Managing urban areas for insect pollinators: As town and cities continue to grow how can land managers help insect pollinators in urban areas?

Insect pollinators are essential for food production and wild flower reproduction yet these important insects are declining in the UK and in other regions of the world. Multiple pressures including land use change, disease, climate change and agrochemicals affect pollinator populations and the services they provide. This has resulted in declining species richness in wild pollinator populations and local declines in abundance. Urban areas make up 9% of the land area in the UK and are growing. With the majority of the UK population living in urban areas there is huge pressure in these landscapes for plants and animals, including pollinators, to coexist. Therefore it is important that we manage our towns and cities favourably for insect pollinators

An introduction to architecture and building traditions: Lessons from ethno-architects

This paper offers an introduction and overview of the papers presented to the ADDITIONS conference under the theme "Architecture + Building Traditions". These papers are specifically oriented toward scholars of Pacific rim Indigenous cultures and their vernacular building traditions, in order that a debate might arise regarding the human values of these traditions and what they represent by way of contrast to Western constructs of architecture. A general sub-theme running through this collection of papers is how a theoretical framework of "architecture" might be configured, which would serve as a cross-cultural tool to understanding the nature of constructed and composed environments used as human habitats across all cultural contexts. An extension of this question would be why the Western concept of "architecture" has so far not achieved such a unifying position, at times excluding non-Western and Indigenous building traditions. This new construct of architecture cannot be dominated by period aesthetics or popular Eurocentric philosophies, but must be useful for both theoretical and practical application to the settlements of the non-European and Indigenous cultures of the world, as well as to Western environments

The Effect of Music-Assisted Progressive Muscle Relaxation on the Self-Reported Symptoms of Women with Primary Dysmenorrhoea

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of music-assisted progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) on the self-reported symptom scores of women suffering from primary dysmenorrhoea. Twenty-four women with a mean age of 22.7 years participated in the study and were evenly divided in three groups: a control group (n=8), a PMR only group (n=8), and a PMR with music group (n=8). After completing the modified Shortened Premenstrual Assessment Form (SPAF), which was used both as both a determinate of eligibility in the study and as a pretest, participants completed the SPAF for the first three days of their menstrual cycle. Participants in the PMR-only group completed a PMR exercise in their home for the first three days of their period prior to completing the modified SPAF. Participants in the PMR with music group completed a music-assisted PMR exercise in their home for the first three days of their period prior to completing the modified SPAF. Results of the study indicated no significant reduction of symptoms among the PMR with music group in comparison with the other conditions. Further research is warranted, with a suggested larger and more diverse sample, as well as a more structured environment for the completion of the PMR exercises

REFINEMENT OF INNOVATIVE WATERMELON GRAFTING METHODS WITH APPROPRIATE CHOICE OF DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE, ROOTSTOCK TYPE, AND ROOT TREATMENT TO INCREASE GRAFTING SUCCESS

ABSTRACT Watermelon grafting methods used in Europe and Asia vary, but are based on efficiency, skill and needs. China mainly practices the whole insertion grafting method, whereas, Europe and Japan employ the one cotyledon (splice/slant–cut) grafting method. These methods are not suitable for grafting production in the U.S. due to the labor intensive and high labor cost necessary to successfully produce grafted transplants. This thesis introduced a modified grafting technique called the “Cotyledon Devoid Method” and in three experiments determined; 1) the rootstock leaf number stage (RLNS) at which the greatest grafting success is achieved; 2) the relationship between total soluble carbohydrates in rootstock hypocotyl seedlings and grafting success; and 3) the effects of root excision performed after grafting but prior to healing on grafting success and hypocotyl carbohydrate depletion. Grafting was performed on ten plants in five replications using four different rootstocks: Lagenaria siceraria ‘Emphasis’, Citrullus lanatus var. citroides ‘Ojakkyo’, Cucurbita moschata x Cucurbita maxima ‘Strong Tosa’, and Citrullus lanatus var. lanatus ‘Tri–X 313’. All scion material was Citrullus lanatus var. lanatus ‘Tri–X 313’. Rootstocks and scion material were developed in synchrony to the appearance of the first (9–15 days), second (13–18 days), and third (19–24 days) leaf number stage. Aerial measurements were taken on both the rootstocks and scion material before grafting. Both rootstock cotyledons were removed at time of grafting to eliminate any potential rootstock regeneration. Furthermore, roots were excised from the hypocotyl of one set of grafted seedlings to reduce the need to maintain an active root system during healing which allowed the hypocotyl energy reserves to be conserved to initially heal the graft union and then generate new roots (Excision treatment). Grafts were randomly placed inside a healing chamber for 7 days and evaluated 14 days later for grafting success. The second and third experiments were designed to analyze total soluble carbohydrates accumulated in the rootstock plant tissues before and after grafting at each of the three RLNS with and without roots present. Plants were carefully dissected on the day of grafting and 7 days after grafting to measure individual plant organs including root, hypocotyl, cotyledon, and leaf or scion hypocotyl, scion cotyledon, and scion leaf area. All individual plant organs measurements consisted of ten plants per samples replicated five times. Carbohydrates were extracted using the methanol–chloroform–water method. The carbohydrate concentrations were determined using the phenol sulfuric acid assay and read by the micro plate spectrophotometer. Measured samples for carbohydrate analysis consisted of a subsample taken from ten plants ground samples replicated five times. Each ten–plant sub sample was determined by the mean of two read replications on the micro plate with the coefficient of variation values generally less than 10. Grafting success increased with each increase in RLNS. Aerial dimensions taken before grafting revealed that the rootstock hypocotyl diameter, length, and area increased from the first to the third RLNS and were related to grafting success. Total carbohydrate measurements taken from each rootstock hypocotyl organ before grafting increased from the first to the third RLNS suggesting a relationship between grafting success and hypocotyl carbohydrates. The overall carbohydrate concentration remained the same among RLNS, but the increase in dry weight from the first to the third RLNS accounted for the vast increase in total carbohydrates per hypocotyl and thereby increased grafting success. Rootstock hypocotyl total carbohydrates greatly decreased when roots were left intact versus excised, indicating root excision can be employed to conserve hypocotyl carbohydrate to encourage healing which is also essential for mechanical grafting. Excising the rootstock root prior to healing but after grafting did not decrease grafting success at the second or third RLNS on three of the rootstocks tested. The “Cotyledon Devoid Method” provides a successful option that may have potential to reduce grafting cost by successfully removing rootstock regeneration; however, precise seed germination and seedling development guidelines must be followed in order to achieve acceptable grafting success

ON GENERATING CULTURALLY SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISES AND DEMAND-RESPONSIVE SERVICES IN REMOTE ABORIGINAL SETTINGS: A CASE STUDY FROM NORTH-WEST QUEENSLAND

The catalyst for this paper was the continuation of poor national outcomes in Aboriginal employment and quality of lifestyle, despite 35 years of sustained gover-nment service delivery. The persistence of Aboriginal identities and cultures, albeit in transformed states, is a dominant continuity despite the pulses and shifts of policies. Nevertheless, debate has recently embraced whether Aboriginal people can participate in the market economy and yet still retain traditional culture (Sarra 2009), and whether retention of traditional culture has contributed inadvertently to community dysfunction (Altman 2009;Sutton 2009). The paper explores a case study of remote Aboriginal cultural and socioeconomic empowerment situated within the fields of both mainstream economy and service delivery in the Myuma Group. From the research, there is a range of significant good-practice strategies and methods underpinning Myuma’s success. In historical order, the first was the use of a native title claim from which to obtain an initial set of economic assets (infra structure, contracts). A second strategy was an inclusive (rather than exclusive) approach to spreading the enterprise benefits created by a small Indjilandji extended family group to a regional bloc of multiple language groups and to other beneficiaries in the wider community. This enabled the Myuma Group to project itself as a benefactor for the regional Aboriginal population (not simply as a nepotistic family-based firm) an image that was essential to attract strong government support and local and regional legitimacy

The robustness and restoration of a network of ecological networks

Understanding species' interactions and the robustness of interaction networks to species loss is essential to understand the effects of species' declines and extinctions. In most studies, different types of networks (such as food webs, parasitoid webs, seed dispersal networks, and pollination networks) have been studied separately. We sampled such multiple networks simultaneously in an agroecosystem. We show that the networks varied in their robustness; networks including pollinators appeared to be particularly fragile. We show that, overall, networks did not strongly covary in their robustness, which suggests that ecological restoration (for example, through agri-environment schemes) benefitting one functional group will not inevitably benefit others. Some individual plant species were disproportionately well linked to many other species. This type of information can be used in restoration management, because it identifies the plant taxa that can potentially lead to disproportionate gains in biodiversity