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Australia is a land of opportunity, where hard work can bring a better life. Most immigrants come to Australia to establish a new life and fulfil hopes and dreams for better life opportunities. Like many immigrants to Australia, I came to establish a new better life for myself and for family. In this paper, I share my challenges of being different, and of being black and the experiences of black Africans in Australia. The paper invites more conversations on finding ways forward to change the system that favours some and disadvantages others. It indicates the need to humanise the Other and make Australia a more inclusive and liveable multicultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Much controversy surrounds the management of Australia's unowned urban cat population. The longstanding practice of trapping and killing urban stray cats and kittens that are not reclaimed or adopted has proven ineffective at reducing their numbers. In addition, it has been shown that shelter staff tasked with the repeated killing of healthy animals often face severe mental health consequences. A growing body of scientific evidence from Australia and elsewhere indicates that a non-lethal alternative, trap-neuter-return (TNR), can be effective at reducing urban stray cat numbers. TNR has also been associated with declines in feline intake and euthanasia at animal shelters. A large-scale trial of TNR in Australia is warranted and needed urgently. An extensive yet fundamentally flawed argument against such a trial is presented in a recently published article, "A Case of Letting the Cat out of the Bag—Why Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis catus) Management," by Crawford et al. In the text that follows, we provided a rebuttal to the Crawford et al. paper and argued that TNR is an ethical, scientifically sound solution for the management of Australia's urban stray cats. The recently published article, 'A Case of Letting the Cat out of the Bag—Why Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis catus) Management,' by Crawford et al. warrants rebuttal. The case presented in the paper, opposing the initiation of TNR trials in Australia, ignores peer-reviewed evidence which substantiates the effectiveness of TNR at reducing unowned urban cat numbers. In addition, the paper's authors offer a number of unrealistic recommendations, which are little more than a rebranding of the failed status quo. Urban stray cats have long been considered a problem across Australia. Current practice calls for the trapping and killing of thousands of healthy urban stray cats and kittens each year with no apparent effect on the total population. In contrast, the literature offers numerous examples, including two recent studies in Australia, of reductions in urban stray cat numbers where TNR has been implemented. TNR has also been associated with reduced feline intake and euthanasia at shelters, which improves both animal welfare and the well-being of shelter staff. A large-scale trial of TNR in an urban Australian context is scientifically justified and long overdue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an automated active fire detection framework using Sentinel-2 imagery. The framework is made up of three basic parts including data collection and preprocessing, deep-learning-based active fire detection, and final product generation modules. The active fire detection module is developed on a specifically designed dual-domain channel-position attention (DCPA)+HRNetV2 model and a dataset with semi-manually annotated active fire samples is constructed over wildfires that commenced on the east coast of Australia and the west coast of the United States in 2019–2020 for the training process. This dataset can be used as a benchmark for other deep-learning-based algorithms to improve active fire detection accuracy. The performance of active fire detection is evaluated regarding the detection accuracy of deep-learning-based models and the processing efficiency of the whole framework. Results indicate that the DCPA and HRNetV2 combination surpasses DeepLabV3 and HRNetV2 models for active fire detection. In addition, the automated framework can deliver active fire detection results of Sentinel-2 inputs with coverage of about 12,000 km2 (including data download) in less than 6 min, where average intersections over union (IoUs) of 70.4% and 71.9% were achieved in tests over Australia and the United States, respectively. Concepts in this framework can be further applied to other remote sensing sensors with data acquisitions in SWIR-NIR-Red ranges and can serve as a powerful tool to deal with large volumes of high-resolution data used in future fire monitoring systems and as a cost-efficient resource in support of governments and fire service agencies that need timely, optimized firefighting plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen is fast becoming a new international "super fuel" to accelerate global climate change ambitions. This paper has two inter-weaving themes. Contextually, it focuses on the potential impact of the EU's new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on fossil fuel-generated as opposed to green hydrogen imports. The CBAM, as a transnational carbon adjustment mechanism, has the potential to impact international trade in energy. It seeks both a level playing field between imports and EU internal markets (subject to ambitious EU climate change policies), and to encourage emissions reduction laggards through its "carbon diplomacy". Countries without a price on carbon will be charged for embodied carbon in their supply chains when they export to the EU. Empirically, we focus on two hydrogen export/import case studies: Australia as a non-EU state with ambitions to export hydrogen, and Germany as an EU Member State reliant on energy imports. Energy security is central to energy trade debates but needs to be conceptualized beyond supply and demand economics to include geopolitics, just transitions and the impacts of border carbon taxes and EU carbon diplomacy. Accordingly, we apply and further develop a seven-dimension energy security-justice framework to the examples of brown, blue and green hydrogen export/import hydrogen operations, with varying carbon-intensity supply chains, in Australia and Germany. Applying the framework, we identify potential impact—risks and opportunities—associated with identified brown, blue and green hydrogen export/import projects in the two countries. This research contributes to the emerging fields of international hydrogen trade, supply chains, and international carbon diplomacy and develops a potentially useful seven-dimension energy security-justice framework for energy researchers and policy analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional fossil-fuel-based power systems are undergoing rapid transformation via the replacement of coal-fired generation with wind and solar farms. The stochastic and intermittent nature of such renewable sources demands alternative dispatchable technology capable of meeting system stability and reliability needs. Battery energy storage can play a crucial role in enabling the high uptake of wind and solar generation. However, battery life is very sensitive to the way battery energy storage systems (BESS) are operated. In this paper, we propose a framework to analyse battery operation in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) electricity spot and contingency reserve markets. We investigate battery operation in different states of Australia under various operating strategies. By considering battery degradation costs within the operating strategy, BESS can generate revenue from the energy market without significantly compromising battery life. Participating in contingency markets, batteries can substantially increase their revenue with almost no impact on battery health. Finally, when battery systems are introduced into highly volatile markets (such as South Australia) more aggressive cycling of batteries leads to accelerated battery aging, which may be justified by increased revenue. The findings also suggest that with falling replacement costs, the operation of battery energy systems can be adjusted, increasing immediate revenues and moving the battery end-of-life conditions closer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to evaluate the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of importing electrical power into Singapore, generated from a large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Australia, through a long-distance subsea high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable. A cost optimization model was developed to estimate the capacities of the system components. A comprehensive life cycle assessment model was built to estimate emissions of manufacturing and use of these components. Our evaluation shows that, for covering one fifth of Singapore's electrical energy needs, a system with an installed capacity of 13 G W P V , 17 GWh battery storage and 3.2 G W subsea cable is required. The life cycle GHG emissions of such a system are estimated to be 110 g CO 2 eq/ kWh , with the majority coming from the manufacturing of solar PV panels. Cable manufacturing does not contribute largely toward GHG emissions. By varying full-load hours and cable lengths, it was assessed that sites closer to Singapore might provide the same energy at same/lower carbon footprint and reduced cost, despite the lower insolation as compared to Australia. However, these sites could cause greater emissions from land use changes than the deserts of Australia, offsetting the advantages of a shorter HVDC cable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mean sea level rise is a significant emerging risk from climate change. This research paper is based on the use of artificial intelligence models to assess and predict the trend on mean sea level around northern Australian coastlines. The study uses sea-level times series from four sites (Broom, Darwin, Cape Ferguson, Rosslyn Bay) to make the prediction. Multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and artificial neural network (ANN) algorithms have been implemented to build the prediction model. Both models show high accuracy (R2 > 0.98) and low error values (RMSE < 27%) overall. The ANN model showed slightly better performance compared to MARS over the selected sites. The ANN performance was further assessed for modelling storm surges associated with cyclones. The model reproduced the surge profile with the maximum correlation coefficients ~0.99 and minimum RMS errors ~4 cm at selected validating sites. In addition, the ANN model predicted the maximum surge at Rosslyn Bay for cyclone Marcia to within 2 cm of the measured peak and the maximum surge at Broome for cyclone Narelle to within 7 cm of the measured peak. The results are comparable with a MARS model previously used in this region; however, the ANN shows better agreement with the measured peak and arrival time, although it suffers from slightly higher predictions than the observed sea level by tide gauge station. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a deep learning long-short-term memory (LSTM) method is applied to the forecasting of the critical frequency of the ionosphere F2 layer (foF2). Hourly values of foF2 from 10 ionospheric stations in China and Australia (based on availability) from 2006 to 2019 are used for training and verifying. While 2015 and 2019 are exclusive for verifying the forecasting accuracy. The inputs of the LSTM model are sequential data for the previous values, which include local time (LT), day number, solar zenith angle, the sunspot number (SSN), the daily F10.7 solar flux, geomagnetic the Ap and Kp indices, geographic coordinates, neutral winds, and the observed value of foF2 at the previous moment. To evaluate the forecasting ability of the deep learning LSTM model, two different neural network forecasting models: a back-propagation neural network (BPNN) and a genetic algorithm optimized backpropagation neural network (GABP) were established for comparative analysis. The foF2 parameters were forecasted under geomagnetic quiet and geomagnetic disturbed conditions during solar activity maximum (2015) and minimum (2019), respectively. The forecasting results of these models are compared with those of the international reference ionosphere model (IRI2016) and the measurements. The diurnal and seasonal variations of foF2 for the 4 models were compared and analyzed from 8 selected verification stations. The forecasting results reveal that the deep learning LSTM model presents the optimal performance of all models in forecasting the time series of foF2, while the IRI2016 model has the poorest forecasting performance, and the BPNN model and GABP model are between two of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sampling, sample preparation, and assay protocols aim to achieve an acceptable estimation variance, as expressed by a relatively low nugget variance compared to the sill of the variogram. With gold ore, the typical heterogeneity and low grade generally indicate that a large sample size is required, and the effectiveness of the sampling protocol merits attention. While sampling protocols can be optimised using the Theory of Sampling, this requires determination of the liberation diameter (dℓAu) of gold, which is linked to the size of the gold particles present. In practice, the liberation diameter of gold is often represented by the most influential particle size fraction, which is the coarsest size. It is important to understand the occurrence of gold particle clustering and the proportion of coarse versus fine gold. This paper presents a case study from the former high-grade Crystal Hill mine, Australia. Visible gold-bearing laminated quartz vein (LV) ore was scanned using X-ray computed micro-tomography (XCT). Gold particle size and its distribution in the context of liberation diameter and clustering was investigated. A combined mineralogical and metallurgical test programme identified a liberation diameter value of 850 µm for run of mine (ROM) ore. XCT data were integrated with field observations to define gold particle clusters, which ranged from 3–5 mm equivalent spherical diameter in ROM ore to >10 mm for very high-grade ore. For ROM ore with clusters of gold particles, a representative sample mass is estimated to be 45 kg. For very-high grade ore, this rises to 500 kg or more. An optimised grade control sampling protocol is recommended based on 11 kg panel samples taken proportionally across 0.7 m of LV, which provides 44 kg across four mine faces. An assay protocol using the PhotonAssay technique is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small Shelly Fossils (SSFs) from the Cambrian are widely distributed and well known across different paleocontinents of the world. However, middle Cambrian SSFs from North China Platform have only rarely been documented until now. In this paper, we presented the first report on SSFs from bioclastic and oolitic limestones of the Zhangxia and Hsuzhuang formations of Henan province, North China. The carbonate-hosted fauna includes brachiopods (Micromitra sp., M. modesta, Eoobolus sp., and Schizopholis sp.), helcionellids (Oelandiellaaccordionata and O. aliciae), hyolithids, Hyolithellus sp., Chancelloriaeros, sponge spicules, echinoderm ossicles, and chancelloriid sclerites. In terms of preservation, the brachiopod shell valves of M. modesta appeared to be homogeneous, consisting of tightly packed phosphate grains. Eoobolus sp. is composed of primary layer and secondary baculate, both of which consist of tightly compacted phosphate grains. Schizopholis sp. has multiple-lamellar phosphatized microstructures that distinctly differ from the other brachiopods recovered from the Longwanggou section. A similar multiple-lamellar microstructure was also revealed in conchs of Hyolithellus, with tightly compacted phosphate grains. The argillaceous shell of Oelandiellaaccordionata and O. aliciae, and the calcitic inner molds of hyolith did not preserve any shell structure. The helcionellids O. accordionata and O. aliciae and the brachiopod M. modesta were reported for the first time from North China. The fauna is most similar to the middle Cambrian faunas of Australia, in the brachiopod and mollusk components; it is also similar in composition of brachiopods and mollusks to coeval faunas from South China. The new fauna of SSFs in the Yiyang Longwanggou Section indicated that the Hsuzhuang and Zhangxia formations are late Drumian to middle Guzhuangian in age, most likely correlating with the Murrawong Creek Formation of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operational monitoring of vegetation and land surface change over large areas can make good use of satellite sensors that measure radiance reflected from the Earth's surface. Monitoring programs use multiple images for complete spatial coverage over time. Accurate retrievals of vegetation cover and vegetation change estimates can be hampered by variation, in both space and time, in the measured radiance, caused by atmospheric conditions, topography, sensor location, and sun elevation. In order to obtain estimates of cover that are comparable between images, and to retrieve accurate estimates of change, these sources of variation must be removed. In this paper we present a preprocessing scheme for minimising atmospheric, topographic and bi-directional reflectance effects on Landsat-5 TM, Landsat-7 ETM+ and SPOT-5 HRG imagery. The approach involves atmospheric correction to compute surface-leaving radiance, and bi-directional reflectance modelling to remove the effects of topography and angular variation in reflectance. The bi-directional reflectance model has been parameterised for eastern Australia, but the general approach is more widely applicable. The result is surface reflectance standardised to a fixed viewing and illumination geometry. The method can be applied to the entire record for these instruments, without intervention, which is of increasing importance with the increased availability of long term image archives. Validation shows that the corrections improve the estimation of reflectance at any given angular configuration, thus allowing the removal from the reflectance signal of much variation due to factors independent of the land surface. The method has been used to process over 45,000 Landsat-5 TM and Landsat-7 ETM+ scenes and 2,500 SPOT-5 scenes, over eastern Australia, and is now in use in operational monitoring programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several measures of volatility have been developed in order to quantify the degree of uncertainty of an energy price series, which include historical volatility and price velocities, among others. This paper suggests using the permutation entropy, topological entropy and the modified permutation entropy as alternatives to measure volatility in energy markets. Simulated data show that these measures are more appropriate to quantify the uncertainty associated to a time series than those based on the standard deviation or other measures of dispersion. Finally, the proposed method is applied to some typical electricity markets: Nord Pool, Ontario, Omel and four Australian markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless Sensor Networks promised to do for observation systems what consumer electronics have done for areas like photography-drive down the price per observation (photograph), introduce new functionality and capabilities, and make, what had been a relatively exclusive set of technologies and capabilities, ubiquitous. While this may have been true for some terrestrial sensor networks there are issues in the marine environment that have limited the realization of ubiquitous cheap sensing. This paper reports on the lessons learned from two years of operation of wireless sensor networks deployed at seven coral reefs along the Great Barrier Reef in north-eastern Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baby boomers are individuals born in the years 1946 to 1965. The objective of this paper was to define the risk factors for dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their relevance to Australian baby boomers, with the aim of providing evidence-based guidelines for dementia prevention. A series of PubMed searches (1994-2010) were conducted with relevant key words. Data was included from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in relation to baby boomers in Australia. Article titles and abstracts were assessed by two reviewers for inclusion. Searches through ABS revealed no specific study on baby boomers at a national level; information was only available for Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland. A number of genetic and nongenetic risk factors for dementia were identified most of which remain controversial and require further study. We did not identify significant differences in the prevalence and incidence of dementia in those under 65 years in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. There were no correlations of risk factors and dementia between the Australian states. Modification of risk factors has not been proven to reduce the incidence and prevalence of dementia and AD in baby boomers. Nevertheless, on available evidence, we recommend: i) active management of cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension; ii) the encouragement of a healthy lifestyle (eg, weight reduction, exercise) as offering the best pathways to reduce the emerging dementia risk for baby boomers. The implications are that activities promoting a healthy heart might lead to a healthy brain and help to prevent dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar energy production is affected by the attenuation of incoming irradiance from underlying clouds. Often, improvements in the short-term predictability of irradiance using satellite irradiance models can assist grid operators in managing intermittent solar-generated electricity. In this paper, we develop and test a satellite irradiance model with short-term prediction capabilities using cloud motion vectors. Near-real time visible images from Himawari-8 satellite are used to derive cloud motion vectors using optical flow estimation techniques. The cloud motion vectors are used for the advection of pixels at future time horizons for predictions of irradiance at the surface. Firstly, the pixels are converted to cloud index using the historical satellite data accounting for clear, cloudy and cloud shadow pixels. Secondly, the cloud index is mapped to the clear sky index using a historical fitting function from the respective sites. Thirdly, the predicated all-sky irradiance is derived by scaling the clear sky irradiance with a clear sky index. Finally, a power conversion model trained at each site converts irradiance to power. The prediction of solar power tested at four sites in Australia using a one-month benchmark period with 5 min ahead prediction showed that errors were less than 10% at almost 34–60% of predicted times, decreasing to 18–26% of times under live predictions, but it outperformed persistence by >50% of the days with errors <10% for all sites. Results show that increased latency in satellite images and errors resulting from the conversion of cloud index to irradiance and power can significantly affect the forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nutrient pollution is one of the major issues in water resources management, which has drawn significant investments into the development of many modelling tools to solve pollution problems worldwide. However, the situation remains unchanged, even likely to be exacerbated due to population growth and climate change. Effective measures to alleviate the issues are essential, dependent upon existing modelling tools' capacities. More complex models have been developed with technological advancement, though applications are mainly limited to academic reach. Hence, there is a need for a paradigm shift in policymaking that looks for a reliable modelling approach. This paper aims to assess the capacity of existing modelling tools in the context of process-based modelling and provide a future direction in research. The article has categorically divided models into plot scale to basin-wide applications for evaluation and discussed the pros and cons of conceptual and process-based modelling. The potential benefits of distributed modelling approach have been elaborated with highlights of a newly developed distributed model and its application in catchments in Japan and Australia. The distributed model is more adequate for predicting the realistic details of pollution problems in a changing environment. Future research needs to focus on more process-based modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper responds to the challenge of modeling uncertainty in soil strength parameters concerning its spatial variability in a situation of limited soil information. Understanding this uncertainty allows for the management of the risk of geotechnical structure failure. In the present work, this uncertainty is identified based on signals from the cone penetration test (CPT) device. Signals are directly transformed using existing interpretation methods (typically used as a source of mean values of parameters for a given range of depths) to obtain depth-varying effective strength parameters of the soil. The process is performed by incorporating data from two case studies from different locations in similar soil materials. First, Keswick clay from Australia, for which the results of both CPT and laboratory tests are available, is examined. Second, to further verify the obtained results, the soil from Poland called Świerzna clay, for which only CPT signals were available, is also tested. As shown, the variability of the transformed signals can be a good source of information for identifying uncertainty in soil strength. It agrees well with literature data and can be used to identify random fields describing soil parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops new practical rule-based energy management systems (EMSs) for typical grid-connected houses with solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery by considering different rates for purchasing and selling electricity. The EMSs are developed to supply the household's loads and reduce operating costs of the system based on different options of flat and time-of-use (ToU) rates for buying and selling electricity prices. Four different options are evaluated and compared in this study: (1) Flat-Flat, (2) ToU-Flat, (3) Flat-ToU, and (4) ToU-ToU. The operation cost is calculated based on the electricity exchange with the main grid, the equivalent cost of PV generation, as well as the degradation cost of battery storage. The operation of the grid-connected house with rooftop solar PV and battery is evaluated for a sunny week in summer and a cloudy week in winter to investigate the proper performance for high and low generations of PV. While the developed rule-based EMS are generic and can be applied for any case studies, a grid-connected house in Australia is examined. For this purpose, real data of solar radiation, air temperature, electricity consumption, and electricity rates are used. It is found that the ToU-Flat option has the lowest operating cost for the customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The violent and persistent wildfires that broke out along the southeast coast of Australia in 2019 caused a large number of pollutant emissions, which seriously affected air quality and the global climate. The existing two methods for estimating combustion emissions based on burned area and fire radiative power mainly use a medium resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS) on the Aqua and Terra satellites. However, the low temporal resolution of MODIS and insensitivity to small fires lead to deviation in the estimation of fire emissions. In order to solve this problem, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) with better performance is adopted in this paper, combined with the fire diurnal cycle information obtained by geostationary satellite Himawari-8, to explore the spatio-temporal model of biomass combustion emissions. Using this, a high-spatial- and -temporal-resolution fire emission inventory was generated for southeastern Australia from November 2019 to January 2020, which aims to fully consider the highly dynamic nature of fires and small fires (low FRP) that are much lower than the MODIS burned area or active fire detection limit, with emphasis on dry matter burned (DMB). We found that during the study period, the fire gradually moved from north to south, and the diurnal cycle of the fire in the study area changed greatly. The peak time of the fire gradually delayed as the fire moved south. Our inventory shows that the DMB in southeast Australia during the study period was about 146 Tg, with major burned regions distributed along the Great Dividing Range, with December 2019 being the main burning period. The total DMB we calculated is 0.5–3.1 times that reported by the GFAS (Global Fire Assimilation System) and 1.5 to 4 times lower than that obtained using the traditional "Burned Area Based Method (FINN)". We believe that the GFAS may underestimate the results by ignoring a large number of small fires, and that the excessive combustion rate used in the FINN may be a source of overestimation. Therefore, we conclude that the combination of high-temporal-resolution and high-spatial-resolution satellites can improve FRE estimation and may also allow further verification of biomass combustion estimates from different inventories, which are far better approaches for fire emission estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Cane toads are a highly invasive species that present a serious threat to most vertebrates that eat them. In Australia, their spread from the point of introduction in 1935 has seen them occupy any suitable habitat across the north of the country, with the potential to be transported to locations in southern Australia. Control and safe removal of unwanted toads presents ethical and occupational health risks to those engaged in such activities. This study describes an efficient method of control suitable for application under field conditions anywhere in Australia. The euthanasia of cane toads under field conditions presents a number of logistical and animal welfare challenges. One recommended method of control involves the use of carbon dioxide in plastic bags. This paper describes the minimum amount of time (4 h) required to efficiently euthanase toads with a carbon dioxide concentration of 4.96% under field conditions experienced in northern Australia. Discussion is also provided on the issues of safe disposal of biological and plastic waste associated with the application of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An alternative pedagogical design is discussed that aims to guide engineering students to solve first-order ordinary differential equations (ODEs), and is based on students' learning weaknesses identified from previous teaching and learning activities. This approach supported student's self-enrichment through exploration of relevant resources in ODEs, and guided students towards the choice of their own effective ways for solving ODEs for different problems. This paper presents the practices on designing and delivering solution techniques for first-order linear ODEs using this approach for more than 400 undergraduate engineering students at a regional university in Australia during 2014–2017. The timeline involved initial experimentation in 2014 and 2015, followed by refinements to the pedagogy based on student's feedback. The refined pedagogy was then used for the advanced mathematics course in 2016 and 2017. Significant improvements were made in student's learning outcomes in effectively and accurately solving the first-order linear ODEs over this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subfamily Acastinae contains a diverse group of barnacles that are obligate symbionts of sponges and alcyonacean and antipatharian corals. Integrating morphological and genetic (COI) data to compare against known species, this paper reports on nine species of sponge-inhabiting barnacles of the subfamily Acastinae, including three undescribed species (Acasta caveata sp. nov., Euacasta acutaflava sp. nov., and E. excoriatrix sp. nov.) and three species previously not recorded in Australian waters (A. sandwichi, Pectinoacasta cancellorum, and P. sculpturata). The new species are distinguished from similar species by a suite of morphological characters as well as genetic distances. A lectotype for Pectinoacasta cancellorum is designated. Sponge hosts were identified for all specimens where possible and are represented by 19 species from eight families and five orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing accurate electrical load prediction is vital for pricing and power system management. However, the unpredictable behavior of private and industrial users results in uncertainty in these power systems. Furthermore, the utilization of renewable energy sources, which are often variable in their production rates, also increases the complexity making predictions even more difficult. In this paper an interval type-2 intuitionist fuzzy logic system whose parameters are trained in a hybrid fashion using gravitational search algorithms with the ridge least square algorithm is presented for short-term prediction of electrical loading. Simulation results are provided to compare the performance of the proposed approach with that of state-of-the-art electrical load prediction algorithms for Poland, and five regions of Australia. The simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach over seven different current state-of-the-art prediction algorithms in the literature, namely: SVR, ANN, ELM, EEMD-ELM-GOA, EEMD-ELM-DA, EEMD-ELM-PSO and EEMD-ELM-GWO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the austral summer 2018/19, devastating floods occurred over northeast Australia that killed approximately 625,000 head of cattle and inundated over 3000 homes in Townsville. In this paper, the disastrous event was identified as a record-breaking subseasonal peak rainfall event (SPRE). The SPRE was mainly induced by an anomalously strong monsoon depression that was modulated by the convective phases of an MJO and an equatorial Rossby (ER) wave. The ER wave originated from an active equatorial deep convection associated with the El Niño warm sea surface temperatures near the dateline over the central Pacific. Based on the S2S Project Database, we analyzed the extended-range forecast skill of the SPRE from two different perspectives, the monsoon depression represented by an 850-hPa wind shear index and the 15-day accumulated precipitation characterized by the percentile rank (PR) and the ratio to the three-month seasonal (DJF) totals. The results of four S2S models of this study suggest that the monsoon depression can maintain the same level of skill as the short-range (3 days) forecast up to 8–10 days. For precipitation parameters, the conclusions are similar to the monsoon depression. For the 2019 northern Queensland SPRE, the model forecast was, in general, worse than the expectation derived from the hindcast analysis. The clear modulation of the ER wave that enhanced the SPRE monsoon depression circulation and precipitation is suspected as the main cause for the lower forecast skill. The analysis procedure proposed in this study can be applied to analyze the SPREs and their associated large-scale drivers in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, bushfires are a natural part of the country's landscape and essential for the regeneration of plant species; however, the 2019–20 bushfires were unprecedented in their extent and intensity. This paper is focused on the 2019–20 Australian bushfires and the resulting surface and column atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) anomalies around Wollongong. Column CO data from the ground-based Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) and Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) site in Wollongong are used together with surface in situ measurements. A systematic comparison was performed between the surface in situ and column measurements of CO to better understand whether column measurements can be used as an estimate of the surface concentrations. If so, satellite column measurements of CO could be used to estimate the exposure of humans to CO and other fire-related pollutants. We find that the enhancements in the column measurements are not always significantly evident in the corresponding surface measurements. Topographical features play a key role in determining the surface exposures from column abundance especially in a coastal city like Wollongong. The topography at Wollongong, combined with meteorological effects, potentially exacerbates differences in the column and surface. Hence, satellite column amounts are unlikely to provide an accurate reflection of exposure at the ground during major events like the 2019–2020 bushfires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a computation method for obtaining dielectric constant using Global Navigation Satellite System reflectometry (GNSS-R) products. Dielectric constant is a crucial component in the soil moisture retrieval process using reflected GNSS signals. The reflectivity for circular polarized signals is combined with the dielectric constant equation that is used for radiometer observations. Data from the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission, an eight-nanosatellite constellation for GNSS-R, are used for computing dielectric constant. Data from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission are used to measure the soil moisture through its radiometer, and they are considered as a reference to confirm the accuracy of the new dielectric constant calculation method. The analyzed locations have been chosen that correspond to sites used for the calibration and validation of the SMAP soil moisture product using in-situ measurement data. The retrieved results, especially in the case of a specular point around Yanco, Australia, show that the estimated results track closely to the soil moisture results, and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) in the estimated dielectric constant is approximately 5.73. Similar results can be obtained when the specular point is located near the Texas Soil Moisture Network (TxSON), USA. These results indicate that the analysis procedure is well-defined, and it lays the foundation for obtaining quantitative soil moisture content using the GNSS reflectometry results. Future work will include applying the computation product to determine the characteristics that will allow for the separation of coherent and incoherent signals in delay Doppler maps, as well as to develop local soil moisture models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an explosion of innovation in agricultural technologies, but whether the anticipated benefits are fully realised depends partly upon with the institutional structures are supportive. Many types of law will shape what innovations are viable and the scale of the economic returns. Australia does not have a coherent strategy for future rural regulation that will both minimise the public risks and increase the private opportunities from future agricultural innovation. This paper addresses these issues. It considers the diverse legal issues that will affect these opportunities, and it looks particularly at agricultural robotics as an example of the many ways in which legal issues will shape opportunities from innovation. It proposes that an integrated strategy, based on a careful analysis of future issues, would be a significant contributor to Australia's agricultural sector and to its innovating industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potato is an important food crop worldwide and is grown in a large number of countries. As such, the crop is under disease pressures and the need for selecting disease resistance genes during breeding programs is essential. Of particular importance within Australia and other parts of the world is the potyvirus, Potato virus Y (PVY). In this paper, three commonly used PVY resistance markers, M45, RYSC3 and M6, were evaluated using existing genomic resources and phenotypic data from the Australian potato breeding program to identify a region where the PVY resistance gene, Ryadg may reside. A region of Chromosome XI was investigated, and a cluster of disease resistance genes was identified that the resistance gene Ryadg is suspected to reside within. Protein characterization was also performed on the putative resistant gene. A specific variant that had complete association with the resistance gene was identified and a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) assay was designed to avoid dissociation of marker and gene in future breeding programs. This SNP marker (SNP37279) was validated as a Kompetitive Allele-specific PCR (KASP) genotyping assay and was found to perform more accurately than all previously used markers for detecting Ryadg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum) is the most widely grown annual pasture legume in southern Australia. With the advent of advanced sequencing and genome editing technologies, a simple and efficient gene transfer protocol mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens was developed to overcome the hurdle of genetic manipulation in subterranean clover. In vitro tissue culture and Agrobacterium transformation play a central role in testing the link between specific genes and agronomic traits. In this paper, we investigate a variety of factors affecting the transformation in subterranean clover to increase the transformation efficiency. In vitro culture was optimised by including cefotaxime during seed sterilisation and testing the best antibiotic concentration to select recombinant explants. The concentrations for the combination of antibiotics obtained were as follows: 40 mg L−1 hygromycin, 100 mg L−1 kanamycin and 200 mg L−1 cefotaxime. Additionally, 200 mg L−1 cefotaxime increased shoot regeneration by two-fold. Different plant hormone combinations were tested to analyse the best rooting media. Roots were obtained in a medium supplemented with 1.2 µM IAA. Plasmid pH35 containing a hygromycin-resistant gene and GUS gene was inoculated into the explants with Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain AGL0 for transformation. Overall, the transformation efficiency was improved from the 1% previously reported to 5.2%, tested at explant level with Cefotaxime showing a positive effect on shooting regeneration. Other variables in addition to antibiotic and hormone combinations such as bacterial OD, time of infection and incubation temperature may be further tested to enhance the transformation even more. This improved transformation study presents an opportunity to increase the feeding value, persistence, and nutritive value of the key Australian pasture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the adverse effects of soil sodicity and alkalinity on the growth of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in a rainfed environment in south-western Australia. These conditions cause the accumulation of salt (called 'transient salinity') in the root zone, which decreases the solute potential of the soil solution, particularly at the end of the growing season as the soil dries. We hypothesized that two approaches could help overcome this stress: (a) improved micro-water harvesting at the soil surface, which would help maintain soil hydration, decreasing the salinity of the soil solution, and (b) soil amelioration using small amounts of gypsum, elemental sulfur or gypsum plus elemental sulfur, which would ensure greater salt leaching. In our experiments, improved micro-water harvesting was achieved using a tillage technique consisting of exaggerated mounds between furrows and the covering of these mounds with plastic sheeting. The combination of the mounds and the application of a low rate of gypsum in the furrow (50 kg ha−1) increased yields of barley grain by 70% in 2019 and by 57% in 2020, relative to a control treatment with conventional tillage, no plastic sheeting and no amendment. These increases in yield were related to changes in ion concentrations in the soil and to changes in apparent electrical conductivity measured with the EM38. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The massive property development of high-rises and complex structures above and below the ground surface in cities indicates the lack of land and high demand to use spaces. However, the existing land and property administration systems are mainly two dimensional and not capable of efficiently managing these complex spaces. As ownership rights on plans are recorded in paper or PDF, understanding these rights and making effective decisions and analyses can be difficult without having experience in the art of reading and interpreting plan information. This paper attempts to address these issues by presenting a prototype for visualizing three-dimensional land and property information. The aim of this prototype is to illustrate and communicate the requirements and benefits of a 3D digital cadastre platform. The prototype is a web-based application and includes functionality to display both legal and physical data, interact with 3D models, display administrative data, identify objects and search objects, visualize cross-sections, and undertake measurements in 3D. For this prototype, a multi-story building was selected as a case study and its 3D model was imported into the prototype to display ownership rights. The prototype was then evaluated by various stakeholders and their feedback was considered for future enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: To retain social license to operate, achieving and maintaining high standards of animal welfare need to be institutional priorities for zoos. In order to be confident in the delivery of high standards of animal welfare, a holistic evidence-based approach to welfare assessment is required. This should include a combination of institutional-level assessments, individual animal monitoring tools, and applied research targeted at advancing our understanding of species needs and preferences in zoos. Progress has certainly been made in the zoo sector in development of research programs and individual animal welfare monitoring tools. Comparatively less focus has been applied to institutional-level assessment processes. This paper aims to fill this gap and presents an outline of a welfare risk assessment process developed and trialed at three zoos over a three year period and discussion of the potential value it offers, as well as the limitations of its use. There is a growing interest and need for zoos to develop and implement welfare assessment tools that are practical to use and provide meaningful results that can inform management decisions. This paper presents a process that was developed to support this type of evidence-based management in zoo animal welfare. The process is configured to facilitate institutional risk assessment, using an adapted version of the Five Domains Model for animal welfare assessment. It is designed to systematically analyse information gathered from zoo personnel in order to highlight areas of welfare risk, as well as areas that are performing well and areas requiring further investigation. A trial was conducted on three zoos over three years. Results of the trial suggest the process developed is practical and effective in identifying areas of welfare risk in a wide range of species in a zoo setting. It represents a further step towards achieving high-level animal welfare in zoos by integrating animal welfare as an institutional priority. The more zoos that employ such strategies, the greater the ability of the sector to advance the welfare of the animals in their care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal bursts are a serious dynamic hazard for underground coalmines, and they attract the extensive interest of studies from mining and geotechnical researchers worldwide. More recently, coal-burst incidents were reported in some Australian coalmines as a result of inadequate geological assessment of coal-burst hazards. The coal-burst process is closely associated with the accumulation of elastic energy and the rapid dissipation of kinetic energy. This paper introduces the essential geological conditions for energy accumulation, and the likely precursors for rapid energy dissipation leading to coal burst, which can be used by Australian coalmines to determine their coal-burst risk accordingly. Different energy forms and their transformations during the coal-burst process are introduced in detail in this paper. The dominant geological factors resulting in the accumulation of massive energy are analyzed, and the likely precursors associated with the instant release of elastic energy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long-term archive of cloud properties (cloud top pressure, CTP; and cloud effective emissivity, ε) determined from High-resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) data is investigated for evidence of regional cloud cover change. In the 17 years between 1985 and 2001, different cloud types are analysed over the Australian region (10° S–45° S, 105° E–160° E) and areas of change in total cloud frequency examined. Total cloud frequency change over the Australian region between two adjacent eight-year time periods (1994 to 2001 minus 1985 to 1992) shows the largest increases (ranges between 6% and 12%) of average HIRS total cloud cover occurring over the offshore regions to the northwest and northeast of the continent. Over land, the largest reduction of average HIRS total cloud frequency is in the southwestern region of Australia (between 2% and 8%). Through central Australia, there is a 2% to 7% increase in average HIRS total cloud frequency when comparing these eight-year periods. This paper examines the regional cloud changes in 17 years over Australia that are embedded in global cloud statistics. Examining total HIRS cloud cover frequency over Australia and comparing two different eight-year time periods, has highlighted notable areas of average change. Preliminary reporting of satellite-derived HIRS cloud products and Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) rainfall products during La Niña seasons between 1985 and 2001 has also been undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: In 2019–2020, Australia had a particularly bad bushfire season which resulted in large numbers of people and animals being exposed to smoke haze for several weeks. We conducted a literature review to examine the evidence for effects of prolonged exposure to bushfire smoke on cattle. There was general agreement that small airborne particulate matter in smoke is the substance most likely to cause problems. There was indirect evidence about effects on cattle caused by other types of pollution containing particulate matter. We found little evidence to support severe effects on cattle. This may be because cattle do not tend to suffer from the co-morbidities that, in the human population, seem to be made worse by smoke and pollution. However, small changes to death rates or disease that is not severe may go unreported, so further study is warranted. In 2019–2020, a particularly bad bushfire season in Australia resulted in cattle being exposed to prolonged periods of smoke haze and reduced air quality. Bushfire smoke contains many harmful pollutants, and impacts on regions far from the fire front, with smoke haze persisting for weeks. Particulate matter (PM) is one of the major components of bushfire smoke known to have a negative impact on human health. However, little has been reported about the potential effects that bushfire smoke has on cattle exposed to smoke haze for extended periods. We explored the current literature to investigate evidence for likely effects on cattle from prolonged exposure to smoke generated from bushfires in Australia. We conducted a search for papers related to the impacts of smoke on cattle. Initial searching returned no relevant articles through either CAB Direct or PubMed databases, whilst Google Scholar provided a small number of results. The search was then expanded to look at two sub-questions: the type of pollution that is found in bushfire smoke, and the reported effects of both humans and cattle being exposed to these types of pollutants. The primary mechanism for damage due to bushfire smoke is due to small airborne particulate matter (PM). Although evidence demonstrates that PM from bushfire smoke has a measurable impact on both human mortality and cardiorespiratory morbidities, there is little evidence regarding the impact of chronic bushfire smoke exposure in cattle. We hypothesize that cattle are not severely affected by chronic exposure to smoke haze, as evidenced by the lack of reports. This may be because cattle do not tend to suffer from the co-morbidities that, in the human population, seem to be made worse by smoke and pollution. Further, small changes to background mortality rates or transient morbidity may also go unreported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian government has spent over a billion dollars a year on managing offshore detention (Budget 2018–2019). Central to this offshore management was the transference and mandatory detention of asylum seekers in facilities that sit outside Australia's national sovereignty, in particular on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and Nauru. As a state-sanctioned spatial aberration meant to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat, offshore detention has resulted in a raft of legal and policy actions that are reshaping the modern state-centric understanding of the national space. It has raised questions of sovereignty, of moral, ethical and legal obligations, of national security and humanitarian responsibilities, and of nationalism and belonging. Using a sample of Twitter users on Manus during the closure of the Manus Island detention centre in October–November 2017, this paper examines how asylum seekers and refugees have negotiated and defined the offshore detention space and how through the use of social media they have created a profound disruption to the state discourse on offshore detention. The research is based on the premise that asylum seekers' use social media in a number of disruptive ways, including normalising the presence of asylum seekers in the larger global phenomena of migration, humanising asylum seekers in the face of global discourses of dehumanisation, ensuring visibility by confirming the conditions of detention, highlighting Australia's human rights violations and obligations, and challenging the government discourse on asylum seekers and offshore detention. Social media is both a tool and a vehicle by which asylum seekers on Manus Island could effect that disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offshore the emissions of dihydrogen are highlighted by the smokers along the oceanic ridges. Onshore in situ measurements in ophiolitic contexts and in old cratons have also proven the existence of numerous H2 emissive areas. When H2 emanations affect the soils, small depressions and vegetation gaps are observed. These depressions, called fairy circles, have similarities with the pockmark and vent structures recognized for long time in the sea floor when natural gas escapes but also differences. In this paper we present a statistic approach of the density, size, and shape of the fairy circles in various basins. New data from Brazil and Australia are compared to the existing database already gathered in Russia, USA, and again Brazil. The comparison suggests that Australia could be one of the most promising areas for H2 exploration, de facto a couple of wells already found H2, whereas they were drilled to look for hydrocarbons. The sum of areas from where H2 is seeping overpasses 45 km2 in Kangaroo Island as in the Yorke Peninsula. The size of the emitting structures, expressed in average diameter, varies from few meters to kilometers and the footprint expressed in % of the ground within the structures varies from 1 to 17%. However, globally the sets of fairy circles in the various basins are rather similar and one may consider that their characteristics are homogeneous and may help to characterize these H2 emitting zones. Two kinds of size repartitions are observed, one with two maxima (25 m and between 220 m ± 25%) one with a simple Gaussian shape with a single maximum around 175 m ± 20%. Various geomorphological characteristics allow us to differentiate depressions of the ground due to gas emissions from karstic dolines. The more relevant ones are their slope and the ratio diameter vs. depth. At the opposite of the pockmark structures observed on the seafloor for which exclusion zones have been described, the H2 emitting structures may intersect and they often growth by coalescence. These H2 emitting structures are always observed, up to now, above Archean or Neoproterozoic cratons; it suggests that anoxia at the time the sedimentation and iron content play a key role in the H2 sourcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand have witnessed an increased over-representation of minority groups who are exposed to the criminal justice system. For many years in Australia, young First Nations males have been over-represented in the juvenile justice system in all states and territories. Many of these young males have disengaged from their schooling early, some through deliberate exclusion from the education system and others by choice. However, the choices for many young First Nations males may not be as clear cut as first might seem. This paper shows that over-representation in the juvenile justice system may be as a direct result of racial profiling, surveillance and over-policing of First Nations peoples within Australia. The literature addresses the ways in which young First Nations males experience these phenomena from an early age, and the long-term effects and consequences that can arise from these occurrences. An analysis of the current research both internationally and within Australia is thus conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Aldrovanda is a Palaeogene element containing a single extant species, Aldrovanda vesiculosa L. This aquatic carnivorous herb has a very wide range of distribution, natively covering four continents; however, it is a critically endangered aquatic plant species worldwide. Previous studies revealed that A. vesiculosa had an extremely low genetic variation. The main aim of the present paper is to explore, using chemometric tools, the diversity of 16 A. vesiculosa populations from various sites from four continents (Eurasia, Africa, Australia). Using chemometric data as markers for genetic diversity, we show the relationships of 16 A. vesiculosa populations from various sites, including four continents. Phytochemical markers allowed the identification of five well-supported (bootstrap > 90%) groups among the 16 populations sampled. The principal component analysis data support the idea that the strongly related African (Botswana) and Australian (Kimberley, NT, NW Australia) populations are the most distant ones, separated from the European and Asian ones. However, considering the five Australian populations sampled, three are nested within the Eurasian group. The chemometric data are correlated positively with the geographical distances between the samples, which suggests a tendency toward isolation for the most distant populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common property (CP) is a significant consumer of electricity in apartment buildings. Although some apartments in Australia have adopted shared microgrid configurations to offset grid consumption, the characteristics and load patterns of CP are rarely discussed due to lack of available data. As common areas normally constitute part of owner corporations, energy distribution in these premises requires attention. This paper presents empirical analysis of the CP load connected to shared solar and battery storage for three apartment complexes located in Perth Australia. Load patterns for CP over a defined dataset period were analyzed, and grid usage reduction was examined by implementing and comparing three energy allocation strategies based on surplus energy utilization. The findings indicated significant grid usage reduction for CP load in different apartments after implementation of three strategies. Instantaneous consumption decreased 72%, and surplus allocation strategy reduced 91%, while consumption-based allocation reduced 76%, of grid electricity. Moreover, consumption-based allocation offered improved cost benefits compared to the other two strategies. The results further revealed the usefulness of energy allocation and effectiveness of surplus energy utilization. Based on outcomes, the strategies provide consolidation with conventional energy trading mechanisms and broadly link to the virtual power plant concept for coordinating energy flows between multiple generators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common property (CP) is a significant consumer of electricity in apartment buildings. Although some apartments in Australia have adopted shared microgrid configurations to offset grid consumption, the characteristics and load patterns of CP are rarely discussed due to lack of available data. As common areas normally constitute part of owner corporations, energy distribution in these premises requires attention. This paper presents empirical analysis of the CP load connected to shared solar and battery storage for three apartment complexes located in Perth Australia. Load patterns for CP over a defined dataset period were analyzed, and grid usage reduction was examined by implementing and comparing three energy allocation strategies based on surplus energy utilization. The findings indicated significant grid usage reduction for CP load in different apartments after implementation of three strategies. Instantaneous consumption decreased 72%, and surplus allocation strategy reduced 91%, while consumption-based allocation reduced 76%, of grid electricity. Moreover, consumption-based allocation offered improved cost benefits compared to the other two strategies. The results further revealed the usefulness of energy allocation and effectiveness of surplus energy utilization. Based on outcomes, the strategies provide consolidation with conventional energy trading mechanisms and broadly link to the virtual power plant concept for coordinating energy flows between multiple generators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the 2020 Climate Change Performance Index, Australia was ranked as the worst-performing country on climate change policy. The country has an ambivalent record of climate policy development as well as implementation, and has been criticized for its inaction. This paper considers why the country has been locked in climate policy "paralysis" through analyzing defining attributes of such a paralysis, and the tentative connections between domestic energy policies and international trade and development. We conducted a media content analysis of 222 articles and identified media narratives in three cases of energy projects in the country involving thermal coal exports, domestic renewable energy storage, and closure of a domestic coal power station. The analysis reveals that policy paralysis in Australian climate change policy can be traced back to the countervailing arguments that have been pervasive around domestic energy security, rural employment and international energy poverty. The political establishment has struggled to develop a sustainable consensus on climate change and the citizenry remains polarized. We also discuss how a "focusing event," such as a major natural disaster can break the impasse but this is only possible if energy security at home, energy poverty abroad and employment imperatives across the board are clearly delineated, measured and prioritized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isolated communities are progressively integrating renewable generation to reduce the societal, economic and ecological cost of diesel generation. Unfortunately, as renewable penetration and load variability increase, systems require greater diesel generation reserves, constraining renewable utilisation. Improved diesel generator flexibility can reduce the requirement for diesel reserves, allowing increased renewable hosting. Regrettably, it is uncommon for utilities to modify diesel generator control during the integration of renewable source generation. Identifying diesel generator flexibility and co-ordination as an essential component to optimising system hosting capacity, this paper investigates improved diesel generator flexibility and coordination via low-load diesel application. Case study comparisons for both high- and low-penetration hybrid diesel power systems are presented in King Island, Australia, and Moloka'i, Hawai'i, respectively. For King Island, the approach details a 50% reduction in storage requirement, while for Moloka'i the application supports a 27% increase in renewable hosting capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: All of the veterinary schools in Australia and New Zealand worked together to develop the online One Welfare learning and teaching portal (OWP) for sharing teaching resources to assist veterinary graduates to become leaders in animal welfare and ethics (AWE). The materials in the portal are organised around eight key themes including two overarching themes of animal ethics and animal welfare science, and six context-specific themes: companion animals; animals used in research and teaching; livestock/production animals; animals used for sport, recreation or display; animals in the wild, and aquatic animals. The arrangement of these resources aligns with those of the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS). As part of the OWP development, animal welfare educators from the eight veterinary schools met and used modified deliberative polling to prioritise resource development. Surveys of students and educators in all participating schools investigated their attitudes to current AWE issues across six context-specific themes: companion animals; animals used in research and teaching; livestock/production animals; animals used for sport, recreation or display; animals in the wild and aquatic animals. The prioritised resources include (1) student AWE essays arranged by subject; (2) an online reflection tool that can be used repeatedly to gain understanding of change in attitudes over time; (3) eight overarching themes that host a group of interactive scenarios; (4) research papers for each context-specific theme; (5) a bank of multiple choice questions with feedback to support AWE assessment; (6) a novel online discussion tool 'Chatterbox;' and (7) a 'toolbox' containing directions to the doglogbook, an owner app designed to monitor management practices, and evaluate quality of life in dogs. This article introduces the online One Welfare learning and teaching portal (OWP) and describes its development, use, importance and relevance to animal welfare and ethics (AWE) stakeholders. As animal welfare issues increase in importance, veterinarians must be trained to lead the science that underpins AWE discourses. The OWP is a collection of resources designed to engage and challenge veterinary science students as they become advocates for animals. It was developed collaboratively by all eight veterinary schools in Australia and New Zealand, and funded by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. Surveys to investigate the attitudes of students and educators to AWE issues in six context-specific themes based on the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS) (companion animals; animals used in research and teaching; livestock/production animals; animals used for sport, recreation or display; animals in the wild and aquatic animals) were administered through all participating schools. Students assigned more importance to Day One competence in knowledge of welfare concepts than did educators for the following groups: production animals, companion animals, animals in the wild, aquatic animals, animals used in research and teaching, and animals used for sport, recreation or display (all p < 0.01). Agreement between educators and students was closer regarding the importance of Day One competence for euthanasia for all six context-specific themes (p < 0.01–0.03). Students assigned more importance than educators to social, economic and cultural drivers of welfare outcomes in production animals (p < 0.01); slaughter and preslaughter inspections in production animals (p < 0.01); animal abuse and hoarding in companion animals (p < 0.01); shelter medicine in companion animals (p < 0.01); disaster preparedness in wildlife animals (p < 0.01); pain and distress caused by fishing in aquatic animals (p < 0.01); conscientious objection related to animals held for research and teaching (p < 0.01); behaviour, selection and training of animals used for sport, recreation and display (p = 0.046) and educating the public around sporting animal welfare (p < 0.01). Agreement between educators and students was closer for strategies to address painful husbandryprocedures in production animals (p = 0.03); behaviour and training of companion animals (p = 0.03); veterinarians' duties to wild animals in wildlife (p = 0.02); the 3Rs in animals held for research and teaching (p = 0.03) and ownership responsibility in sporting animals (p = 0.01). This report discusses the reasons for differences among students and educators as they approach these issues. The portal is expected to gather more content as veterinary schools in other countries use its resources and users submit scenarios and discussion topics that reflect local needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial metadata is a critical part of any spatial data infrastructure, which enables the organising, sharing, discovery and use of spatial data. This paper highlights a knowledge gap in the usability of the metadata systems for the end–users. It then addresses the gap by applying the User Centred Design approach to investigate the usability of metadata records. The research engages with end–users concerning efficiency and effectiveness of metadata systems, and end–users' satisfaction and expectations. The results indicate significant gaps with the effectiveness and efficiency of metadata systems for spatial data discovery and selection. Inconsistency and irrelevant information in the metadata records were found in the title, keywords, abstracts, data quality and other elements of the metadata. Additionally, essential improvements were identified for user interfaces. Discouraging presentation of the metadata is a prominent problem found in the interface of the metadata systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With this paper we communicated the existence of a surface electrocardiography (ECG) recordings dataset, named WCTECGdb, that aside from the standard 12-lead signals includes the raw electrode biopotential for each of the nine exploring electrodes refereed directly to the right leg. This dataset, comprises of 540 ten second segments recorded from 92 patients at Campbelltown Hospital, NSW Australia, and is now available for download from the Physionet platform. The data included in the dataset confirm that the Wilson's Central Terminal (WCT) has a relatively large amplitude (up to 247% of lead II) with standard ECG characteristics such as a p-wave and a t-wave, and is highly variable during the cardiac cycle. As further examples of application for our data, we assess: (1) the presence of a conductive pathway between the legs and the heart concluding that in some cases is electrically significant and (2) the initial assumption about the limbs potential stating the dominance of the left arm concluding that this is not always the case and that might requires case to case assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid and widespread monitoring of inland and coastal water quality occurs through the use of remote sensing and near-surface water quality sensors. A new addition is the development of smartphone applications (Apps) to measure and record surface reflectance, water color and water quality parameters. In this paper, we present a field study of the HydroColor (HC, measures RGB reflectance and suspended particulate matter (SPM)) and EyeOnWater (EoW, determines the Forel–Ule scale—an indication to the visual appearance of the water surface) smartphone Apps to evaluate water quality for inland waters in Eastern Australia. The Brisbane river, multiple lakes and reservoirs and lagoons in Queensland and New South Wales were visited; hyperspectral reflection spectra were collected and water samples were analysed in the laboratory as reference. Based on detailed measurements at 32 sites, covering inland waters with a large range in sediment and algal concentrations, we find that both water quality Apps are close, but not quite on par with scientific spectrometers. EoW is a robust application that manages to capture the color of water with accuracy and precision. HC has great potential, but is influenced by errors in the observational procedure and errors in the processing of images in the iPhone. The results show that repeated observations help to reduce the effects of outliers, while implementation of camera response functions and processing should help to reduce systematic errors. For both Apps, no universal conversion to water quality composition is established, and we conclude that: (1) replicated measurements are useful; (2) color is a reliable monitoring parameter in its own right but it should not be used for other water quality variables, and; (3) tailored algorithms to convert reflectance and color to composition could be developed for lakes individually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate measurements of the structural characteristics of trees such as height, diameter, sweep and taper are an important part of forest inventories in managed forests and commercial plantations. Both terrestrial and aerial LiDAR are currently employed to produce pointcloud data from which inventory metrics can be determined. Terrestrial/ground-based scanning typically provides pointclouds resolutions of many thousands of points per m 2 from which tree stems can be observed and inventory measurements made directly, whereas typical resolutions from aerial scanning (tens of points per m 2 ) require inventory metrics to be regressed from LiDAR variables using inventory reference data collected from the ground. Recent developments in miniaturised LiDAR sensors are enabling aerial capture of pointclouds from low-flying aircraft at high-resolutions (hundreds of points per m 2 ) from which tree stem information starts to become directly visible, enabling the possibility for plot-scale inventories that do not require access to the ground. In this paper, we develop new approaches to automated tree detection, segmentation and stem reconstruction using algorithms based on deep supervised machine learning which are designed for use with aerially acquired high-resolution LiDAR pointclouds. Our approach is able to isolate individual trees, determine tree stem points and further build a segmented model of the main tree stem that encompasses tree height, diameter, taper, and sweep. Through the use of deep learning models, our approach is able to adapt to variations in pointcloud densities and partial occlusions that are particularly prevalent when data is captured from the air. We present results of our algorithms using high-resolution LiDAR pointclouds captured from a helicopter over two Radiata pine forests in NSW, Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early prediction of sugarcane crop yield at the commercial block level (unit area of a single crop of the same variety, ratoon or planting date) offers significant benefit to growers, consultants, millers, policy makers, crop insurance companies and researchers. This current study explored a remote sensing based approach for predicting sugarcane yield at the block level by further developing a regionally specific Landsat time series model and including individual crop sowing (or previous seasons' harvest) date. For the Bundaberg growing region of Australia this extends over a five months period, from July to November. For this analysis, the sugarcane blocks were clustered into 10 groups based on their specific planting or ratoon commencement date within the specified five months period. These clustered or groups of blocks were named 'bins'. Cloud free (<20%) satellite data from the polar-orbiting Landsat-8 (launched 2013), Sentinel-2A (launched 2015) and Sentinel-2B (launched 2017) sensors were acquired over the cane growing region in Bundaberg (area of 32,983 ha), from the growing season starting in July 2014, with the average green normalised difference vegetation index (GNDVI) derived for each block. The number of images acquired for each season was defined by the number of cloud free acquisitions. Using the Simple Linear Machine Learning (ML) algorithm, the extracted Landsat derived GNDVI values for each of the blocks were converted to Sentinel GNDVI. The average GNDVI of each 'bin' was plotted and a quadratic model was fitted through the time series to identify the peak growth stage defined as the maximum GNDVI value. The model derived maximum GNDVI values for each of the bins were then regressed against the average actual yield (t·ha-1) achieved for the respective bin over the five growing years, producing strong correlations (R2 = 0.92 to 0.99). The quadratic curves developed for the different bins were shifted according to the specific planting or ratoon date of an individual block allowing for the peak GNDVI value of the block to be calculated, regressed against the actual block yield (t·ha-1) and the prediction of yield to be made. To validate the accuracies of the 10 time series algorithms representing each of the 10 bins, 592 individual blocks were selected from the Bundaberg region during the 2019 harvest season. The crops were clustered into the appropriate bins with the respective algorithm applied. From a Sentinel image acquired on the 5 May 2019, the prediction accuracies were encouraging (R2 = 0.87 and RMSE = 11.33 (t·ha-1)) when compared to actual harvested yield, as reported by the mill. The results presented in this paper demonstrate significant progress in the accurate prediction of sugarcane yield at the individual sugarcane block level using a remote sensing, time-series based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerosols deposited into the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) contain iron (Fe) and other trace metals, which may act as micronutrients or as toxins to this sensitive marine ecosystem. In this paper, we quantified the atmospheric deposition of Fe and investigated aerosol sources in Mission Beach (Queensland) next to the GBR. Leaching experiments were applied to distinguish pools of Fe with regard to its solubility. The labile Fe concentration in aerosols was 2.3–10.6 ng m−3, which is equivalent to 4.9%–11.4% of total Fe and was linked to combustion and biomass burning processes, while total Fe was dominated by crustal sources. A one-day precipitation event provided more soluble iron than the average dry deposition flux, 0.165 and 0.143 μmol m−2 day−1, respectively. Scanning Electron Microscopy indicated that alumina-silicates were the main carriers of total Fe and samples affected by combustion emissions were accompanied by regular round-shaped carbonaceous particulates. Collected aerosols contained significant amounts of Cd, Co, Cu, Mo, Mn, Pb, V, and Zn, which were mostly (47.5%–96.7%) in the labile form. In this study, we provide the first field data on the atmospheric delivery of Fe and other trace metals to the GBR and propose that this is an important delivery mechanism to this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]