Relocating a Flood-Affected Community: Good Planning or Good Politics?

Problem, research strategy and findings: On January 10, 2011, the town of Grantham, Queensland (Australia), was inundated with a flash flood in which 12 of the town's 370 residents drowned. The overall damage bill in Queensland was AUD?2.38 billion (USD?2.4 billion) with 35 deaths, and more than three-quarters of the state was declared a flood disaster zone. In this study, we focus on the unusual and even rare decision to relocate Grantham in March 2011. The Lockyer Valley Regional Council (LVRC) acquired a 377-hectare (932-acre) site to enable a voluntary swap of equivalent-sized lots. In addition, planning regulations were set aside to streamline the relocation of a portion of the town. We review the natural hazard literature as it relates to community relocation, state and local government documents related to Grantham, and reports and newspaper articles related to the flood. We also analyze data from interviews with key stakeholders. We document the process of community relocation, assess the relocation process in Grantham against best practice, examine whether the process of community relocation can be upscaled and if the Grantham relocation is an example of good planning or good politics.

Takeaway for practice: Our study reveals two key messages for practice. Community relocation (albeit a small one) is possible, and the process can be done quickly; some Grantham residents moved into their new, relocated homes in December 2012, just 11 months after the flood. Moreover, the role of existing planning regulations can be a hindrance to quick action; political leadership, particularly at the local level, is key to implementing the relocation.     

Conformational flexibility of the serum amyloid precursor SAA

The present study on canine left ventricles showed that Emax which we previously proposed as a good index of both ventricular contractility and its pumping capability, decreased from 2.06 to 1.38 kPa/ml (15.5 to 10.4 mmHg/ml) via the sino-aortic baroreceptor reflex. Cerebral ischaemic response increased Emax to 3.83 kPa/ml (28.8 mmHg/ml). Emax decreased to 1.17 kPa/ml (8.8 mmHg/ml) after cardiac denervation.     

External cavity semiconductor laser model for the strong feedback regime

We present a formalism describing the dynamics of a semiconductor diode and apply it to the study of the dynamics of external cavity lasers within the strong regime. The formalism is based upon the usual travelling wave phenomenological model for the field and carriers within the semiconductor gain medium. Since the non-radiative recombination time of the carriers is typically much longer than the diode round trip time, we use a multiple scales analysis to obtain a model much simpler in form than the travelling wave model, but as accurate, without assuming that the gain within the diode is uniform. We apply this model to the external cavity laser. Rather than including multiple external cavity reflections explicitly, we include all external cavity reflections through the introduction of a single additional feedback parameter and one extra term in the field equation. In the limit of a single external cavity reflection, our field equation reduces to a form of the well-known Lang–Kobayashi equation that describes very weak external feedback. For strong feedback, we examine both the steady state and dynamical laser properties such as small signal response and large signal current modulation.