Browsing by Subject "Australia"
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Item Analysis of resource adequacy constructs in the US and Australia and future paths forward(2011-05) Thundiyil, Kevin; Baldick, Ross; Rai, VarunDeregulation of the electricity industry has altered the investment landscape for new resources. Multiple resource adequacy constructs are in use today around the world and represent diverging opinions of how much interaction regulators should have on the procurement of new resources. The report compares the resource adequacy constructs in Australia, Texas, California and the Northeast of the United States and discusses the future of resource adequacy. The report concludes that a hybridized construct that blends the high offer caps of energy-only markets, the prescriptive nature of resources in capacity markets and a strong price-responsive demand will likely be the future of resource adequacy.Item Avian-locust interactions in eastern Australia and the exposure of birds to locust control pesticides(Texas Tech University, 2005-12) Szabo, Judit K.; Astheimer, Lee; Hooper, Michael J.; Buttemer, William A.; McMurry, Scott T.There is growing worldwide pressure to develop new and effective chemicals against agricultural pests. Unfortunately, many pesticides have unanticipated and undesired effects on the environment. In eastern Australia, the Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC) has responsibility for locust control, currently using three pesticides (fenitrothion, fipronil and the fungal agent, Metarhizium) to limit locust populations during outbreaks. In an effort to evaluate the potential impact of these practices on Australian native fauna, this dissertation aims to assess the probability of pesticide exposure in 285 avian species, due primarily to their co-occurrence with locusts in areas where pesticide treatments are most likely to occur. Due to the unpredictable nature of rainfall, locust outbreaks and control events, I have taken a landscape approach to this question, with the area of interest coincident with the area of responsibility of the APLC. Rainfall, vegetation and soil characteristics strongly influence locust and avian distributions. I have examined spatial and temporal patterns in these factors, as well as the relationships between them with a final aim of evaluating their impact on the spatio-temporal distribution of three locust species, locust control events and avian distributions. Avian species distributions were obtained by applying generalized linear models to presence/absence data for the areas of interest for the years 1998–2002. Probabilities of a bird species present at times and locations of locust control applications were calculated. Field observations of avian species’ occurrence and behavior during locust outbreaks were used to evaluate the model. In the last step, the risk of exposure to fipronil was evaluated considering fipronil levels in three avian food items, seed, vegetation and locust samples. Small granivorous birds consuming high amounts of food daily relative to their body weight are predicted to be at greatest risk from exposure.Item Avian-locust interactions in eastern Australia and the exposure of birds to locust control pesticides(2005-12) Szabo, Judit K.; Astheimer, Lee; Hooper, Michael J.; Buttemer, William A.; McMurry, Scott T.There is growing worldwide pressure to develop new and effective chemicals against agricultural pests. Unfortunately, many pesticides have unanticipated and undesired effects on the environment. In eastern Australia, the Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC) has responsibility for locust control, currently using three pesticides (fenitrothion, fipronil and the fungal agent, Metarhizium) to limit locust populations during outbreaks. In an effort to evaluate the potential impact of these practices on Australian native fauna, this dissertation aims to assess the probability of pesticide exposure in 285 avian species, due primarily to their co-occurrence with locusts in areas where pesticide treatments are most likely to occur. Due to the unpredictable nature of rainfall, locust outbreaks and control events, I have taken a landscape approach to this question, with the area of interest coincident with the area of responsibility of the APLC. Rainfall, vegetation and soil characteristics strongly influence locust and avian distributions. I have examined spatial and temporal patterns in these factors, as well as the relationships between them with a final aim of evaluating their impact on the spatio-temporal distribution of three locust species, locust control events and avian distributions. Avian species distributions were obtained by applying generalized linear models to presence/absence data for the areas of interest for the years 1998–2002. Probabilities of a bird species present at times and locations of locust control applications were calculated. Field observations of avian species’ occurrence and behavior during locust outbreaks were used to evaluate the model. In the last step, the risk of exposure to fipronil was evaluated considering fipronil levels in three avian food items, seed, vegetation and locust samples. Small granivorous birds consuming high amounts of food daily relative to their body weight are predicted to be at greatest risk from exposure.Item Commonwealth: internationalism and imperialism, 1919-1939(2012-12) Wold, Daniel Kenneth; Hopkins, Antony G.; Louis, William R; Hunt, Bruce; Vaughn, James; Adams, Robert James QThe dissertation places the British Commonwealth of Nations in the context of international organizations in the 1920s and 1930s. British officials and policymakers developed a Commonwealth ideology that recast the Commonwealth as an international organization with close, informal relations. I argue that this ideology remained at the heart of British approaches to foreign relations. British writers and politicians used Commonwealth ideology as a model for international organizations such as the League of Nations. The dissertation also examines the development of the Commonwealth as an international organization. It shows how the Commonwealth became an organization of sovereign nations, but rarely lived up to the close cooperation described by the ideology. The Commonwealth became controversial as British and Dominion governments differed about its nature. The British government argued that the main link was the Crown, while some Dominion governments viewed it as an international organization held together by economic links and the will to cooperate. The dissertation differs from previous historical accounts by putting the Commonwealth in the context of internationalism. Many scholars have studied the interwar Commonwealth in terms of decolonization. They have measured the amount of independence the Dominions gained from Britain. Scholars of international organizations and globalization have tended to ignore the Commonwealth as an influential international organization. I argue that Commonwealth ideology served as an important British contribution to the development of internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s.Item Evolutionary and ecological influences on color pattern variation in the Australian common froglet, Crinia signifera(2009-08) Symula, Rebecca E.; Cannatella, David C.; Hillis, David M., 1958-Elucidation of mechanisms that generate and maintain population-level phenotypic variability provides insight into processes that influence within-species genetic divergence. Historically, color pattern polymorphisms were used to infer population-level genetic variability, but recent approaches directly capture genetic variability using molecular markers. Here, I clarify the relationship between genetic variability and color pattern polymorphism within and among populations using the Australian common froglet, Crinia signifera. To illustrate genetic variability in C. signifera, I used phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA and uncovered three ancient geographically restricted lineages whose distributions are consistent with other southeastern Australian species. Additional phylogeographic structure was identified within the three ancient lineages and was consistent with geographic variation in male advertisement calls. Natural selection imposed by predators has been hypothesized to act on black-and-white ventral polymorphisms in C. signifera, specifically through mimicry of another Australian frog, Pseudophryne. I used clay replicas of C. signifera to test whether predators avoid black-and-white coloration. In fact, black-and-white replicas were preferentially avoided by predators in some habitats, but not in others, indicating that differential selection among habitats plays a role in maintaining color pattern polymorphism. When black-and-white color patterns in a sample of C. signifera populations were compared with those in sympatric Pseudophryne, several color pattern characteristics were correlated between the species. Furthermore, where C. signifera and Pseudophryne are sympatric, color patterns are more similar compared to those in allopatry. Extensive phylogenetic variability suggests that phylogenetic history and genetic drift may also influence C. signifera color pattern. Fine-scale phylogenetic analysis uncovered additional genetic diversity within lineages and low levels of introgression among previously identified clades. Measures of color pattern displayed low levels of phylogenetic signal, indicating that relationships among individuals only slightly influence color patterns. Finally, simulations of trait evolution under Brownian motion illustrated that the phylogeny alone cannot generate the pattern of variation observed in C. signifera color pattern. Therefore, this indicates a minimal role for genetic drift, but instead supports either the role of stabilizing selection due to mimicry, or diversifying selection due to habitat differences, in color pattern variation in C. signifera.Item In situ melt generation in anatectic migmatites and the role of strain in preferentially inducing melting(2011-08) Levine, Jamie Sloan Fentiman, 1979-; Mosher, Sharon, 1951-; Carlson, William D.; Cloos, Mark; Daczko, Nathan; Siddoway, ChristineDeformation and partial melting have long been recognized to occur together, but differentiating which actually occurred first has remained enigmatic. Prevailing theories suggest that partial melting typically occurs first, and deformation is localized into melt-rich areas because they are rheologically weak. However, evidence from three different areas, suggests the role of strain has been underestimated in localizing partial melting. The Wet Mountains of central Colorado provide evidence for synchronous partial melting and deformation, with each process enhancing the other. Throughout the Wet Mountains, deformation is concentrated in areas where melt producing reactions occurred, and melt appears to be localized along deformation-related features. Melt microstructures present within the Wet Mountains correlate well with crustal-scale plutons and magmatic bodies and provide a proxy for crustal-scale melt flow. Granitic gneisses from the Llano Uplift, central Texas, provide evidence for partial melting occurring within small-scale shear zones and surrounding country rocks, synchronously. In the field, shear zones appear to contain former melt, whereas the country rock does not provide macroscopic evidence for partial melting. However, detailed microstructural investigation of shear zones and country rocks indicates the same density of melt microstructures, in both rock types. Melt microstructures are important for understanding the full melting history of a rock and without detailed structural and petrographic analysis, erroneous conclusions may be reached. Granulite-facies migmatites of the Albany-Fraser Orogen, southwestern Australia, have undergone partial melting, synchronous with three phases of bidirectional extension. Four major groups of leucosomes, including: foliation-parallel, cross-cutting, boudin neck and jumbled channelway leucosomes and late pegmatites were analyzed via whole-rock geochemistry, and there is evidence for fluid-saturated and -undersaturated biotite- and amphibole-dehydration melting. Migmatites from these three locations contain pseudomorphs of melt along subgrain and grain boundaries, areas of high dislocation density, in quartz and plagioclase. For these rocks that involve multicomponent systems, the primary cause for preferential melting in high strain locations is enhanced diffusion rates along the subgrain boundary because of pipe diffusion or water associated with dislocations.Item Locality and empire : networks of forestry in Australia, India, and South Africa, 1843-1948(2010-12) Bennett, Brett Michael; Louis, William Roger, 1936-; Hunt, Bruce J.; Minault, Gail; Vaugh, James; Barton, GregoryThis dissertation draws from national and regional archives to argue that many important aspects of forestry science, education, and culture in colonial Australia, India, and South Africa developed according to unique local environmental, political, social, and cultural influences. Local environmental constraints, combined with unique cultures of experimentation, encouraged the innovation of new scientific methods for forming timber plantations that differed from existing European and British methods. Debates over how to create forestry schools to train foresters in each region emphasized local problems and contexts rather than focusing primarily on continental European precedents or methods. The culture of foresters in each region corresponded to local cultures and social conditions as much as to a larger imperial ethos inculcated by training in continental European or British forestry schools.Item Production response of cotton in India, Pakistan, and Australia(Texas Tech University, 2002-05) Carpio, Carlos EnriqueThe problematic situation confronted by the cotton sector during recent years and the increasing level of globalization has led to a greater need for understanding production and marketing systems of countries other than the United States. A better understanding of the supply and demand forces underlying cotton markets in other countries can improve policy and industry decisions in the United States. The assessment of the magnitude and direction of the global future cotton supply and demand relations could provide U.S. producers and processors useful information in appraising the potential and sustainability of cotton production and trade. The study of the cotton supply and demand forces would be useful for U.S. policymakers to design market and trade policies to sustain and develop the cotton industry. Since the activities of production, consumption and trade of cotton in the world are concentrated in very few countries, the study of the foreign cotton industry needs to focus primarily in those countries that are major participants in the global cotton market. Given the resources constraint (i.e., time, data availability, etc.) only a subset of those countries was selected for this research, and the cotton subsector in which this study focused was the production sector. Three countries were chosen: India, Pakistan, and Australia. Current information about production response' for cotton in these countries is limited. The most recent studies found in the literature for India and Pakistan date back to the 1980s, and in the case of Pakistan the eariy 1990s. Therefore, there is a need for further research to develop updated production response functions for these major-producing countries. These three countries are key players in the worid cotton market. India is the largest producing country in the worid after China and the United States, and the second consuming country after China. Although during the last decades India has not imported or exported large quantities of raw cotton, it is predicted that this country will become a net importer of cotton in the near future (FAO, 1999a). Pakistan is the third largest consuming country, and the fourth largest cotton producing country in the worid, and it is likely that it will become an importer of cotton in the future, as well (FAO, 1999b). Australia is the seventh largest producing country and the third largest exporter.Item The Batavia shipwreck(2009-05-15) Van Duivenvoorde, WendyBatavia, a Dutch East Indiaman, sank in 1629 on its maiden voyage to the Indies in the Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The ship gained notoriety for the mutiny and horrific massacre that engulfed the survivors after the wreck, but the vessel itself was lost for centuries. The remains of the ship were discovered in 1963, and excavated between 1971 and 1980 by a team of archaeologists from the Western Australian Museum. The surviving hull timbers, raised from the seabed by archaeologists, represent approximately 3.5 percent of the original hull. They include part of the transom and aft port quarter of the ship. To date, Batavia represents the only excavated remains of an early seventeenth?century Dutch East Indiaman that have been raised and conserved in a way that permits detailed study. This is of great significance as there are no lines drawings or construction plans for any Dutch ships from this period. The study and comparison of the Batavia hull timbers with those of other Dutch shipwrecks and historic documentation contributes to the understanding of Dutch shipbuilding techniques at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries.Item Urban blackfellas(2012-05) Tran, Therese Truc; Lewis, Richard M., M.F.A.; Lewis, Anne; Moore, LisaMy thesis film for the Master of Fine Arts degree is a 20-minute documentary entitled Urban Blackfellas, a film that explores various lived experiences and issues affecting urban Aboriginals predominantly in and around Sydney. The film engages with a set of characters as they navigate issues of Aboriginal identity within a dominant white Australian cultural landscape. This report traces the evolution of the filmmaking process for Urban Blackfellas, from its creation to completion.