Anarchism, communism and hispanidad: Australian Spanish migrants and the Civil War

Despite thorough analysis of the Civil War, its impact on Spain's emigrant communities remains largely unstudied. The article focuses on the Australian Spanish community to demonstrate that migrants experienced a two-fold response. They were galvanised to oppose Anglo-Australian control of the Solidarity campaign, and attempted to create an alternative public discourse. Secondly, the Civil War prompted the community to reassess their relationship to politics, dividing local Spaniards according to radical ideologies, as they debated how best to achieve socialist goals in both Spain and Australia

The future of history: towards a meaningful measurement of student learning in regional universities

Regional universities are in a transitional period in which student engagement and learning are re-evaluated. In an effort to maintain course quality, the Australian government introduced the 'Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency', which is tasked with measuring students' acquisition of 'Graduate Attributes and Skills'. This task has particular implications for regional universities, where courses have higher proportions of cross-faculty and cross-programmatic enrolments because of economies of scale and budgetary constraints. This paper focuses on the acquisition of 'Graduate Attributes and Skills' in the Arts Faculty of the regional University of Southern Queensland. The paper suggests different learning expectations of 'Graduate Attributes and Skills' amongst students enrolled in history courses. It points to the implications for these differences in learning outcomes, and the particular pertinence of this given the new framework for measuring learning and teaching in Australian universities

Issues in the design of switched linear systems : a benchmark study

In this paper we present a tutorial overview of some of the issues that arise in the design of switched linear control systems. Particular emphasis is given to issues relating to stability and control system realisation. A benchmark regulation problem is then presented. This problem is most naturally solved by means of a switched control design. The challenge to the community is to design a control system that meets the required performance specifications and permits the application of rigorous analysis techniques. A simple design solution is presented and the limitations of currently available analysis techniques are illustrated with reference to this example

The Effects of the Food Reserve Agency on Maize Market Prices in Zambia

This policy synthesis estimates the effects of the Zambia Food Reserve Agency’s (FRA) activities on maize market prices in the country. The FRA, a government parastatal strategic food reserve/maize marketing board, buys maize at a pan-territorial price that typically exceeds wholesale market prices in major maize producing areas. It then exports the maize or sells it domestically at prices determined by tender, at auction, or administratively. In deficit production years, the Agency often imports maize and sells it to select large-scale millers at below-market prices.Zambia, Maize, Food Security, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty,

Using Whole-Group Metabolic Rate and Behaviour to Assess the Energetics of Courtship in Red-Sided Garter Snakes

Reproductive effort is an important aspect of life history as reproductive success is arguably the most important component of fitness. Males tend to compete for access to females and, in the process, expend their energetic capital on mate searching, maleemale competition and courtship rather than directly on offspring. Red-sided garter snakes, Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis, are an exceptional model for studying energetic costs of courtship and mating as they fast during the spring mating season, which segregates the cost of energy acquisition from the cost of courtship and mating. However, measuring an individual male\u27s metabolic rate during courtship is complicated by the fact that male courtship behaviour in redsided garter snakes is dependent on both the detection of a female sexual attractiveness pheromone and on facilitated courtship (i.e. vigorous courtship is only exhibited in the presence of other males). Thus, traditional techniques of placing a mask over the head of individuals would prevent male courtship behaviour, and single animals placed in a flow-through chamber would not yield ecologically realistic levels of courtship, which are only seen in the context of a mating aggregation in this species. Because of these difficulties, we placed groups of males in a flow-through metabolic chamber together with a single female whose respiratory gases were vented outside the chamber to yield a whole-group metabolic rate during competitive courtship. We also measured the standard metabolic rates (SMR) of the males individually for comparison with active metabolic rates. Conservative estimates of peak group metabolic rates during courtship are 10e20 times higher than resting group metabolic rate, which was 1.88 times higher than SMR. These measurements, coupled with the fact that these males are aphagous during the breeding, indicates that costs of courtship may be high for males and has implications for the male mating tactics in this system