Journal articles on the topic 'Powerful owl'

AbstractTwo sympatric native top-order predators, the sooty owl (Tyto tenebricosa tenebricosa) and powerful owl (Ninox strenua) coexist throughout much of their range in south-eastern Australia. Following European settlement, however, major changes in resource availability for these predators potentially resulted in increased competition, especially for food. This study examined ecological attributes of both species, including intersexual differences in the sooty owl, potential resource partitioning and whether competition may be occurring. Dietary overlap was high between female sooty owls and powerful owls (0.90), compared to overlap between male sooty owls and powerful owls (0.67), with three mammalian species contributing over 74% of their diets. Sooty and powerful owls coexisted throughout the study region, regularly roosting within the same vegetation types, and in similar locations, although microhabitat differences were apparent. Sooty owls displayed aseasonal breeding, although a peak in fledging in spring coincided with powerful owl breeding. Both species exclusively nested in similar size mountain grey gums (Eucalyptus cypellocarpa), however, hollow characteristics differed slightly. Significant divergence along a single niche dimension was not detected between powerful and sooty owls, as they had similar diets, habitat usage and activity times, potentially resulting in competition. Reproductive output was low for both species, however, the degree to which competitive interactions influenced this remains unknown. To minimise potential competition, longterm feral predator control and improved habitat management is recommended to increase the density and diversity of small terrestrial mammals, as this should result in diversification of the sooty owl diet, reducing dietary overlap with powerful owls.

This study reports the diet of the powerful owl (Ninox strenua) in East Gippsland, from a dataset of 2009 vertebrate prey items collected from 53 sites. Mammals dominated the diet at all sites, but birds were also consumed regularly. The greater glider (Petauroides volans) was the dominant dietary item across the region in terms of both frequency of consumption and biomass contribution. There was geographical dietary variation between coastal and foothill forest sites, with the sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) and birds consumed more frequently in foothill forests, whereas the common ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) was frequently consumed only in coastal forests. Typically, a higher percentage of powerful owl diet comprised birds closer to cleared land. The dietary reliance upon hollow-dependent mammals in foothill forests (averaging >70%) is of conservation concern, especially when non-hollow-dependent prey are rare. Forest management activities, especially logging, that reduce densities of hollow-bearing trees in the landscape are therefore likely to decrease the long-term carrying capacity of the landscape for the powerful owl.

Context Urbanisation is one of the most damaging landscape-scale disturbance processes leading to significant and potentially irreversible changes in biodiversity. How apex predators respond to urbanisation is poorly understood, largely because of their low density and low detectability. Given the important functional roles of apex predators in ecosystems, it is critical that research investigates how they respond to urbanisation, and how urban systems can be designed to better support apex predators. Aims The present research aims to examine how an avian apex predator, the powerful owl, responds to a complete urban–forest gradient in southern Victoria, Australia. Specifically, the research aims to understand the environmental attributes that drive habitat suitability for powerful owls across the urban–forest gradient. Methods Using a total of 683 independent field- and atlas-derived records of powerful owls across the study site, the research takes a presence-only modelling approach. The presence points were modelled against a series of geospatial variables that were determined a priori on the basis of the known ecology of powerful owls. Key results Potential powerful owl habitat declined in a dramatic fashion in response to increasing levels of urbanisation, ranging from 76% of the forest landscape to 21% of the urban landscape. Powerful owl habitat availability across the urban–forest gradient is positively influenced by tree cover, productivity (normalised difference vegetation index) and proximity to river systems and riparian vegetation. Conclusions Presence-only modelling has provided a useful way for investigating the response of an apex predator to a gradient of urbanisation. Although powerful owl habitat availability is negatively reduced by urbanisation, there is significant scope to manage urban landscapes to either maintain or improve the availability of habitat across the gradient. Implications High resource-requiring species, such as apex predators, have the capacity to be detrimentally affected by urbanisation processes. Presence-only modelling, however, provides a useful tool for investigating how these difficult-to-detect species are affected by urbanisation, and ultimately inform how landscapes can be managed to maximise habitat availability for apex predators.

The growing interest in the Semantic Web and the Web Ontology Language (OWL) will reveal the potential of Description Logics in industrial projects. The rich semantics of OWL provide powerful reasoning capabilities that help build, maintain and query domain models for many purposes. However, before OWL can unfold its full potential, user-friendly tools with a scalable architecture are required. In this paper, we design and edit the family ontology using Protégé OWL Plugin, which is developed by Stanford University.

The current diet of the sooty owl (Tyto tenebricosa) was determined by analysing freshly regurgitated pellets collected beneath their roosting sites in East Gippsland, Victoria. Comparisons were then made with: (i) prehistoric and historic diet from bone deposits found in cave roosts, and (ii) diet of a sympatric owl species, the powerful owl (Ninox strenua). Sooty owls consumed a large array of terrestrial mammal species before European settlement, but only three terrestrial species were detected in their current diet, a reduction of at least eight species since European settlement. To compensate, sooty owls have increased their consumption of arboreal prey from 55% to 81% of their diet. Arboreal species are also a major component of the powerful owl diet and this prey shift by sooty owls has increased dietary overlap between these two species. Predation by foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and other feral species is likely to have reduced the amount of terrestrial prey available to sooty owls since European settlement. Investigation of changes in the diet of sooty owls may offer a unique monitoring system for evaluating the ability of fox-control strategies to influence increases in numbers of critical-weight-range mammals.

Context Due to their important ecological roles, predators are increasingly being suggested as targets for biodiversity studies investigating how they respond to landscape change and transformation. But there is limited literature investigating our capacity to accurately monitor changes in their occupancy. Aims To test the efficacy of playback surveys for monitoring owls as a basis for investigating change in owl occupancy over time. We ask whether playback is an effective tool, and whether it can be optimised to improve its utility. Methods Using the urban–forest interface of Melbourne, Australia, as a case study, we used playback techniques to survey for the presence of three owl species: the powerful owl (Ninox strenua); southern boobook (Ninox boobook); and eastern barn owl (Tyto javanica). Sites were repeat surveyed at least 16 times throughout the year and occupancy models were developed to establish how season and temperature influence nightly detection probabilities of owls. Key results All three species of owl were detected through playback survey approaches, but the detection probabilities varied greatly between species and across seasons and temperature conditions. Eastern barn owls are poor candidates for playback surveys due to their low detection probabilities. The southern boobook and powerful owl are responsive to playback, but detection probabilities are influenced by season and/or temperature conditions. To optimise survey approaches, southern boobooks should be surveyed during spring and summer and the powerful owl should be surveyed on nights where the minimum temperature is near 20°C. Conclusions Although there is considerable interest in using predators such as owls to monitor biodiversity impacts associated with landscape change, poor detection rates can limit their utility. However, optimising survey approaches that consider shifting detection probabilities under different conditions such as time of year or temperature may improve the utility of predators as surrogates in biodiversity monitoring. Implications Optimising survey approaches for owls considerably reduces the window of opportunity in which to conduct surveys. To counter this, the intensity of survey effort needs to be increased during key periods. The use of highly trained citizen science teams may be one effective way of delivering such an approach.

This study identified and compared the abundance and detectability of owls and other nocturnal birds, over 1 year, in an urban parkland of a Brisbane suburb to a peri-urban/hinterland/rainforest site 27km away. Five owl species were detected, but only at the peri-urban/hinterland/rainforest site, they were powerful owl Ninox strenua, southern boobook Ninox boobook, sooty owl, Tyto tenebricosa, masked owl Tyto novaehollandiae and barn owl Tyto alba. A single southern boobook was detected outside the study, at the urban site. The tawny frogmouth Podargus strigoides was only detected at the urban site whereas the plumed frogmouth Podargus ocellatus plumiferus was only detected at the rainforest site. The bush stone-curlew Burhinus grallarius was the most frequently detected nocturnal species, yet we discuss its recent decline in Brisbane. Incidentally recorded mammals, reptiles, frogs and diurnal birds are given. The rainforest site had more scansorial mammals whereas the urban site had more possums, dogs and cats.

We developed the OBR-Scolio ontology that models scoliosis as pathological state of spine using the method of extracting from the FMA reference ontology in anatomical domain and the principal ontology framework of the OBR reference ontology, which is spread over anatomy, physiology and pathology domains. Following the FMA modeling framework, OBR-Scolio ontology initially is created in Protege using its frame based representation. In order to enable more powerful reasoning support, ontology visualization, and more precise concepts? definition and description, we converted OBR-Scolio in OWL DL language, due to its higher expressiveness. The paper addresses and discusses the key conversion principles, as well as our experience in such conversion, and the results obtained from Racer reasoner.

A model of the metapopulation dynamics of Powerful Owls Ninox strenua in Victoria, Australia is described, and its parameters were derived from available data. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the survival rate of adult owls is the most important parameter in the model. Because estimates of this parameter are uncertain, the predictions of the model are uncertain and unreliable. Using the best estimates of the parameters, the predicted risk of decline across Victoria is low, and local populations larger than 100 pairs have a low risk of extinction. If the lower estimates of adult and sub-adult survival are used, the abundance of Powerful Owls across Victoria is predicted to decline exponentially and faces extinction from deterministic forces. A prohibitively large field programme involving monitoring of individuallyrecognizable owls would be required to obtain an improved estimate of adult survival, and so further use of population viability analysis to assess the adequacy of particular management strategies is unlikely to be useful for this species. An alternative is to establish a long-term monitoring programme to document changes in abundance of the species in logged and unlogged landscapes.

AbstractThe W3C Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a powerful knowledge representation formalism at the basis of many semantic-centric applications. Since its unrestricted usage makes reasoning undecidable already in case of very simple tasks, expressive yet decidable fragments have been identified. Among them, we focus on OWL 2 RL, which offers a rich variety of semantic constructors, apart from supporting all RDFS datatypes. Although popular Web resources - such as DBpedia - fall in OWL 2 RL, only a few systems have been designed and implemented for this fragment. None of them, however, fully satisfy all the following desiderata: (i) being freely available and regularly maintained; (ii) supporting query answering and SPARQL queries; (iii) properly applying the sameAs property without adopting the unique name assumption; (iv) dealing with concrete datatypes. To fill the gap, we present DaRLing, a freely available Datalog rewriter for OWL 2 RL ontological reasoning under SPARQL queries. In particular, we describe its architecture, the rewriting strategies it implements, and the result of an experimental evaluation that demonstrates its practical applicability.

This study investigates the diet of six breeding pairs of powerful owls in the Yarra Valley Corridor in Victoria, Australia, and compares prey consumption with prey availability. The six sites represent a continuum of habitats, ranging from urban Melbourne, through the urban fringe interface to a more forested landscape. We found that powerful owls in the Yarra Valley Corridor are reliant almost exclusively on arboreal marsupial prey as their preferred diet, with 99% of their overall diet comprising four arboreal marsupial species. These four species (the common ringtail possum, common brushtail possum, sugar glider and greater glider) were also the most abundant species observed while spotlighting; however, their abundance varied along the continuum. There was a strong positive relationship with the presence of these species in the diet and their site-specific availability, indicating that the powerful owl is a generalist hunter, preying on the most available prey at a given site and in a given season. This study suggests that food resources are high in these disturbed urban fringe sites and it is unlikely that food availability in urban environments will limit the potential survival of urban powerful owls.

We investigate an extension of Description Logics (DL) with higher-order capabilities, based on Henkin-style semantics. Our study starts from the observation that the various possibilities of adding higher-order con- structs to a DL form a spectrum of increasing expres- sive power, including domain metamodeling, i.e., using concepts and roles as predicate arguments. We argue that higher-order features of this type are sufficiently rich and powerful for the modeling requirements aris- ing in many relevant situations, and therefore we carry out an investigation of the computational complexity of satisfiability and conjunctive query answering in DLs extended with such higher-order features. In particular, we show that adding domain metamodeling capabilities to SHIQ (the core of OWL 2) has no impact on the complexity of the various reasoning tasks. This is also true for DL-LiteR (the core of OWL 2 QL) under suit- able restrictions on the queries.

While recognizing that H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law has exerted a powerful and continuing influence on general jurisprudence, Brian Simpson finds it wanting. Simpson argues that Hart’s determination to make broad generalizations about the nature of a legal system deflected him from the important task of attending to the particularities of actually-existing law. Moreover, he identifies Hart as a ‘hedgehog’ in Isaiah Berlin’s sense: a thinker whose work gives expression to a ‘single central vision’ (in Hart’s case, law as a system of rules). This critique of Hart leads Simpson to argue for an approach to legal philosophy that is more attentive to the details of existing legal systems. But Simpson fails to present his readers with the theoretical approach for which he argues. This essay seeks to make good this deficiency in his response to The Concept of Law. To this end, it uses the writings of two philosophers on whom Simpson draws (Berlin and Michael Oakeshott) with the aim of enriching Hart’s contribution to general jurisprudence. Moreover, it finds in this Hart-Oakeshott-Berlin-based interdisciplinary theory (HOBBIT) a basis on which to throw much light on Britain as a distinctive form of politico-legal life.

Semantic web technology is adapted to the internet of things (IoT) for web - based applications to globally connect the services. Web ontology language (OWL) domain ontology is a powerful machine - readable language for domain knowledge representation. The developer stored the IoT application relevant ontology in a repository or catalogue. Hence, IoT application - related ontology files are available for reus e, but many of the IoT application - relevant ontology files are publicly not available or inaccessible. The proposed idea is to extract the contextual knowledge of IoT applications that contain inaccessible ontology files. The context - wise specific domain I oT applications are not obtainable, hence respective ontology - based research papers are identified and their frequent terms are computed. The selected contextual dominant frequent terms from the transport domain are passed into the skip - gram flavour of wor d2vector modelled n atural language processing ( NLP ) corpus which produces most similar terms. The domain experts select the appropriate terms to annotate in OWL ontology for contextual knowledge augmentation. Finally, 1422 contextual terms were generated b ased on dominant terms of selected IoT applications.

Auditory neurons in the owl’s external nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICX) integrate information across frequency channels to create a map of auditory space. This study describes a powerful, sound-driven adaptation of unit responsiveness in the ICX and explores the implications of this adaptation for sensory processing. Adaptation in the ICX was analyzed by presenting lightly anesthetized owls with sequential pairs of dichotic noise bursts. Adaptation occurred in response even to weak, threshold-level sounds and remained strong for more than 100 ms after stimulus offset. Stimulation by one range of sound frequencies caused adaptation that generalized across the entire broad range of frequencies to which these units responded. Identical stimuli were used to test adaptation in the lateral shell of the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICCls), which provides input directly to the ICX. Compared with ICX adaptation, adaptation in the ICCls was substantially weaker, shorter lasting, and far more frequency specific, suggesting that part of the adaptation observed in the ICX was attributable to processes resident to the ICX. The sharp tuning of ICX neurons to space, along with their broad tuning to frequency, allows ICX adaptation to preserve a representation of stimulus location, regardless of the frequency content of the sound. The ICX is known to be a site of visually guided auditory map plasticity. ICX adaptation could play a role in this cross-modal plasticity by providing a short-term memory of the representation of auditory localization cues that could be compared with later-arriving, visual–spatial information from bimodal stimuli.

Analysis of carbon (13C/12C) and nitrogen (15N/14N) stable isotope ratios (hereafter δ13C and δ15N, respectively) in animal tissues is a powerful tool in food-web studies. However, isotopic ratios of prey are not transmitted directly to a consumer, as a diet–tissue discrimination factor (denoted Δ) occurs between sources and consumer’s tissues. An accurate assessment of the diet of a consumer with stable isotopes thus requires that the Δ13C and Δ15N of the studied species are known. Our aim was to establish Δ13C and Δ15N values in the Snowy Owl ( Bubo scandiacus (L., 1758)). Moreover, we assessed the potential effect of ethanol preservation of blood samples on δ13C and δ15N values. We kept four captive adult Snowy Owls on a pure diet of mice for ≥6 weeks. We then collected mouse muscle and blood samples from the owls and analyzed their δ13C and δ15N values. Δ13C and Δ15N values (mean ± SE) for owl blood were +0.3‰ ± 0.2‰ and +1.9‰ ± 0.1‰, respectively. These values are the first discrimination factors ever reported in Strigiformes and are lower, for Δ15N, than those obtained in terrestrial carnivores and other bird species, including falcons. Preservation in ethanol did not significantly affect δ13C and δ15N values.

For some decades, astronomy and astrophysics have undergone a technological and conceptual revolution. Supported by ever more powerful telescopes and instruments on the ground and in space, the volume and quality of new insights is incredible, both in terms of physical understanding of individual celestial objects and the grand evolutionary scheme. New and powerful observational facilities such as the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) are opening new horizons, from the nearby solar system to the corners of the Milky Way galaxy in which we live and, not least, towards the vast expanses in time and space of the remote and early Universe. The next generation of ultra-sensitive optical-infrared telescopes such as Herschel and ALMA will be ready within this decade and concepts are being elaborated for the construction of super-giant telescopes like the 100 m optical/IR OWL, the ‘Overwhelmingly Large telescope’. With these impressive developments, and in a true spirit of exploration, astronomers can now look forward to great research opportunities, in a resounding manifestation of the continuous drive towards a better understanding of our cosmic surroundings and of our own origins, so characteristic for enlightened humankind of every age.

With growing interest in Semantic Web services and emerging standards, such as OWL, WSMO, and SWSL in particular, the importance of applying logic-based models to develop core elements of the intelligent Semantic Web has been more closely examined. However, little research has been conducted in Semantic Web services on issues of non-mono-tonicity and uncertainty of Web services retrieval and selection. In this paper, the authors propose a non-monotonic modeling and uncertainty reasoning framework to address problems related to adaptive and personalized services retrieval and selection in the context of micro-payment processing of electronic commerce. As intelligent payment service agents are faced with uncertain and incomplete service information available on the Internet, non-monotonic modeling and reasoning provides a robust and powerful framework to enable agents to make service-related decisions quickly and effectively with reference to an electronic payment processing cycle.

MRK 501 is a giant radio galaxy with an active core in the constellation Hercules. It is a powerful gamma source. MRK 501 has gamma cyclic variability as well as high X-ray and optical activity. MRK 501 is a quite powerful variable radio source, with a flux density at 15 GHz about 1.2 Jy. Of particular interest is the presence of cyclic brightness variations in gamma and optical ranges, which, according to modern models, may be caused by the presence of a supermassive double black hole in the core of the galaxy MRK 501. In this work, optical observatories of three countries, Ukraine (Mayaki, Heavenly Owl), Slovakia (Vihorlat) and Latvia (Baldone), took part in a joint project to study the rapid variability of AGN in radio and optical bands. The analysis of observations obtained from different observatories in V , R, I bands showed the presence of a wave-like, presumably cyclic, variability in the light curves with an average quasi-period of 46.7 days. Taking into account that a quasi-period of about 23 days was detected in the gamma range, it is most likely that we have found a harmonic (doubled value) of this period in the optical range, which is a new result. In addition, an analysis of long-term variability of MRK 501, from historical light curves of the AAVSO catalog, showed the presence of two longer cycles of variability with quasiperiods of about 1 year and about 5–6 years. It is shown that these quasi-periods, as well as their amplitudes, are unevenly distributed over an observation time interval from 2003 to 2021 (18 years) and change significantly over time.

Juniperus chinensis‘Blaauw’ is difficult to propagate by rooting stem cuttings why the aim of the research was assessing the possibility of obtaining the progeny of this cultivar by grafting. Experiments conducted in 2012 on grafting with various methods of the cultivar on 2-year-old Juniperus virginiana‘Grey Owl’ seedlings of rooted cuttings origin have made it possible to achieve a survival rate of about 80 %, however, the final conclusions on the success of transplantation can be made only on the basis of further long-term observations of grafted plants. It is shown that the plants of the Juniperus chinensis ‘Blaauw’, grafted by veneer side grafting, are more viable than the plants grafted by side grafting. During the observation period 2012–2018 years in the latter case, 75 % of the grafted seedlings died, and only 38.5 % of the veneer side grafted plants fell out. Grafted seedlings are characterized by more powerful growth in comparison with seedlings of rooted cuttings origin. The annual increment of the first is 2–2.5 times higher, which is explained by the influence of the stock. The site of grafting becomes difficult to discern over time, which indicates a good compatibility of grafted components and a suitable way of carrying it out. Thus, veneer side grafting is a promising way to multiply the hard-to-root Juniperus chinensis‘Blaauw’.

Ontologies are used in several application domains for representing knowledge. The defined approaches differ according to the type of addressed ontology (conceptual or linguistic) and to the used ontology model (e.g. OWL or PLIB). Several languages have been proposed to manipulate ontologies and their instances, especially in the Semantic Web domain. However these languages are often specific to a given ontology model, they focus on conceptual ontologies and they are not compatible with database exploitation languages. We address these three problems in this paper by proposing the OntoQL language. This language has three main original characteristics: (1) OntoQL is based on a core ontology model composed of the shared constructors of ontology models. This core ontology model can be extended by the language itself, (2) OntoQL queries can be expressed with different natural languages features using the linguistic layer of an ontology, and (3) OntoQL is fully compatible with SQL enabling a smooth integration between SQL queries of classical database applications and ontological queries. As a theoretical validation of this language, we present the algebra of operators that sets up its formal semantics. On the operational side, we describe the implementation of OntoQL on the OntoDB database and we illustrate the interest of this language by reporting several applications where this language has been extensively used and proved powerful.

Full TextThe Barn Owl The Barn Owl (Tyto alba) is a medium-sized, tawny coloured owl that, with the exception of Antarctica, has worldwide distribution. Like most owls the Barn Owl is considered to be nocturnal. Like all owls, it is predatory bird. In the Barn Owl’s case, members of the species are said to enjoy (or specialize, in the biological parlance) in small ground mammals—rodents, for example. In Eastern North America, the majority of their diet would include Meadow Voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) and Deer Mice (Peromyscus maniculatus). Barn Owls strike a distinct-look with their lack of ear tufts (a misnomer of sorts as the tufts—the “horns” of a Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus—are not ears and not associated with hearing at all) and their distinct heart-shaped facial disc (which is associated with hearing, but that’s another story for another time). As their common name suggests they can be found living in barns, on a nest made from the regurgitated un-digestible remains of those Meadow Voles and Deer Mice they hunt. Of course Barn Owls are not just limited to barns, but nest in silos, abandoned buildings and tree cavities too. Arguably, this should make their name “Barn, Silo, Abandoned Building & Tree Cavity Owl” but that doesn’t really roll off the tongue in the same way. These attributes and distinguishing features are all things to keep in mind if you find yourself out birdwatching near a barn in Southern Ontario. During your explorations, while there are certain to be Rock Pigeons (Columba livia) fluttering about, if you happen to come across a Barn Owl in this setting, you should take notice. Seeing a Barn Owl in Southern Ontario (especially a living Barn Owl) is something to make special note of—it’s not a regular occurrence. Part of the significance of seeing a Barn Owl lies in its relative in-abundance. While individuals identified as Tyto alba enjoy a cosmopolitan reputation, Southern Ontario has been considered the northern range of the species (“Ontario Barn Own Recovery Project,” 2005) and it has been suggested that Barn Owls have always found, say, other places more to their liking. Because of this, the Barn Owl is a special bird in Canada: it is officially endangered, recognized by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) (“Ontario Barn Own Recovery Project,” 2005). It seems as though Barn Owls living in Ontario have had bad luck of late— of the “handful” (“Ontario Barn Own Recovery Project,” 2005 ¶ 4) that have been seen since 1999, two were roadkills (“Ontario Barn Own Recovery Project,” 2005) and no breeding pairs have been “confirmed.” The Barn Owl of February 27th 2006 If you are a serious birder in Ontario, with a computer and internet access, it is likely that you are aware of the electronic mailing list called Ontbirds. Ontbirds is presented by the self-proclaimed provincial birding association, the Ontario Field Ornithologists. The electronic mailing list (or listserv) is meant to be a clearing-house of bird sightings and directions for interested birders: you read about a bird you would like to see, get the directions and off you go on a (perhaps literal) wild goose chase. On average, four to seven sightings are posted daily. As might be expected, more posting occurs on the weekend, and more postings occur seasonally during spring and fall migration. Typical emails follow a standard form: the subject line contains the bird or birds seen and their location while the body of the email contains more specific information about the birds and precise directions to the location they might be found. While thorough, the information shared is, generally speaking, pretty uncontentious stuff. So, it was with interest that a seemingly normal post on February 28th, 2006 took on new dimensions: whispers of deception, accusation of fraud and, more interestingly for my work, questions of what is normal, known and natural all emerged. On February 28th, 2006, a simple posting appeared in mailboxes of subscribers outlining how a photograph had been taken of a Barn Owl and posted on a webbased photography site. A URL was given linking to the photograph. It was noted that the photographer had not reported seeing the bird on the Ontbirds listserv, but that there was a link to the location where the bird was seen. That same day, the moderator of the listserv posted reminding the subscribers that the Barn Owl was considered “endangered” on breeding territory and that there were rules about posting about endangered birds on the listserv; all of the requirements that needed to be met prior to posting were created in order to reduce the likelihood that an observed bird would abandon a nest or breeding attempt. The following day, March 1st, a conversation had begun via the listserv. Another respondent was interested in knowing more details about the sighting and if the bird had been seen again. The next email later that day was from the photographer himself. In the email, he explained that though he did not remember exactly where he saw the bird, he used Google maps to locate the general location and road names. According to his directions, the Barn Owl was seen in Eastern Ontario, in the Ottawa region. As well, he shared the story of finding the owl, taking the photograph and watching the bird fly away from him. The author also stated that his initial reason for going out birding that day was to find Snowy Owls to photograph and that he had no luck in finding those birds that day. On March 2nd, another email arrived from another Ontbirds subscriber. In it, the author began to question the authenticity of the photograph. This email suggested that the owl’s feet have been “doctored,” as though something was removed after the photograph had been taken. The author reminded those reading that the Barn Owl is rare for Ontario and especially so where the photograph was taken—the implication being that the bird is so rare that it most likely didn’t exist. A third email followed on March 2nd in which the author suggests that there is nothing in the photograph that appears unusual or doctored. The author offered another suggestion about the authenticity of the owl. He reminded us that there was a Barn Owl sighting in a different part of Ontario earlier in the winter and attributes the owl’s presence not to digital photographic magic, but to efforts undertaken on the part of humans to help the species recover. Yet, this claim to reality does not seem to be working. Later in the afternoon on March 2nd, a fourth email arrived that supports the initial hypothesis that the photograph has been doctored. The author shared that the bird looks like one he had seen at Parc Omega, a wildlife park in Québec, and provides a URL to a photograph of the Parc Omega Barn Owl. The pull of the network to make the photograph unauthentic, and in turn, the owl, continues to mount. In a fifth email, the author shared the contention that the fencepost the Barn Owl is pictured perching on was specially made for captive birds to land on. The author also suggested that given the lighting of the photograph and kind of weather that was observed on the day that the photograph was supposed to have been taken, the photograph could not be discounted as being genuine. This is where the conversation ends on Ontbirds. At 5:30 pm on March 2nd, the listserv co-ordinator posted a message that states that the current conversation on the photographed Barn Owl is inappropriate. The coordinator reminded readers that Ontbirds is not a discussion list and is for “reporting birds period.” The closing line in the email reminds readers that not following the guidelines could result in the restriction or loss of being able to post to the listerv. This does not mean, however, that the conversation ended. In following the network thread to a website that catalogues rare birds from the Ottawa area, the sighting details for the Barn Owl seen on February 27th is prefaced with the words “LIKELY HOAX.” The page author outlines a litany of evidence that supports his claim that the image has been manipulated. The webpage author concludes his outline with the statement “let the viewer beware.” Enacting birds: reflection on the Barn Owl of February 27th I have spent some time thinking about the birders and the Barn Owl. I have read and reflected on the emails and the allegations. From this, themes have emerged concerning the construction of what is natural as well as insights into the creation of what Donna Haraway (2003) calls "naturecultures." Most importantly, this event, be it framed as authentic bird sighting or elaborate hoax, helps enact and make visible a topology of inter-species ethical relations between those who watch birds and the birds they watch. Networks Ontbirds operates within an established network of relations. People post their sightings to share with other interested birders. The process through which experiences are transcribed from embodied encounters to textual references is seemingly an invisible one. In this case, there were visible deviations from the established network. Within the birding community that posts to Ontbirds, the claim to have "found" a bird is an important one. In posts where the author is reporting a first-sighting and they did not find the bird themselves, the name of the bird finder (skilled, lucky or otherwise, as it is never suggested the kind of effort it took to come across the bird) is included. In this example, the finder did not make a submission to Ontbirds to report a rare bird. Rather, it seems like in this case, the original post came via an on-line gallery created by the finder that had the photograph and birding information on it. While never overtly stated, I believe that the authenticity of the Barn Owl was partially called into question due to the fact that the finder of the bird did not post his sighting to the listserv. Additionally, I find interesting to note that in the finder's one email to the Ontbirds listserv, he did his best to fit into the established network. However, problematic for him, he was not familiar with the area where he took the photograph. Part of the established Ontbirds network is knowing where you observed a bird; the more detailed the description of location and directions, the better. In networks, effort is required to maintain the relationships of the actors. The listserv tends to operate with little of what I would call boundary policing on the part of the co-ordinator. What is particularly interesting about the Barn Owl postings was the need of the Ontbirds co-ordinator to make comments concerning the type and quality of postings over the three day period, all referencing the mail about the Barn Owl. In well-established networks, subtle deviations from the established routine lead to powerful reactions: networks tend to become visible when they are threatened. The questioning of the authenticity seems to be such a reaction. What this suggests for a birding network is the power that lies in the focus on names, dates and details. This hybridity that exists between birders and the electronic mailing list certainly has implications in shaping what is considered normal, known and natural for those who subscribe to the list. Birds are enacted through Ontbirds as realities "out there" to be discovered, recorded and reported. While this is not necessarily that surprising, it does, in turn have an impact on other enactments of birds, especially visible in the multiple objects created. Multiple objects In this case there was an exceeding focus by birders on the rarity of the bird, to the point where I believe that the Barn Owl became a multiple object. Emerging from the field of Science and Technology studies, the idea of multiple objects opens a different way to think about the taken-for-granted: objects are often thought of as rigid and immobile in their existence - a Barn Owl will always be a Barn Owl (for a detailed discussion of multiple objects, see Law, 2004; Mol, 2002). In response to this, a multiple version of the object counters this notion of singularity. In focusing on the fractal nature of "reality" and in attending to difference, I believe that this perspective requires attention be paid to the enactment of objects. Enactment, in this sense, is the claim that "relations, and so realities and representations of realities...are being endlessly or chronically brought into being in a continuing process of production and reproduction, and have no status, standing or reality outside those processes" (Law, 2004, p. 159). Enactment is different than constructivism as it does not "imply convergence to singularity," in opposition to the fixing of objects' identities, "but takes difference and multiplicity to be chronic conditions" (Law, 2004, p. 158). Difference suggests that multiple versions of the same object can exist simultaneouslythis occurs because while objects are enacted in practice, these practices can be different. If the practices are different, then so too must be the objects (Law, 2004). Yet these multiple versions-or multiple objectsare, more often than not, able to cohere together. So, if these coherences shape our reality, then reality: is not in principal fixed or singular, and truth is no longer the only ground for accepting or rejecting a representation. The implication is that there are various possible reasons, including the political, for enacting one kind of reality rather than another, and that these grounds can in some measure be debated. (Law, 2004, p. 162) As such, a focus on the enactment of objects is filled with attention to the many ways that actors, human and otherwise, engage to create a reality: a reality described through investigation, a reality that is not the only one "out there" and a reality that focuses on heterogeneity and difference. In the move to collapse multiple realities into one, a distinctly political move is made, where one reality, one particular enactment of an object gains primacy over the others. In this particular becoming of the Barn Owl, the enactment of rarity overshadowed the other ways the bird was known (see Figure 1). Rather than having to pass judgement on if I think the Barn Owl was properly enacted, I think it is more valuable to examine the ways the bird was enacted. Let me outline the different ways (that I can see): - as a rare bird species (through the Ontbirds coordinator, external web pages and some birders' previous knowledge) - as a biological reality (through the email that suggested the Owl was a result of species rebound and human conservation efforts) - as digital magic (many of the claims to digital alteration of the photograph enacted this Barn Owl) - as an Eastern Ontario Barn Owl (through the initial posting) - as an Québec Barn Owl (through the claims it came from Parc Omega) There have also been subtle and tacit ways that the authenticity has been enacted, framed through the network of discovery, recording and reporting previously described. Through these discourses, the Barn Owl has been enacted as a: - valuable, wild bird - feral bird of ambivalent worth - wildlife park captive and therefore does not count In this multiplicity, the Barn Owl lost value in the eyes of some birders as its authenticity was called into question. What is implicit in this questioning is the understanding that there is some kind of a continuum that reported birds are judged against. It seems that the gold standard of authenticity is one that is wild, rare and (relatively) easy to find. It goes without saying that this perspective is not entirely unproblematic. This, in part, helps explain why there are not any postings to Ontbirds describing a flock of Pigeons seen in a ubiquitous habitat, such as the urbanized core of Anytown, Ontario. A Pigeon simply does not match up to the gold standard of valuable birds. In deciding what gets to "count" in knowledge-making endeavours, and what counts as the gold standard, other birds disappear from what is noticed. In that disappearance, the bird moves to the hinterland. I turn to that next. The hinterland and otherness Hinterland's are an attempt to engage with the act of disappearing. Law puts forward three kinds of Hinterland's: the first, he suggest are "in-here objects" (Law, 2004, p. 55); the second are "visible or relevant out-there contexts" (Law, 2004, p. 55); and the third are "out-there processes, contexts, and all the rest, that are both necessary and necessarily disappear from visibility or relevance" (Law, 2004, p. 55). I would deploy an artistic metaphor of positive space and negative space here: that which is present is the positive space of an image and that which is absent is negative space of an image. It is often difficult to decide if it is the negative or positive space that bounds the image: each side depends on the other such that if one is not there, the known image would disappear. Perhaps, if I expand the metaphor, the hidden absent is that which is not within the frame of the image. Importantly, all that lies outside the frame, while unnecessary in the composition of the image, is only unnecessary because it has been selectively ignored in the composition of the image. Emerging from this perspective on the hinterland is the acknowledgement that a relationship with the unknown, or the other, is necessary; rather than simply ignoring the disappearance, it is an attempt to acknowledge that disappearance is integral to any kind of knowing. Thus, if birding, as an act, continues the "process [of] enacting necessary boundaries between presence, manifest absence and Otherness" (Law, 2004, p. 144), then the various activities taken up in the name of coming to know these organisms are each a distinctly political move, moves that shape and reaffirm (mostly conventional) ways of knowing the nonhuman. For example, the second post in this chain made explicit that the individual Barn Owl was, in fact, part of larger species, Tyto alba and that species was considered to be an endangered one. The term endangered species does just that: focus on species, at the expense of the individual. In this organism's identification as a member of a species, it loses any ability to be something else; what could be has been othered. This act of othering is at times common in birdwatching. It occurs more than once in the Barn Owl discussion: through the questioning about the validity of the sighting, the focus subtly shifts from the sighting to determining the authenticity of the photograph. Again, in this move the individual owl disappears. The Barn Owl was not the only member of the order Aves to be othered in this particular natureculture assemblage. It is also interesting to note that the Snowy Owls, the birds that were the original objective of the outing that produced the Barn Owl, have disappeared. Likely, there were other birds seen during that trip, but for whatever reason (perhaps not rare, not big, not charismatic), they were ignored. For my purposes, I consider this othering problematic, in part, because it does little to acknowledge the lived experiences of nonhuman individuals. The challenge here is that the act of othering, in and of itself, is not inherently wrong. Rather than focusing on what might be out there, I believe that it is important to be able to recognize enactments that are politically aligned with the kind of relationships that ought to exist. So, one needs to develop the skill of attending to what is observably cast to the hinterland and what is brought to the forefront. In a sense, this is what I've attempted to do with my analysis of the Barn Owl narrative and the creation of the enacted set of relations in Figure 1. In creating this particular map of relations, I attempt to move beyond the established frame and re-focus on those multiple enactments that have been cast aside. In so doing, political actions and entrenched positions are more easily visible, while others can re-emerge from obscurity. It is true that there might be other unknowable enactments that exist in the hinterland-but let me suggest that acknowledging that, at best, partial perspectives (Haraway, 1991) are our best version of reality (as a nod to multiplicity does) offers more space for other realities to emerge. Thinking more generally about our dominant cultural relationship with the nonhuman, the promise of attentiveness to the various enactments of animals offer the opportunity to intentionally enact a reality that is more in line with one's own ethics. In asking what practices of birding are good or which practices ought we to be enacting, attention can be turned to current enactments to ask: "Ought they be enacted in this way?" This simple question, paired with the knowledge that there are other enactments hidden, could be enough to continue to question some of our Western culture's taken-forgranted assumptions about what it is to be human and otherwise. References Haraway, D. (1991). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: the reinvention of nature (pp. 183-202). Routledge: New York. Haraway, D. (2003). The companion species manifesto: dogs, people, and significant otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. Law, J. (2004). After method: mess in social science research. London: Routledge. Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: ontology in medical practice. Durham: Duke University Press. Ontario Barn Own Recovery Project. (2005, February 7). Retrieved March 4, 2006, from http://www.bsc-eoc.org/regional/barnowl.html

Oxidative conditions are frequently enhanced by the presence of redox metal ions. In this study, the role of capsaicin (8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide, CAP) in copper-induced oxidative stress was investigated using density functional theory simulations. It was found that CAP has the capability to chelate Cu(II), leading to complexes that are harder to reduce than free Cu(II). CAP fully turns off the Cu(II) reduction by Asc−, and slows down the reduction in this cation by O2•−. Therefore, CAP is proposed as an •OH-inactivating ligand by impeding the reduction in metal ions (OIL-1), hindering the production of •OH via Fenton-like reactions, at physiological pH. CAP is also predicted to be an excellent antioxidant as a scavenger of •OH, yielded through Fenton-like reactions (OIL-2). The reactions between CAP-Cu(II) chelates and •OH were estimated to be diffusion-limited. Thus, these chelates are capable of deactivating this dangerous radical immediately after being formed by Fenton-like reactions.

Purpose: The optimal power load is defined as the load that maximizes power output in a given exercise. This load can be determined through the use of various instruments, under different testing protocols. Specifically, the “optimum power load” (OPL) is derived from the load–velocity relationship, using only bar force and bar velocity in the power computation. The OPL is easily assessed using a simple incremental testing protocol, based on relative percentages of body mass. To date, several studies have examined the associations between the OPL and different sport-specific measures, as well as its acute and chronic effects on athletic performance. The aim of this brief review is to present and summarize the current evidence regarding the OPL, highlighting the main lines of research on this topic and discussing the potential applications of this novel approach for testing and training. Conclusions: The validity and simplicity of OPL-based schemes provide strong support for their use as an alternative to more traditional strength–power training strategies. The OPL method can be effectively used by coaches and sport scientists in different sports and populations, with different purposes and configurations.

In the oil and gas industry, the geophysics bears the most knowledge-intensive and high-tech activity. The results of geophysical studies underlie the search, exploration and development of oil and gas fields. It is impossible to effectively drill, operate and repair wells without it. Success in the development of technology and technology in geophysics depends on the level of academic and industrial science, the effectiveness of the education system, and the intellectual training of personnel. The paper provides a historical insight into the era of geophysical research from the beginning of the last century to the present day. The current state and prospects of further development of the geophysical industry as the basis of Ukraine’s energy independence are analyzed. The main reasons for the negative state of affairs in Ukrainian geophysics are as follows: loss of professionalism, lack of high-quality basic education, lack of funding and short-sighted decision-making.