During 1996-1998 60,619 mosquitoes were collected around Cairns, Australia and processed for Al-phavirus isolation. Thirty-three isolates of Ross River (RR) virus were made from 9 species, Aedes imprimens, Aedes kochi, Aedes notoscriptus, Aedes vigilax, Culex annulirostris, Culex gelidus, Mansonia septempunctata, Verrallina (formerly Aedes) carmenti, and Verrallina lineatus. Attempts to isolate RR virus from 121 Aedes aegypti were unsuccessful. Twenty-six (79%) of the isolates came from within 1 km of a colony of spectacled flying-foxes, Pteropus conspicillatus. The minimum infection rate for these mosquitoes was 1.0 compared with 0.2 per 1,000 for mosquitoes trapped at all other sites. Ross River virus has not previously been isolated from Ae. imprimens, Cx. gelidus, Ma. septempunctata, Ve. carmenti, or Ve. lineatus. This is also the first isolation of an arbovirus from Cx. gelidus in Australia. In conclusion, the vector status of Ve. carmenti, Ae. aegypti and Ma. septempunctata warrants further study. This study also provides evidence that P. conspicillatus may be a reservoir host.
Annoyance, sleep disturbance and other health effects of road traffic noise exposure may be related to both level and number of noise events caused by traffic, not just to energy equivalent measures of exposure. Dynamic traffic noise prediction models that include instantaneous vehicle noise emissions can be used to estimate either of these measures. However, current state-of-the-art vehicle noise emission models typically consider a single emission law for each vehicle category, whereas measurements show that the variation in noise emission between vehicles within the same category can be considerable. It is essential that the influence of vehicles that are producing significantly more (or less) noise than the average vehicle are taken into account in modelling in order to correctly predict the levels and frequency of occurrence of road traffic noise events, and in particular to calculate indicators that characterize these noise events. Here, an approach for predicting instantaneous sound levels caused by road traffic is presented, which takes into account measured distributions of sound power levels produced by individual vehicles. For the setting of a receiver adjacent to a dual-lane road carrying free flow traffic, the effect of this approach on estimated percentile levels and sound event indicators is investigated. • The software is freely available as a Python plugin to the Aimsun microscopic traffic simulator.• Simulations show that this refined approach affects estimated percentile sound levels by up to 4 dB.• The influence of the approach on indicators for the number of noise events is illustrated.
Planning studios, through learning by doing, introduce students to relevant practical skills. The problem is that not all students, especially in the first-year, spend the required time on task, so they fall behind and fail to catch up. The article is based on the Community of Inquiry framework and proposes an online assessment to ensure that teaching, social, and cognitive elements are present when there is no face-to-face contact between the teaching team and students. The article follows a planning cohort across their first two studios that adopted the online assessment, and it provides an opportunity to evaluate the impact on the first-year experience.
Summary
Community‐based ecological restoration (CBR) has been encouraged by government funding schemes worldwide to help reverse ecosystem degradation, although many observers have questioned their longer‐term outcomes. We investigated the ecological and social outcomes of community‐based revegetation projects in an urban context, using the case study of all CBR groups located within 25 km of the Brisbane CBD which had been funded during 1997–2008 by the Australian Government's Natural Heritage Trust program to undertake revegetation works and which were also available for interview (N = 9 groups). First we reviewed the funding allocation within the region. Second, we conducted rapid on‐ground assessments of vegetation outcomes at 10 project sites several years after works were completed, which showed that the detectable area of established revegetation averaged 75% of the area planned, and the achieved revegetation areas varied greatly, both in total and in relation to cost. Third, we undertook thematic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with key group members, revealing that groups viewed the NHT scheme's short‐term funding and lack of administrative flexibility as being largely incompatible with both quantitative monitoring (which groups did not prioritise) and longer‐term maintenance of sites for successful vegetation establishment. Interactions with local governments were considered important to success, but internally‐conflicting policies of local and state governments, together with unforeseen site disturbances, acted to limit the achievement of projects' revegetation goals. Volunteer involvement and motivation were an important part of groups' activities. Overall, these CBR projects achieved modest short term environmental benefits together with a range of social benefits. There is a need for new CBR models aimed at maximising both environmental and social outcomes.
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