule function in the annual burr medic, Medicago polymorpha cv. Circle Valley, were investigated in glasshouse pot experiments. Systemically‐infected plants from AMV‐infected seed produced 21% less shoot dry weight and accumulated 24% less fixed nitrogen in shoots than healthy plants when harvested 53 d after germination. At day 75, infected plants showed similar shoot dry weight losses (22%), but the quantity of nitrogen fixed fell by only 15%. At day 53, soluble sugar, starch and bacteroid concentrations in nodules were unaffected by AMV infection, but nitrogenase specific activity was decreased by 25% and soluble amino acids by 20%. Although AMV infection resulted in no differences in the number of nodules formed in the first 11 d after germination or at any harvest thereafter, nodule mass was decreased by 23% for virus‐infected plants at day 53. However this difference disappeared by day 75. Growth of AMV‐infected plants was decreased probably because of impaired N2 fixation with nodule function affected rather than nodulation. Increased nodule mass relative to plant weight in virus‐infected plants, seen at day 75, implied some degree of compensation for the limitation in N2‐fixing capacity. ELISAs for AMV antigen indicated that nodules were active sites of virus multiplication

Antarctic station-based seasonal pressure reconstructions since 1905: 2. Variability and trends during the twentieth century

The Antarctic seasonal station-based pressure reconstructions evaluated in our companion paper are evaluated here to provide additional knowledge on Antarctic pressure variability during the twentieth century. In the period from 1905 to 1956, we find that the Hadley Centre gridded sea level pressure data set compared the best with our reconstructions, perhaps due to similar methods to estimate pressure without direct observations. The primary focus on the twentieth century Antarctic pressure variability was in summer and winter, as these were the seasons with the highest reconstruction skill. In summer, there is considerable interannual variability that was spatially uniform across all of Antarctica. Notable high pressure anomalies were found in the summers of 1911/1912 and 1925/1926; both summers correspond to negative phases of the Southern Annular Mode as well as El Niño events in the tropical Pacific. In addition, negative summer pressure trends during the last ~40 years across all of Antarctica are unique in the context of 30 year trends throughout the entire twentieth century, suggesting a strong component of anthropogenic forcing on the recent summer trends. In contrast, mean winter pressure is less variable from year to year during the early twentieth century, and there is less similarity between the pressure variations along the Antarctic Peninsula compared to the rest of the continent. No significant pressure trends were found consistently across all Antarctica (although some significant regional trends can be identified), and low-frequency, multidecadal-scale variability appears to dominate the historical pressure variations in this season

Antarctic Station Based Seasonal Pressure Reconstructions Since 1905, Part 1: Reconstruction Evaluation

Seasonal mean Antarctic pressures at 17 stations are reconstructed based on the method of principal component regression, employing midlatitude pressure data as predictors. Several reconstruction methods were performed in order to assess the stability and reliability of the reconstructions obtained, including performing the reconstructions over a shorter 30 year window and withholding the remaining data for an independent validation. Generally, there were small differences between the various approaches, but typically reconstructions conducted on data with the trends still present and over the full period of observations achieved the highest skill. Seasonally, reconstruction skill was high in austral summer across the entire Antarctic continent. Reconstructions that employed gridded pressure data over oceans as well as the observations (here termed “pseudoreconstructions”) also performed remarkably well in austral winter. Spatially, the reconstruction skill was highest near the Antarctic Peninsula in all seasons, and weakest in coastal East Antarctica and the Antarctic Interior during austral spring and autumn; the spatial variability of the skill in part reflects the distance to the nearest midlatitude predictor. Nonetheless, for nearly all seasons and locations the observed trends since 1957 were well captured by the reconstructions, as was the low-frequency decadal-scale variability. These results suggest Antarctic pressure observations can be extended throughout the twentieth century with high confidence, especially in summer, allowing for a more precise understanding of the role and magnitude of natural atmospheric circulation variability across Antarctica