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In the face of mounting environmental and political challenges in river management, accurate and timely scientific information is required to inform policy development and guide effective management of waterways. The Murray–Darling Basin is Australia's largest river system by area and is the subject of a heavily contested series of water reforms relying comprehensively on river science. River scientists have specialised knowledge that is an important input into evidence-based decision-making for the management of the Murray–Darling Basin, but despite extensive literature on the interface between science and policy, there is little guidance on achieving policy relevance for practicing scientists. Here, we provide a set of important discussion points for water scientists to consider when engaging with policy-makers and environmental water managers. We place our considerations in the context of a broader literature discussing the role of natural-resource scientists engaging with policy and management. We then discuss the different roles for river scientists when engaging in this space, and the advantages and pitfalls of each. We illustrate the breadth of modes of engagement at the science-policy-management interface using the Murray–Darling Basin as an example. We emphasise the need for effective governance arrangements and data practices to protect scientists from accusations of operating as advocates when working to inform management and policy.

DECface is a system that facilitates the development of applications requiring a real-time lip-synchronized synthetic face. Based on the X Window System and the audio facilities of DECtalk and AF, DECface has been built with a simple interface protocol to support the development of face-related applications. This paper describes our approach to face synthesis, the face and audio protocol, and some sample code examples.

Two formulations of the intrinsic bending elasticity of lipid bilayers are compared which are based on (A) the mean and the Gaussian curvature and (B) the mean and the deviatoric curvature. It is shown that (i) formulation A contains implicitly the elasticity associated with the deviatoric curvature even if the topology of the membrane does not change, (ii) the deviatoric elasticity is responsible for the change in elastic energy that comes with a change in membrane topology, (iii) the elastic constant associated with the Gaussian curvature is negative, and (iv) the spontaneous-curvature model may be extended by a curvature-independent term which becomes relevant when the membrane surface area changes. Formulation B is then (for the special case of symmetric bilayers) refined in that the curvatures of the two monolayers are accounted for separately. This leads to a curvature independent term and a correction of the elastic constants of the bilayer which both depend on the value of the monolayer-curvature. A continuum mechanical model for the bending elasticity of a lipid monolayer is developed. By comparison of this model to experimental data (i) the elastic constant associated with the deviatoric curvature is estimated and (ii) the decrease in experimentally determined elastic constants with increasing lipid unsaturation is traced back to the change in area compressibility and a trend in the spontaneous curvature of the monolayers. Finally it is shown that upon a change in temperature the change in elastic energy of a lipid vesicle due to the curvature-independent term is much larger than the concomitant change in elastic energy due to the shape change but only a small fraction of the total change in internal energy

t Flood plain wetland complexes are mosaics of physical units and the sediments contained within these various units often display spatial and temporal complexity. This paper reconstructs the environmental history of a mosaic of geomorphic units within a large terminal flood plainwetland complex in southeastern Australia in order to identify how the sediment character of the mosaic has changed through time. Sediment cores, up to 14 m in depth, were extracted from one flood plain and three lake units. Stratigraphy and multivariate analysis on these cores reveal a complex environmental history with sediment character highly variable in both time and space. All four geomorphic unitslake and flood plainhave undergone a convergent evolution from unique initial states. This study highlights how numerical methods, in association with standard sedimentological techniques, can assist in unravelling the environmental history of a temporally and spatially diverse landscap

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Vegetation zonation patterns are a common feature in flood plain wetland complexes and are important to the biodiversity and functioning of such systems. The purpose of this paper is to identify links between water regime, seed bank and the establishment of zoned vegetation communities in a series of small distributary channels within the Narran Lakes flood plain wetland complex, eastern Australia. Seed bank material from three distinct plant community zones within three distributary channels were collected and subjected to five inundation treatments over a period of 12 weeks to test the effects of location and inundation regime on the abundance of seedlings, species richness and species assemblages. The results of this study indicate that the water regime determines which species germinate and the seed bank influences the abundance of plants to emerge. This study provides insight into the implications of changing flooding regimes on plant community composition in flood plainwetland systems

Contemporary methods for managing flood plain ecosystems are biased towards temporal patterns of flow. Such approaches disregard the inherent spatial complexity associated with the flooding and drying of flood plain ecosystems and the influence this has on their productivity and biodiversity. This study investigates how the character of inundated patches changes through two flood events in the Narran Lakes ecosystem, Australia. A series of Landsat thematic mapper (TM) images were used to elicit patterns in inundated-patch character over time. Characteristics including patch number, size, shape and proximity to other patches were calculated for each image and subjected to multivariate statistical analyses. Strong positive relationships were observed between patch number; richness of patch area, shape and. proximity and total surface area inundated. Hysteresis was also observed for the latter three relationships. This work highlights the importance of incorporating both spatial and temporal aspects of flood plain inundation in detennining environmental water allocations for flood plain maintenance.

Free radicals are detected in the gas-phase smoke resulting from the combustion of wood using the electron spin resonance (ESR) spin trapping method. The materials were pyrolyzed by rapid heating in a quartz tube in a flowing air stream. The filtered smoke was bubbled into a dodecane solution of alpha-phenyl-N-tert-butyl nitrone, and the resulting nitroxide radicals were detected by ESR. The radicals spin trapped from woodsmoke are compared to those we have spin trapped from tobacco smoke; the smoke from both yellow pine and oak produce more intense ESR spectra than does tobacco smoke per unit mass burned under the conditions of these experiments. When woodsmoke is bubbled through pure dodecane and the resulting woodsmoke/dodecane solution is held for a delay time before the PBN is added, radicals are detected even after the woodsmoke/dodecane solution is aged for more than 20 min. Similar experiments with tobacco smoke show that radicals no longer are trapped even after much shorter delay times from tobacco smoke/dodecane solutions.

Deflation basins, or shallow depressions formed by wind erosion, are found in many semi-arid regions around the world. Because these features are topographic lows they become sites of water accumulation and are often associated with wetlands that represent important refugia for biota in dry environments. Despite being important habitats little is known about the relationship between water and sediment in these features. This study assesses soil geochemical properties from 50 wet-climate and 39 dry-climate deflation basins in Tasmania. The results reveal clear differences between wet-climate and dry-climate deflation basin soils. Macronutrients typically have higher concentrations in wet-climate soils (with the exception of potassium and calcium) while metals and other trace elements typically have higher concentrations in dry-climate soils. These findings have important implications for wetland biological-soil associations, with high plant productivity likely in wet-climate deflation basins as a result of both favourable nutrient status and better water availability.