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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Cultural Ecology: The Problematic Human And The Terms Of Engagement, Lesley M. Head Aug 2011

Cultural Ecology: The Problematic Human And The Terms Of Engagement, Lesley M. Head

Lesley Head

As an intellectual container ‘cultural ecology’ is fraught with the same conceptual and ontological problems – what Anderson (2005: 280) calls ‘the stale binaries’ - that attend human impacts, cultural landscapes, indeed human and physical geographies. Yet the rich, detailed and diverse empirical material in evidence at the moment contradicts this in the doing. So perhaps we should be confident that in the public conversations we shall be known best by our works. Our students will be most effective if they can both groundtruth the satellite image of coastal vegetation and explain why the tsunami was experienced very differently by …


Local Engagements With Urban Bushland: Moving Beyond Bounded Practice For Urban Biodiversity Management, Nicholas J. Gill, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head Aug 2011

Local Engagements With Urban Bushland: Moving Beyond Bounded Practice For Urban Biodiversity Management, Nicholas J. Gill, Gordon R. Waitt, Lesley M. Head

Lesley Head

Management of ecologically significant urban green space is likely to be increasingly governed by biodiversity policy frameworks. These frameworks tend to reproduce bounded thinking and strategies that separate green space from its context and characterise people as a disturbance. Like many green spaces these ecologically significant areas are highly valued by visitors and nearby residents. Green space is important for engagement with nature, social interaction, and for respite from daily life: it is strongly connected to surrounding areas and to the lives of people who live there. The dissonance between bounded management thinking and the role of green space in …


Retrofitting The Suburban Garden: Morphologies And Some Elements Of Sustainability Potential Of Two Australian Residential Suburbs Compared, Sumita Ghosh, Lesley M. Head Aug 2011

Retrofitting The Suburban Garden: Morphologies And Some Elements Of Sustainability Potential Of Two Australian Residential Suburbs Compared, Sumita Ghosh, Lesley M. Head

Lesley Head

No abstract provided.


Suburban Life And The Boundaries Of Nature: Resilience And Rupture In Australian Backyard Gardens, Lesley M. Head, Pat Muir Aug 2011

Suburban Life And The Boundaries Of Nature: Resilience And Rupture In Australian Backyard Gardens, Lesley M. Head, Pat Muir

Lesley Head

Despite an academic shift from dualistic to hybrid frameworks of culture/nature relations, separationist paradigms of environmental management have great resilience and vernacular appeal. The conditions under which they are reinforced, maintained or ruptured need more detailed attention because of the urgent environmental challenges of a humanly transformed earth. We draw on research in 265 Australian backyard gardens, focusing on two themes where conceptual and material bounding practices intertwine; spatial boundary-making and native plants. We trace the resilience of separationist approaches in the Australian context to the overlay of indigeneity/ non-indigeneity atop other dualisms, and their rupture to situations of close …


The (Aboriginal) Face Of The (Australian) Earth, Lesley M. Head Aug 2011

The (Aboriginal) Face Of The (Australian) Earth, Lesley M. Head

Lesley Head

No abstract provided.


Waldo In The Light Of Austerity And Federal Debt Crisis, Part 2, Jan Kallberg Aug 2011

Waldo In The Light Of Austerity And Federal Debt Crisis, Part 2, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

Waldo’s predictions about the future for public administration describe five areas that would be problematic in the future: legitimacy, authority, knowledge, control, and confidence. Legitimacy includes not only that the government is legally legitimized but capable and focused on an intention to deliver the “good society.” Authority, according to Waldo, is the ability to implement policy with the acceptance of the people based on rationalism, expectations of public good, ethics, superior knowledge, and institutional contexts. Knowledge is institutional knowledge, the ability to arrange and utilize knowledge within the bureaucracy since coordination is the major challenge in knowledge management. Government has …


Waldo In The Light Of Austerity And Federal Debt Crisis, Part 1, Jan Kallberg Aug 2011

Waldo In The Light Of Austerity And Federal Debt Crisis, Part 1, Jan Kallberg

Jan Kallberg

Dwight Waldo wrote The Enterprise of Public Administration in 1979 looking back on a long and fruitful academic career, but also as a reflection about the future for public administration. Can a 30 year old book still be relevant? You bet. Today, the public sector is increasingly facing fiscal challenges. Federal, state, and local governments throughout the country have major budget deficits followed by austerity measures that undermine the ability to deliver the good life of the future. In this day and age rereading Dwight Waldo’s The Enterprise of Public Administration is an intellectual exercise worth pursuing. Several of Dwight …


Taxisim: A Multiagent Simulation Platform For Evaluating Taxi Fleet Operations, Shih-Fen Cheng, Thi Duong Nguyen Jul 2011

Taxisim: A Multiagent Simulation Platform For Evaluating Taxi Fleet Operations, Shih-Fen Cheng, Thi Duong Nguyen

Shih-Fen CHENG

Taxi service is an important mode of public transportation in most metropolitan areas since it provides door-to-door convenience in the public domain. Unfortunately, despite all the convenience taxis bring, taxi fleets are also extremely inefficient to the point that over 50% of its operation time could be spent in idling state. Improving taxi fleet operation is an extremely challenging problem, not just because of its scale, but also due to fact that taxi drivers are self-interested agents that cannot be controlled centrally. To facilitate the study of such complex and decentralized system, we propose to construct a multiagent simulation platform …


How Do Environmental And Natural Resource Economics Texts Deal With The Simple Model Of The Intertemporal Allocation Of A Nonrenewable Resource, Robert Main Jul 2011

How Do Environmental And Natural Resource Economics Texts Deal With The Simple Model Of The Intertemporal Allocation Of A Nonrenewable Resource, Robert Main

Robert S. Main

Textbooks in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics invariably deal with the problem of allocating a non-renewable resource over time. The simplest version of that problem is the case of a resource that is to be allocated over two periods. The resource has a constant Marginal Extraction Cost (MEC). Most textbooks treat this case before moving on to more complex and realistic cases. This paper suggests the results that should be emphasized and the method that should be used to arrive at those results. It also points out the possible confusions that should be avoided. Finally, it examines how several well-known …


Using Social Media For Natural Disaster Resilience (Booklet), Neil Dufty Jun 2011

Using Social Media For Natural Disaster Resilience (Booklet), Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.


Review Of Community Bushfire Warnings (Report), Neil Dufty Jun 2011

Review Of Community Bushfire Warnings (Report), Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.


Engagement Or Education?, Neil Dufty Jun 2011

Engagement Or Education?, Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.


Publishing Survey Articles On Information Retrieval Topics, Douglas Oard, Fabrizio Sebastiani, Jonathan Furner, Gary Marchionini May 2011

Publishing Survey Articles On Information Retrieval Topics, Douglas Oard, Fabrizio Sebastiani, Jonathan Furner, Gary Marchionini

Jonathan Furner

Survey articles are an important way of sharing knowledge among interested researchers and contributing to the growth of a field. This brief note identifies several outlets for survey articles on information retrieval, and identifies some reasons to write articles of this type.


Asean+3 Monetary And Financial Integration: What We Need For A New Framework?, Reza Moosavi Mohseni May 2011

Asean+3 Monetary And Financial Integration: What We Need For A New Framework?, Reza Moosavi Mohseni

Reza Moosavi Mohseni

In this paper at first we investigate the viability of creating an optimum currency area (OCA) in the East Asia. Then we try to find the currency bloc which is more suitable for this region. A ten-variable VAR model employed to estimate the underlying shocks and test the symmetry of them. The results show that forming an OCA for all of the countries in the region is costly and difficult to sustain. But at first five countries called Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippine with symmetric supply shocks can create the single currency area. The rest of the countries …


The Penetration Of Social Media In Governance,Political Reforms And Building Public Perception, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr May 2011

The Penetration Of Social Media In Governance,Political Reforms And Building Public Perception, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. While we know that social media can play an important role in publicizing political activities such as protests, do we have evidence that such actions have led to substantive political change? Is it possible to develop a set of indicators to more effectively gauge the impact of new technologies and media on questions of political change? That social media can help coordinate large and discrete activities, such as protests and …


Berberine-Inf55 (5-Nitro-2-Phenylindole) Hybrid Antimicrobials: Effects Of Varying The Relative Orientation Of The Berberine And Inf55 Components, Danuta Tomkiewicz, Gabriele Casadei, Jonah Larkins-Ford, Terence I. Moy, James A. Garner, John B. Bremner, Frederik M. Ausubel, Kim Lewis, Michael J. Kelso May 2011

Berberine-Inf55 (5-Nitro-2-Phenylindole) Hybrid Antimicrobials: Effects Of Varying The Relative Orientation Of The Berberine And Inf55 Components, Danuta Tomkiewicz, Gabriele Casadei, Jonah Larkins-Ford, Terence I. Moy, James A. Garner, John B. Bremner, Frederik M. Ausubel, Kim Lewis, Michael J. Kelso

Kim Lewis

Hybrid antimicrobials containing an antibacterial linked to a multidrug resistance (MDR) pump inhibitor make up a promising new class of agents for countering efflux-mediated bacterial drug resistance. This study explores the effects of varying the relative orientation of the antibacterial and efflux pump inhibitor components in three isomeric hybrids (SS14, SS14-M, and SS14-P) which link the antibacterial alkaloid and known substrate for the NorA MDR pump berberine to different positions on INF55 (5-nitro-2-phenylindole), an inhibitor of NorA. The MICs for all three hybrids against wild-type, NorA-knockout, and NorA-overexpressing Staphylococcus aureus cells were found to be similar (9.4 to 40.2 mu …


Antimicrobial And Antioxidant Activities Of Essential Oil And Methanol Extract Of Matricaria Chamomilla L. From Djibouti, Fatouma M. Abdoul-Latif, Mohamed Nabil, Prosper Edou, Adwa A. Ali, Samatar O. Djama, Louis-Clément Obamé, Mamoudou H. Dicko Prof. May 2011

Antimicrobial And Antioxidant Activities Of Essential Oil And Methanol Extract Of Matricaria Chamomilla L. From Djibouti, Fatouma M. Abdoul-Latif, Mohamed Nabil, Prosper Edou, Adwa A. Ali, Samatar O. Djama, Louis-Clément Obamé, Mamoudou H. Dicko Prof.

Pr. Mamoudou H. DICKO, PhD

The essential oil and methanol extracts of Matricaria Chamomilla L. were subjected to screening for their possible antioxidant activity by two complementary test systems, namely 2,2-diphenykpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging and β-carotene-linoleic acid assays. BHT was used as positive control in both test systems. In the DPPH test system, the IC50 values of essential oil and methanol extracts were 4.18 and 1.83 μg/ml, respectively. In the β-carotene-linoleic acid system, oxidation was effectively inhibited by M. Chamomilla, the RAA value of essential oil and methanol extracts were 12.69 and 11.37 %, respectively. When compared to BHT, the essential oil and methanol …


Two Faces Of Media While Covering Human Right Activities In India, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr Apr 2011

Two Faces Of Media While Covering Human Right Activities In India, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

The situation of human rights in India is a complex one, as a result of the country's large size and tremendous diversity, its status as a developing country and a sovereign, secular, democratic republic, and its history as a former colonial territory. The Constitution of India provides for Fundamental rights, which include freedom of religion. Clauses also provide for Freedom of Speech, as well as separation of executive and judiciary and freedom of movement within the country and abroad. In its report on human rights in India during 2010, Human Rights Watch stated India had "significant human rights problems". They …


Physiographic Factors Defining The Snake River Valley Ava; Beyond "Vin De Idaho", David Wilkins, Virginia Gillerman, Krista Shellie, Ron Bitner, Gregory Jones Apr 2011

Physiographic Factors Defining The Snake River Valley Ava; Beyond "Vin De Idaho", David Wilkins, Virginia Gillerman, Krista Shellie, Ron Bitner, Gregory Jones

David E. Wilkins

Beginning in 1971 with the first plantings of wine grapes, the wine and wine grape industry in southwest Idaho have grown to become significant contributors to the state economy with an annual impact of $75 million (Bierle et al., 2008). With around 1600 acres under cultivation in 50 vineyards producing at least 24 varietals (as of 2007), wine grapes are the state's second largest fruit crop in acreage, with the majority of the crop (USDA, 2008) being produced in the western Snake River Plain of southwestern Idaho and eastern Oregon. In April, 2007, a 21,400 sq. km area in this …


Language Discourse- A Critical Analysis Of Michel Focault's Work On Language Discourse With Special Reference To His Masterpiece "The Archeology Of Knowledge", Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr Apr 2011

Language Discourse- A Critical Analysis Of Michel Focault's Work On Language Discourse With Special Reference To His Masterpiece "The Archeology Of Knowledge", Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication or debate". The following are three more specific definitions: (1) In semantics and discourse analysis: A generalization of the concept of conversation to all modalities and contexts. (2) "The totality of codified linguistic usages attached to a given type of social practice. (E.g.: legal discourse, medical discourse, religious discourse.)" (3) In the work of Michel Foucault, and social theorists inspired by him: "an entity of sequences of signs in that they are enouncements (enoncés)" (Foucault 1969: 141). An enouncement (often translated as "statement") is not a unity of signs, but an abstract …


Brief Of Amicus Curiae In Support Of Affirmance, Ron D. Katznelson Mar 2011

Brief Of Amicus Curiae In Support Of Affirmance, Ron D. Katznelson

Ron D. Katznelson

No abstract provided.


Challenges Before Traditional Media In The Age Of Digital Media-How To Integrate It With Digital Media-The Way Ahead, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr Mar 2011

Challenges Before Traditional Media In The Age Of Digital Media-How To Integrate It With Digital Media-The Way Ahead, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

You may have heard of digital media, but you may have no idea what it is and how it can help you out when it comes to marketing. It's definitely important that you get up to speed so you can use this to benefit your business. Basically digital media refers to any type of electronic media out there. Today media can be accessed in many ways, including with hand held devices like mobile phones, laptops, desktops, mp3 players, and more.Digital media must be stored in an electronic way, so there is a lot of digital content on the internet today, …


High Speed Flight At Low Altitude: Hazard To Commercial Aviation ?, Paul F. Eschenfelder , Capt. Mar 2011

High Speed Flight At Low Altitude: Hazard To Commercial Aviation ?, Paul F. Eschenfelder , Capt.

Paul F. Eschenfelder

Commercial aircraft are capable of, and in fact, do, operate at high speed (>250 knots indicated airspeed [KIAS]) at low altitude (below 10,000’ above ground level) worldwide. Design, construction and certification standards for these aircraft were developed over 40 years ago. Since the development of these standards populations of large flocking birds have increased dramatically in many parts of the world. Yet neither design/construction standards nor operational practice have changed to reflect the new threat. Subsequent serious damage resulting from recent collisions indicates change is necessary. Since 2003, flight rules in Canada and the United States have been amended, …


Integrating Avian Radar Into The Aviation Operating Environment, Richard Sowden, Paul Eschenfelder Mar 2011

Integrating Avian Radar Into The Aviation Operating Environment, Richard Sowden, Paul Eschenfelder

Paul F. Eschenfelder

Avian radar technology has matured to the point where robust data and analysis tools are now able to provide the aviation industry with high quality information to support bird strike risk mitigation activities. The aviation operating environment is dynamic and challenging with complex interactions between the primary bird strike risk mitigation stakeholders; airport operators, air traffic service providers and flight crews. The transfer of this proof of concept technology into a suite of tools that is integrated into the aviation industry requires the engagement and support of the user community in the next critical evolutionary step of this emerging technology. …


Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan Feb 2011

Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan

Stuart Glennan

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification.


Implications Of Recent Research In Community Flood Education, Neil Dufty Jan 2011

Implications Of Recent Research In Community Flood Education, Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.


Are Warnings Working? Achievements And Challenges In Getting Communities To Respond, Neil Dufty, Steven Molino, Geoff Crapper, Alison Karwaj Jan 2011

Are Warnings Working? Achievements And Challenges In Getting Communities To Respond, Neil Dufty, Steven Molino, Geoff Crapper, Alison Karwaj

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.


Biodepollution Of Wastewater Containing Phenolic Compounds From Leather Industry By Plant Peroxidases, Mamounata Diao, Nafissetou Ouedraogo, Lamine Baba-Moussa, Paul W. Savadogo, Georges N'Guessan Amani, Mamoudou H. Dicko Prof. Jan 2011

Biodepollution Of Wastewater Containing Phenolic Compounds From Leather Industry By Plant Peroxidases, Mamounata Diao, Nafissetou Ouedraogo, Lamine Baba-Moussa, Paul W. Savadogo, Georges N'Guessan Amani, Mamoudou H. Dicko Prof.

Pr. Mamoudou H. DICKO, PhD

This study deals with the use of peroxidases (POXs) from Allium sativum, Ipomoea batatas, Raphanus sativus and Sorghum bicolor to catalyze the degradation of free phenolic compounds as well as phenolic compounds contained in wastewater from leather industry. Secretory plant POXs were able to catalyze the oxidation of gallic acid, ferulic acid, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, pyrogallol and 1,4-tyrosol prepared in ethanol 2% (v:v). Efficiency of peroxidase catalysis depends strongly on the chemical nature of phenolic substrates and on the botanical source of the enzymes. It appeared that POX from Raphanus sativus had the highest efficiency. Results show that POXs can also …


In Vivo Measurement Of Plant Respiration, M. Ribas-Carbo, J. Flexas, Sharon A. Robinson, G. G.B. Tcherkez Jan 2011

In Vivo Measurement Of Plant Respiration, M. Ribas-Carbo, J. Flexas, Sharon A. Robinson, G. G.B. Tcherkez

Sharon Robinson

Respiration is vital; it is the essence of life. Respiration is the mechanism by which energy obtained during the photosynthesis process is transformed into biochemical energy, in the form of ATP. This transformation of energy keeps all cells in all organisms alive. While energy conversion is the main function of respiration in animals, respiration has several other functions in plants. Among them, interactions with photosynthesis such as photorespiration and the production of carbon skeletons for the many compounds synthesized in plants (e.g., pigments, proteins and secondary metabolites). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that such a key role of respiration …


Using An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Uav) For Ultra-High Resolution Mapping Of Antarctic Moss Beds, Arko Lucieer, Sharon A. Robinson, Darren Turner Jan 2011

Using An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Uav) For Ultra-High Resolution Mapping Of Antarctic Moss Beds, Arko Lucieer, Sharon A. Robinson, Darren Turner

Sharon Robinson

This study is the first to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for mapping moss beds in Antarctica. Mosses can be used as indicators for the regional effects of climate change. Mapping and monitoring their extent and health is therefore important. UAV aerial photography provides ultra-high resolution spatial data for this purpose. In addition, we collected highly accurate and GPS transects to generate a detailed DEM. We calculated a topographic wetness index based on the DEM and compared it to the UAV photography to evaluate local growing conditions. This preliminary study shows that a UAV is an ideal platform for …