For Your Eyes-Only: United States Internet Privacy Laws Play Catch-Up With The European Union Data Directive

Global electronic commerce, driven by the development of the Internet, promises to be a key engine of growth in this century.  One of the most contentious issues facing businesses today is the ownership and use of personal data.  Europe has taken the lead in this area with a comprehensive approach, the European Union Data Directive, that became effective in 1998.  This paper compares the European Union approach to Internet privacy with that of the United States.  In comparing the two, the paper includes a brief discussion of current legislation under both approaches and also discusses critical issues in the debate for Internet privacy, including state-directed legislation vs. self-regulation, corporate privacy statements, and the opt-in versus opt-out approaches to consumer protection.  The paper offers perspectives on whether the United States will adopt new Internet privacy legislation, and on the feasibility and repercussions of maintaining the current approach

The Behaviour of Feral Pigs in North-West New South Wales and its Implications for the Epidemiology of Foot and Mouth Disease

A population of feral pigs was monitored by radio-telemetry at at Nocoleche Nature Reserve, in the semi-arid rangelands of north-west New South Wales, Australia to see how high temperature and spatio-temporal variability in food supply influenced habitat utilisation, home-range size, hourly distance moved and adult body weight. Radio-telemetry data was collected during seven intensive tracking sessions between November 1991 and July 1993. This period covered a period of drought and subsequent good seasons following heavy rains in late 1992. Food supply was indexed by estimating pasture biomass in four distinct habitats. These habitats were shrubland, riverine woodland, woodland and ephemeral swamp. Shelter from high temperatures was indexed by the amount of cover estimated from Daubenmire Cover Scale estimates for each habitat. Riverine woodland had the most cover ephemeral swamps the least cover and shrubland and woodland intermediate cover. Habitat utilisation was significantly influenced by pasture biomass in the shrubland and high temperature. Use of shrubland increased with increasing pasture biomass in shrubland and decreasing temperature. Use of riverine woodland increased with decreasing pasture biomass in woodland and increasing temperature. Use of woodland increased with decreasing pasture biomass in shrubland. Use of ephemeral swamps increased with decreasing temperature. Habitat utilisation by feral pigs therefore responds to changes in pasture biomass in shrubland while also responding to temperature with habitats with more cover used more during hot weather

Booderee National Park Management: Connecting science and management

A 10-year science-management partnership has focussed on three key issues within Booderee National Park in eastern Australia: the impacts of fire on native biota, the response of vertebrates to feral animal control and the control of Bitou Bush. What ha

Measured UV Exposures of Ironman, Sprint and Olympic-Distance Triathlon Competitors

Triathletes present an extreme case of modelled behaviour in outdoor sport that favours enhanced exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation. This research presents personal solar ultraviolet exposures, measured using all-weather polysulphone film dosimeters, to triathletes during the distinct swimming, cycling and running stages of competitive Sprint, Olympic and Ironman events conducted within Australia and New Zealand. Measurements of exposure are made for each triathlon stage using film dosimeters fixed at a single site to the headwear of competing triathletes. Exposures are expressed relative to the local ambient and as absolute calibrated erythemally effective values across a total of eight triathlon courses (two Ironman, one half Ironman, one Olympic-distance, and four Sprint events). Competitor exposure results during training are also presented. Exposures range from between 0.2 to 6.8 SED/h (SED: standard erythema dose) depending upon the time of year, the local time of each event and cloud conditions. Cycle stage exposures can exceed 20 SED and represent the highest exposure fraction of any triathlon (average = 32%). The next highest stage exposure occurred during the swim (average = 28%), followed by the run (average = 26%). During an Ironman, personal competitor exposures exceed 30 SED, making triathlon a sporting discipline with potentially the highest personal ultraviolet exposure risk

Real-Time Beamforming Using High-Speed FPGAs at the Allen Telescope Array

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO) is a wide‐field panchromatic radio telescope currently consisting of 42 offset‐Gregorian antennas each with a 6 m aperture, with plans to expand the array to 350 antennas. Through unique back‐end hardware, the ATA performs real‐time wideband beamforming with independent subarray capabilities and customizable beam shaping. The beamformers enable science observations requiring the full gain of the array, time domain (nonintegrated) output, and interference excision or orthogonal beamsets. In this paper we report on the design of this beamformer, including architecture and experimental results. Furthermore, we address some practical considerations in large‐N wideband beamformers implemented on field programmable gate array platforms, including device utilization, methods of calibration and control, and interchip synchronization