Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Impact Of Hurricane Katrina On The Environmental Security Of The Us Gulf Coast Region And Beyond, John Lanicci, James Ramsay

John M Lanicci

No abstract provided.

A Framework For Creating Active And Healthy Communities: A Case Study Of The Gold Coast, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Linda Too

Poor modern lifestyle choices have led to a burgeoning health concern for various government agencies prompting urgent review and action. Whilst the health sector has the primary role in addressing health issues, town planning can also contribute to better health by providing supportive environments for an active and healthy lifestyle. Local councils and other decision makers have a fundamental role in promoting healthy lifestyles among local community members through city planning and implementing physical activity and health programs. This research paper has two primary objectives. First, it develops an integrated 3-P (Place, Program and Partnership) framework for promoting active and …

A Framework For Creating Active And Healthy Communities: A Case Study Of The Gold Coast, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Isara Khanjanasthiti

Bhishna Bajracharya

Poor modern lifestyle choices have led to a burgeoning health concern for various government agencies prompting urgent review and action. Whilst the health sector has the primary role in addressing health issues, town planning can also contribute to better health by providing supportive environments for an active and healthy lifestyle. Local councils and other decision makers have a fundamental role in promoting healthy lifestyles among local community members through city planning and implementing physical activity and health programs. This research paper has two primary objectives. First, it develops an integrated 3-P (Place, Program and Partnership) framework for promoting active and …

Australian Bid Cost Benchmarking Of Public Private Partnerships, Michael Regan, Jim Smith, Peter Love

Michael Regan

Bid costs are essentially a concern of private companies and evidence is difficult to source from companies keen to safeguard their cost structures in a competitive bid market. Little evidence is available from the product disclosure statements of public companies or published statutory or Securities Exchange returns. Few companies disclose detailed information although there is wide use of generic “rules of thumb” for different project categories and most companies engaged in the PPP market are unwilling to provide information other than in anecdotal form. This paper reviews empirical and pilot survey evidence to ascertain bid cost benchmarks for public private …

Financing Mechanisms For Public Private Partnerships: Australian Experience, Michael Regan, Jim Smith, Peter Love

Michael Regan

Recent events in international capital markets has had major impact on the ongoing rollout of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and slowed their use. Capital has been hard to source especially for projects over $300 million, the patronage risk model for economic infrastructure is no longer available, debt is more expensive than it was 18 months ago and credit risk insurance is no longer readily available. This has affected bid markets and slowed the delivery of new infrastructures with longer-term implications for economic performance across the whole economy.

Comparing Project Costs Internationally: Methodology And Data Issues, Rick Best

Rick Best

It is not uncommon to see or hear statements that suggest that the cost of a project in one country is some multiple of the cost in another. Whether the claim is that it is more or less costly is irrelevant – the fact is that such statements are often meaningless yet governments and clients are all too ready to accept such claims and act on them in their decision-making. In some cases relative cost, however poorly calculated, is used as the basis for conclusions regarding relative productivity in industries such as construction. Arriving at truly comparable costs between countries …

Nuclear War: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, And A Workable Moral Strategy For Achieving And Preserving World Peace, Raymond Wilson

Raymond Wilson

Predicting Best Answerers For New Questions: An Approach Leveraging Topic Modeling And Collaborative Voting, Yuan Tian, Pavneet Singh Kochhar, Ee Peng Lim, Feida Zhu, David Lo

David LO

Community Question Answering (CQA) sites are becoming increasingly important source of information where users can share knowledge on various topics. Although these platforms bring new opportunities for users to seek help or provide solutions, they also pose many challenges with the ever growing size of the community. The sheer number of questions posted everyday motivates the problem of routing questions to the appropriate users who can answer them. In this paper, we propose an approach to predict the best answerer for a new question on CQA site. Our approach considers both user interest and user expertise relevant to the topics …

Emsian (Early Devonian) Tetracorals (Cnidaria) From Grattai Creek, New South Wales, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

The tetracoral species Phillipsastrea scotti sp. nov. and Trapezophyllum grattaiensis sp. nov. are described from strata assigned to the middle Emsian (nothoperbonus to inversus conodont zones: Early Devonian) part of the Cunningham Formation at Grattai Creek, west of Mudgee, N.S.W. For comparison with the former, Phillipsastrea oculoides, from the Early Devonian (late Pragian or early Emsian) Garra Formation in the Wellington area of N.S.W., is revised on the basis of the type material; new longitudinal thin sections show indisputable horseshoe dissepiments and trabecular fans in this species.

Recent Discoveries And A Review Of The Ordovician Faunas Of New Zealand, Ian Percival, Roger Cooper, Yong Yi Zhen, J Simes, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Fossiliferous Ordovician rocks are of limited extent in New Zealand, being largely restricted to northwest Nelson and Westland in the northern part of the South Island, with some isolated exposures at the southern extremity of Fiordland (Fig. 1). The known stratigraphic record, though incomplete, covers much of the period, and new information from study and revision of old collections (mostly dating from the 1960s and 1970s) continues to fill in the gaps. These data are critical to a better understanding of New Zealand’s place in the Ordovician world, when it occupied an isolated position facing the palaeo-Pacific Ocean offshore to …

New Genera Of Early Devonian Calceoloid Corals From Australia And France, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Two new Early Devonian genera and species of the family Calceolidae, phylum Cnidaria, are erected; these are Richtereola disruptus n. gen., n. sp., from the Emsian (perbonus conodont zone) of the Taemas area, NSW, Australia and from the Emsian Izarne Formation (gronbergi conodont zone) of the Montagne Noire, southern France; and Savageola unicus n. gen., n. sp. from the Lochkovian (eurekaensis conodont zone) Mandagery Park Formation at Manildra, NSW, Australia. These taxa are essentially defined on opercular characters; well-preserved opercula are essential for confident generic assignment of calceoloid material. Savageola is known only from eastern Australia, but Richtereola is known …

Phylum Cnidaria: Corals, Medusae, Hydroids, Myxozoans, Stephen Cairns, Lisa-Ann Gershwin, Fred Brook, Philip Pugh, Elliot Dawson, Oscar Ocana Vicente, Willem Vervoort, Gary Williams, Jeanette Watson, Dennis Opresko, Peter Schuchert, P Hine, Dennis Gordon, Hamish Campbell, Anthony Wright, Juan Sanchez, Daphne Fautin

Anthony Wright

This ancient phylum of mostly marine organisms is best known for its contribution to geomorphological features, forming thousands of square kilometres of coral reefs in warm tropical waters. Their fossil remains contribute to some limestones. Cnidarians are also significant components of the plankton, where large medusae – popularly called jellyfish – and colonial forms like Portuguese man-of-war and stringy siphonophores prey on other organisms including small fish. Some of these species are justly feared by humans for their stings, which in some cases can be fatal. Certainly, most New Zealanders will have encountered cnidarians when rambling along beaches and fossicking …

An Evaluation Of Mercury Concentrations In Three Brands Of Canned Tuna, Shawn Gerstenberger, Adam Martinson, Joanna Kramer

Shawn Gerstenberger

There is widespread concern over the presence of Hg in fish consumed by humans. While studies have been focused on determining the Hg concentration in sport fish and some commercial fish, little attention has been directed to canned tuna; it is widely held that concentrations are low. In the present study, the amount of Hg present in canned tuna purchased in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, was examined, and the brand, temporal variation, type, and packaging medium impacts on Hg concentrations in tuna were explored. A significant (p < 0.001) brand difference was noted: Brand 3 contained higher Hg concentrations ($\bar x$ …

Paradoxes Of Democratisation: Environmental Politics In East Asia, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

This chapter examines environmental politics in four polities that run the full spectrum of political regimes: mainland China (authoritarian), South Korea and Taiwan (newly democratic), and Japan (mature democracy). The chapter argues that variation in environmental politics in each place resulted primarily from the timing of their environmental movements, with subsequent movements learning from predecessors and gaining increasing access to global NGO networks. Paradoxically, when environmental movements became linked to democratization movements (in South Korea and Taiwan), they also became linked to political parties, which hindered access to government policymaking when non-allied parties were in power.

Communicating Climate Change: Are Stories Better Than ‘Just The Facts?’, Michael D. Jones Dr.

Michael D. Jones