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Background Women’s views are critical for informing the planning and delivery of maternity care services. ST segment analysis (STan) is a promising method to more accurately detect when unborn babies are at risk of brain damage or death during labour that is being trialled for the first time in Australia. This is the first study to examine women’s views about STan monitoring in this context. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with pregnant women recruited across a range of clinical locations at the study hospital. The interviews included hypothetical scenarios to assess women’s prospective views about STan monitoring (as an adjunct to cardiotocography, (CTG)) compared to the existing fetal monitoring method of CTG alone. This article describes findings from an inductive and descriptive thematic analysis. Results Most women preferred the existing fetal monitoring method compared to STan monitoring; women’s decision-making was multifaceted. Analysis yielded four themes relating to women’s views towards fetal monitoring in labour: a) risk and labour b) mobility in labour c) autonomy and choice in labour d) trust in maternity care providers. Conclusions Findings suggest that women’s views towards CTG and STan monitoring are multifaceted, and appear to be influenced by individual labour preferences and the information being received and understood. This underlies the importance of clear communication between maternity care providers and women about technology use in intrapartum care. This research is now being used to inform the implementation of the first properly powered Australian randomised trial comparing STan and CTG monitoring.

Demand Side Response (DSR) will become the dominant technology that sets the price of electricity in our power systems as we move at breakneck speed towards decarbonization. That is, those that can vary load to better match generation will be able to set the price of electricity. Those who can't will become price takers. Here, Matthews discusses the aluminum smelting's response to DSR.

I recently visited a smelter where proudly displayed on the middle of the boardroom table was a very large piece of coal. The person escorting me in said, that's there to show politicians what an aluminium smelter needs to run on. The statement took me by surprise, and hours later I was still processing all of what it encapsulated. For such a simple statement it encompassed so much, and while it is wrong on several levels, the statement probably sums up where we sit as an industry today, and the problems we are facing. I believe we are at a cross roads; with some wanting to stay in the past, some wanting to move forward, and others hoping things will remain the same. Just over 25% of our industry is blessed with being able to make low carbon emissions aluminium from geothermal and hydro generated electricity, and they are trying to distance themselves from the 75% who can't.

Matthews discusses why renewable energy grids need modulating aluminum smelters. Since the first power station was commissioned in 1882, a simple industrial-age mechanical device, the steam valve, has been used to keep our energy grids in balance without the need for storage. The rules were simple. Exactly the same amount of active power must be generated as is being consumed -- a balanced system. By opening and closing steam valves, and spinning turbines faster or slower, thermal power stations have been able to supply exactly the right amount of power as was being consumed at any given time, thus providing reasonably stable energy grids to forge ahead and build a modern world. We have to accept that we cannot change what we cannot control, but at the same time, we need to learn to change what we can. We may not be able to control nature, or the forces driving a need for a low emissions future, but we now can control how our aluminum smelters consume energy. Maybe we can learn how to use duckanomics to work in our favor, and not against us. We live in interesting times.

Much has been made of aluminum's environmental credentials as a metal, with its infinite low energy recyclability and ability to contribute to decarbonization through light-weighting effects of transportation, however a pathway to full decarbonization has proven elusive and remained in the too-hard basket. Here, Matthews et al examine aluminum production's pathway to zero carbon in 2020 as well as the challenges of full decarbonization of aluminum production.

Much has been written about billionaire investor Warren Buffett, but over the summer holidays I read his biography, The Snowball, by Alice Schroeder, which gives a great insight into his...