Northern Australia is prone to recurring severe natural hazards, especially frequent cyclones, flooding, and extensive wildfires. The region is sparsely populated (≪ 0.5 persons km
−2
), with ...Indigenous (Aboriginal) residents comprising 14% of the population, and typically the majority in remote regions. Despite national policy committed to addressing emergency management (EM) in vulnerable Indigenous communities, implementation remains unfunded. We synthesise participatory intercultural research conducted over seven years exploring core challenges, opportunities and potential solutions towards developing effective EM partnerships. Similar EM engagement and empowerment issues face First Nations and local communities in many international settings. In search of solutions, we explore developing effective partnership arrangements between EM agencies and culturally diverse Indigenous communities. Observing that government already provides substantial investment in cultural and natural resource management programmes conducted by over 150 Indigenous Ranger Groups (IRGs) nationally, we demonstrate that expansion of IRG roles to incorporate EM community engagement and service delivery can provide multiple cost-effective community and business development benefits for many remote communities.
Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine distinct communities along a 40-km section of the northern coast of Sumatra in about 1394 CE. Our ...evidence is the spatial and temporal distribution of tens of thousands of medieval ceramic sherds and over 5,000 carved gravestones, collected and recorded during a systematic landscape archaeology survey near the modern city of Banda Aceh. Only the trading settlement of Lamri, perched on a headland above the reach of the tsunami, survived into and through the subsequent 15th century. It is of historical and political interest that by the 16th century, however, Lamri was abandoned, while low-lying coastal sites destroyed by the 1394 tsunami were resettled as the population center of the new economically and politically ascendant Aceh Sultanate. Our evidence implies that the 1394 tsunami was large enough to impact severely many of the areas inundated by the 2004 tsunami and to provoke a significant reconfiguration of the region’s political and economic landscape that shaped the history of the region in subsequent centuries.
Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a specialized mode of photosynthesis that features nocturnal CO2 uptake, facilitates increased water-use efficiency (WUE), and enables CAM plants to inhabit ...water-limited environments such as semi-arid deserts or seasonally dry forests. Human population growth and global climate change now present challenges for agricultural production systems to increase food, feed, forage, fiber, and fuel production. One approach to meet these challenges is to increase reliance on CAM crops, such as Agave and Opuntia, for biomass production on semi-arid, abandoned, marginal, or degraded agricultural lands. Major research efforts are now underway to assess the productivity of CAM crop species and to harness the WUE of CAM by engineering this pathway into existing food, feed, and bioenergy crops. An improved understanding of CAM has potential for high returns on research investment. To exploit the potential of CAM crops and CAM bioengineering, it will be necessary to elucidate the evolution, genomic features, and regulatory mechanisms of CAM. Field trials and predictive models will be required to assess the productivity of CAM crops, while new synthetic biology approaches need to be developed for CAM engineering. Infrastructure will be needed for CAM model systems, field trials, mutant collections, and data management.
There has been considerable urban development in the Darwin region over the last twenty years; as for most fauna in Australia since colonisation, the potential effects to the bird assemblage were ...expected to be disastrous. To provide a broad overview of changes, bird survey data from 1998 and 2018 were extracted from BirdLife Australia’s ‘Atlas of Australian Birds’ database. A total of 165 species were categorised into primary food source feeding guilds and levels of food specialisation. This was integrated into ArcGIS along with land use change mapping from 1998 and 2018 to investigate its impact on bird assemblages. There was no significant change in overall species numbers when all sites were analysed. However, when sites were separated into those with increased urbanisation or decreased greenspace, several sites showed a significant change in the number of species. For the majority of species, analysis of primary food types found no difference in the proportion of species within the assemblages between 1998 and 2018, regardless of the level of urbanisation or greenspace; the exception being those species that primarily feed on insects, where the difference was just significant. An analysis using bird community data sorted into levels of food specialisation also found no difference between 1998 and 2018 despite habitat changes. These findings suggest that although there has been considerable urban development in the Darwin region, bird communities are remaining relatively stable.
Savanna ecosystems comprise 22% of the global terrestrial surface and 25% of Australia (almost 1.9 million km²) and provide significant ecosystem services through carbon and water cycles and the ...maintenance of biodiversity. The current structure, composition and distribution of Australian savannas have coevolved with fire, yet remain driven by the dynamic constraints of their bioclimatic niche. Fire in Australian savannas influences both the biophysical and biogeochemical processes at multiple scales from leaf to landscape. Here, we present the latest emission estimates from Australian savanna biomass burning and their contribution to global greenhouse gas budgets. We then review our understanding of the impacts of fire on ecosystem function and local surface water and heat balances, which in turn influence regional climate. We show how savanna fires are coupled to the global climate through the carbon cycle and fire regimes. We present new research that climate change is likely to alter the structure and function of savannas through shifts in moisture availability and increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, in turn altering fire regimes with further feedbacks to climate. We explore opportunities to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions from savanna ecosystems through changes in savanna fire management.
This paper reports on the application of fire severity studies describing the immediate post-fire spectral responses of fire affected vegetation and substrates, to remotely sensed mapping of fire ...affected tropical savanna vegetation in northern Australia. Hyperspectral data were collected from a helicopter coincident with accurately located sites where detailed ground sampling was undertaken based on adaptation of standard methods such as the GeoCBI. Ground sampling revealed the importance of models that characterise both photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic vegetation including scorched foliage. The proportion of charred material was not significantly correlated with fire severity categories. Models were assessed particularly in relation to spectral bands of the MODIS sensor given its high observation frequency and global application in fire detection and mapping studies. Significant and inverse fire severity relationships were observed with the near infrared and two short wave infrared bands, demonstrating support for a model like the widely used differenced normalised burn ratio (∆NBR). However, model assessment using Akaike's Information Criteria suggests the most parsimonious model is the pre- and post-fire difference in MODIS channel 6 (1628–1652nm). The resultant models have direct application in fire severity mapping products for fire-prone tropical savanna vegetation in northern Australia.
•We describe the effect of fire on tropical savanna vegetation, fire severity.•We assessed the post-fire change in spectral response.•Developed a rapid ground-based fire severity assessment method.•To classify requires change in photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic vegetation.•SWIR most correlated with fire severity, particularly MODIS channel 6 equivalent.
The optimal management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients with postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) after surgical myectomy remains unknown. We sought to investigate the association ...between POAF and atrial fibrillation (AF) or cardioembolic events during follow-up to bridge this gap.
Patients undergoing surgical myectomy at 2 HCM referral centres in North America from 2002 to 2020 were included in this study. Patients with preoperative AF were excluded. POAF was defined as any episode of AF within 30 days after surgery.
Of 1176 patients, 375 (31.9%) had POAF. Age (adjusted hazard ratio HR 1.05, 95% confidence interval CI 1.03-1.06; P < 0.001), premyectomy left atrial diameter (LAD; adjusted HR 1.6, 95% CI 1.32-2.02; P < 0.001), and smoking (adjusted HR 1.60, 95% CI 1.17-2.20; P = 0.001) were associated with POAF on multivariable analysis. Of 934 patients with follow-up data, of duration 4.3 ± 4.1 years, AF was detected in 86 (9.2%). Only POAF (HR 4.20, 95% CI 2.44-7.23; P < 0.001), previous history of stroke (HR 4.81, 95% CI 1.63-14.17; P = 0.01), and postmyectomy LAD (HR 1.80, 95% CI 1.21-2.70; P = 0.004) were associated with AF incidence during follow-up. Cardioembolic events occurred in only 15 patients (1.6%). POAF was not associated with increased cardioembolic risk, with only 3 patients with POAF suffering such an event, all more than 4 years after surgery.
POAF is common in HCM patients undergoing myectomy and is a predictor of AF during follow-up. Over long-term follow-up, cardioembolic events are uncommon. These findings suggest that routine long-term anticoagulation for all HCM patients with postmyectomy AF is not justified after the initial postoperative period.
Providing estimates of the uncertainty in results obtained by Computational Electromagnetic (CEM) simulations is essential when determining the acceptability of the results. The Monte Carlo method ...(MCM) has been previously used to quantify the uncertainty in CEM simulations. Other computationally efficient methods have been investigated more recently, such as the polynomial chaos method (PCM) and the method of moments (MoM). This paper introduces a novel implementation of the PCM and the MoM into the finite-difference time -domain method. The PCM and the MoM are found to be computationally more efficient than the MCM, but can provide poorer estimates of the uncertainty in resonant electromagnetic compatibility data.
Enchondromas are benign tumours that may become symptomatic due to expansive pressure on the surrounding bone. In this case, a 27-year-old male developed a symptomatic enchondroma within the proximal ...phalanx of his left fourth toe. Resection and insertion of a bone graft were considered optimal management. Histopathology testing confirmed the diagnosis of an isolated enchondroma. The patient was monitored closely for 3 months postoperatively and reported full satisfaction at his 12-month review. Enchondroma resection and insertion of a tibial bone graft may provide an effective long-term solution for a symptomatic enchondroma of the toe.
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