•Summarises 25 years of land clearing trends in south-eastern Australia and assesses the efficacy of policy interventions over that period.○Uses an information theoretic approach to compare and ...assess alternate hypotheses regarding the pro ximate drivers of land clearing.•Uses econometric modelling, including stationarity testing and investigation of Granger and Heckman causality to avoid spurious correlations.•Identifies market variables as key drivers of clearing in this context, and shows that outcomes from policy interventions are very limited.•Points to the need for better integration with agricultural policy.
This paper aims to provide clarity around why land clearing occurs in a developed world context. We apply an information theoretic approach to discriminate amongst alternative hypotheses of the proximate drivers of land clearing, and test their capacity to explain historical rates of land clearing in New South Wales, a state in south-eastern Australia, between 1990 and 2017. We also assess the efficacy of policy interventions in NSW to date and discuss how lessons learned from the Australian experience might best be harnessed for effective policy design in Australia and beyond.
Our results indicate that farmers in NSW clear land in response to economic opportunities presented by favourable market signals. We identify a particular focus on potential revenues, whereby high agricultural commodity prices encourage agricultural expansion and an associated loss of on-farm vegetation. Our results indicate that, to date, direct regulation is likely to have had an impact in only one of the three regions modelled. We conclude that better integration with agricultural policy, including careful examination the effects of agricultural subsidies, will be required to ensure that increasing global food demand does not drive further forest loss in major food exporting nations like Australia.
Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) is a bolometric polarimeter designed to measure the inflationary B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at degree ...angular scales. During three seasons of observing at the South Pole (2006 through 2008), BICEP mapped ~2% of the sky chosen to be uniquely clean of polarized foreground emission. Here, we present initial results derived from a subset of the data acquired during the first two years. We present maps of temperature, Stokes Q and U, E and B modes, and associated angular power spectra. We demonstrate that the polarization data are self-consistent by performing a series of jackknife tests. We study potential systematic errors in detail and show that they are sub-dominant to the statistical errors. We measure the E-mode angular power spectrum with high precision at 21 <= ell <= 335, detecting for the first time the peak expected at ell ~ 140. The measured E-mode spectrum is consistent with expectations from a ΛCDM model, and the B-mode spectrum is consistent with zero. The tensor-to-scalar ratio derived from the B-mode spectrum is r = 0.02+0.31 -0.26, or r < 0.72 at 95% confidence, the first meaningful constraint on the inflationary gravitational wave background to come directly from CMB B-mode polarization.
The paper brings an overview of main challenges in implantable medical devices (IMD) research area, where the main objective of discussion covers wireless power transferring (WPT) systems as the hot ...topic dedicated to energy harvesting that is still gaining in popularity. The paper is focused on electromagnetic-transfer principle, where full integration of the WPT systems on a chip is taken as the primary goal covering passive transducer and rectifier implementations. The presented research reveals many issues raised from the state of the art solutions. These solutions can or should be detailed investigated in the future research. Therefore, this paper discusses about so far hidden potential of fully integrated WPT systems, where both near-field and far-field approaches are included. Additionally, the discussion is also extended to a principle of power transfer efficiency (PTE) maximization through approaches such as matching and finding the optimal source/load together with rectifying and regulating issues.
International case studies of protected area performance increasingly report that conservation and socio-economic outcomes are interdependent. Effective conservation requires support and cooperation ...from local governments and communities, which in turn requires that protected areas contribute to the economic well-being of the communities in which they are sited. Despite increasing recognition of their importance, robust studies that document the socio-economic impacts of protected areas are rare, especially in the developed world context. We proposed 3 potential pathways through which protected areas might benefit local communities in the developed world: the improved local housing value, local business stimulus, and increased local funding pathways. We examined these pathways by undertaking a statistical longitudinal analysis of 110 regional and rural communities covering an area of approximately 600,000 km² in southeastern Australia. We compared trends in 10 socio-economic indicators describing employment, income, housing, business development and local government revenue from 2000 to 2010. New protected areas acquisitions led to an increased number of new dwelling approvals and associated developer contributions, increased local business numbers, and increased local government revenue from user-pays services and grants. Longer-term effects of established protected areas included increased local council revenue from a variety of sources. Our findings provide support for each of our 3 proposed benefit pathways and contribute new insights into the cycling of benefits from protected areas through the economy over time. The business and legislative models in our study are typical of those operating in many other developed countries; thus, the benefit pathways reported in our study are likely to be generalizable. By identifying and communicating socio-economic benefits from terrestrial protected areas in a developed world context, our findings represent an important step in securing local support and ongoing high-level protection for key components of the world's biodiversity. Los estudios internacionales de caso del desempeño de las áreas protegidas cada vez más reportan que los resultados socio-económicos y de conservación son interdependientes. La conservación efectiva requiere apoyo y cooperación por parte de los gobiernos y comunidades locales, lo que a cambio requiere que las áreas protegidas contribuyan al bienestar económico de las comunidades en las que se ubican. A pesar del creciente reconocimiento de su importancia, los estudios generales que documentan los impactos socio-económicos de las áreas protegidas son raros, especialmente en el contexto de los países desarrollados. Proponemos tres vías potenciales mediante las cuales las áreas protegidas podrían beneficiar a las comunidades locales en los países desarrollados: el aumento del valor de las viviendas, el estímulo a los negocios locales y el financiamiento local incrementado. Examinamos estas tres vías al emprender un análisis estadístico longitudinal de 110 comunidades regionales y rurales en aproximadamente 600, 000 km² en el sureste de Australia. Comparamos las tendencias de 10 indicadores que describen los ingresos públicos del gobierno local, el empleo, el ingreso, las viviendas y el desarrollo de negocios desde el 2000 hasta el 2010. La adquisición de nuevas áreas protegidas derivó en un incremento en la aprobación de nuevas residencias y en las contribuciones de los desarrolladores asociados, en el número de negocios locales y en los ingresos públicos del gobierno local a partir de los servicios y permisos pagados por los usuarios. Los efectos a más largo plazo de las áreas protegidas establecidas incluyen el incremento de los ingresos públicos de los consejos locales a partir de una variedad de fuentes. Nuestros hallazgos proporcionan un apoyo para las tres vías de beneficio propuestas y nuevo conocimiento acerca del ciclo de beneficios de las áreas protegidas por medio de la economía a través del tiempo. Los modelos legislativo y de negocios en nuestro estudio son típicos de aquellos que operan en otros países desarrollados; así que las vías de beneficio reportadas en nuestro estudio probablemente sean generalizables. Al identificar y comunicar los beneficios socio-económicos de las áreas protegidas terrestres en el contexto de los países desarrollados, nuestros descubrimientos representan un paso importante hacia la garantía del apoyo local y el continuo alto nivel de protección para los componentes clave de la biodiversidad mundial.
•We identified the relative contribution of natural values, built infrastructure and contextual factors to total recreational demand for protected area sites based on visitation data collected from ...more than 60,000 households.•We present a novel zero-inflation statistical correction to incorporate information about non-selected sites into our understanding of visitor preferences.•We identify the types of built infrastructure that make the greatest contribution to demand at metropolitan and more remote parks to help protected area managers invest appropriately and optimise demand within these different contexts.
Effective management of recreation within protected areas requires a comprehensive understanding of the drivers of site visitation. To date, large multi-site studies that compare recreation demand for protected areas in response to underlying site attributes are rare, and have generally been restricted to high-profile, high-visitation sites. Our study, undertaken in south-eastern Australia, is the first to use random utility travel cost methods to explore recreational preferences across all sites within a large protected area network. We applied a novel zero-inflation statistical correction to identify the value of recreation demand arising in response to a broad range of site attributes, including protected area size, remoteness, natural values and built infrastructure. We find a strong influence of built infrastructure on recreation demand, but only a subset of the 9 infrastructure types modelled consistently generated recreation demand across the protected areas network. Other infrastructure contributed positively or negatively to tourism demand depending on contextual factors like site remoteness and the availability of recreation substitutes. We discuss the implications for protected area management at both the site- and network- scales, and as well as implications for designing more effective travel cost studies that allow the robust transfer of study findings to other protected area sites.
This experimental study is focused on the aggregate gradation impact on the properties of fresh and hardened concrete. For the experiment, 9 mix design were prepared with the constant content of ...cement, effective water, plasticizer and aggregate. The variable factor is represented by different proportions of 4 fraction (0/0.7, 0/4, 4/8, 8/16). Consistency by slump and flow table in time, compressive strength, water absorption and density were measured. Some significant differences were observed. Consistency by the slump test varied from 0 to 170 mm after 5 minutes and from 0 to 50 mm after 30 minutes of concrete mixing. Consistency by flow table varied from 340 to 530 mm after 5 minutes and 320 to 460 mm after 30 minutes. Standard compressive strength varied from 50.8 to 61.6 MPa. Water absorption varied between 4.7 and 5.9 mass % and density from 2380 to 2440 kg.m−3.
Introduction
Cholecystectomy is the preferred treatment for acute cholecystitis with percutaneous cholecystostomy (PC) considered an alternative therapy in severely debilitated patients. The aim of ...this study was to evaluate the efficacy and outcomes of PC at a tertiary referral center.
Methods
We retrospectively reviewed all patients that had undergone PC from 2000 to 2014. Data collected included baseline demographics, comorbidities, details of PC placement and management, and post-procedure outcomes. The Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) was calculated for all patients at the time of PC.
Results
Four hundred and twenty-four patients underwent PC placement from 2000 to 2014, and a total of 380 patients had long-term data available for review. Within this cohort, 223 (58.7 %) of the patients were male. The mean age at the time of PC placement was 65.3 ± 14.2 years of age, and the mean CCI was 3.2 ± 2.1 for all patients. One hundred and twenty-five (32.9 %) patients went on to have a cholecystectomy following PC placement. Comparison of patients who underwent PC followed by surgical intervention revealed that they were significantly younger (
p
= 0.0054) and had a lower CCI (
p
< 0.0001) compared to those who underwent PC alone.
Conclusions
PC placement appears to be a viable, long-term alternative to cholecystectomy for the management of biliary disease in high-risk patients. Old and frail patients benefit the most, and in this cohort PC may be the definitive treatment.
Polarization observations of the cosmic microwave background with the Cosmic Background Imager from September 2002 to May 2004 provide a significant detection of the f-mode polarization and reveal an ...angular power spectrum of polarized emission showing peaks and valleys that are shifted in phase by half a cycle relative to those of the total intensity spectrum. This key agreement between the phase of the observed polarization spectrum and that predicted on the basis of the total intensity spectrum provides support for the standard model of cosmology, in which dark matter and dark energy are the dominant constituents, the geometry is close to flat, and primordial density fluctuations are predominantly adiabatic with a matter power spectrum commensurate with inflationary cosmological models.
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