Journal articles on the topic 'Regional Singularity'

The singularities of manipulators with offset wrists are difficult to enumerate. This article presents a numerical study to illuminate singularity problems when using an offset wrist with an articulated regional arm. Ironically, the regional manipulator singularity problem is worsened when using a singularity-free offset wrist. No wrist singularities exist (they are forced by design to lie outside of joint limits). However, the existing regional arm singularities become skewed from the well-known singular configurations of common manipulators. The wrist offset also skews the well-known wrist singularities (though they hopefully still lie outside of joint limits, their locations are no longer easily determined). Thus, a zero-offset singularity-free wrist is preferable with regard to overall manipulator singularities.

Singularities form surfaces in the jointspace of a serial manipulator. Paï and Leu (Paï and Leu, 1992, IEEE Trans. Rob. Autom., 8, pp. 545–559) introduced the important notion of generic manipulator, the singularity surfaces of which are smooth and do not intersect with each other. Burdick (Burdick, 1995, J. Mech. Mach. Theor., 30, pp. 71–89) proposed a homotopy-based classification method for generic 3R manipulators. Through this classification method, it was stated in Wenger, 1998, J. Mech. Des., 120, pp. 327–332 that there exist exactly eight classes of generic 3R manipulators. A counterexample to this classification is provided: a generic 3R manipulator belonging to none of the eight classes identified in (Wenger, 1998, J. Mech. Des., 120, pp. 327–332) is presented. The weak point of the proof given in (J. Mech. Des., 120, pp. 327–332) is highlighted. The counterexample proves the existence of at least nine homotopy classes of generic 3R manipulators. The paper points out two peculiar properties of the manipulator proposed as a counterexample, which are not featured by any manipulator belonging to the eight homotopy classes so far discovered. Eventually, it is proven in this paper that at most four branches of the singularity curve can coexist in the jointspace of a generic 3R manipulator and therefore at most eleven homotopy classes are possible.

The smoothing effect of data interpolation could cause useful information loss in geochemical mapping, and the uncertainty assessment of geochemical anomaly could help to extract reasonable anomalies. In this paper, multiple-point geostatistical simulation and local singularity analysis (LSA) are proposed to identify regional geochemical anomalies and potential mineral resources areas. Taking Cu geochemical data in the Mila Mountain Region, southern Tibet, as an example, several conclusions were obtained: (1) geochemical mapping based on the direct sampling (DS) algorithm of multiple-point geostatistics can avoid the smoothing effect through geochemical pattern simulation; (2) 200 realizations generated by the direct sampling simulation reflect the uncertainty of an unsampled value, and the geochemical anomaly of each realization can be extracted by local singularity analysis, which shows geochemical anomaly uncertainty; (3) the singularity-quantile (S-Q) analysis method was used to determine the separation thresholds of E-type α, and uncertainty analysis was carried out on the copper anomaly to obtain the anomaly probability map, which should be more reasonable than the interpolation-based geochemical map for geochemical anomaly identification. According to the anomaly probability and favorable geological conditions in the study area, several potential mineral resource targets were preliminarily delineated to provide direction for subsequent mineral exploration.

In this paper, we investigate trajectory tracking in a multi-input nonlinear system, where there is little knowledge of the system parameters and the form of the nonlinear function. An identification-based iterative learning control (ILC) scheme to repetitively estimate the linearity in a neighborhood of a desired trajectory is presented. Based on this estimation, the original nonlinear system can track the desired trajectory perfectly by the aid of a regional training scheme. Just like in adaptive control, a singularity exists in ILC when the input coupling matrix is estimated. Singularity avoidance is discussed. A new parameter modification procedure for ILC is presented such that the determinant of the estimate of the input coupling matrix is uniformly bounded from below. Compared with the scheme used for adaptive control of a MIMO system, the proposed scheme reduces the computation load greatly. It is used in a robotic visual system for manipulator trajectory tracking without any information about the camera-robot relationship. The estimated image Jacobian is updated repetitively and then its inverse is used to calculate the manipulator velocity without any singularity.

This research aimed to use nonlinear theory and technology to describe the spatial distribution of heavy metals in the surface sediments of the Zhongsha Islands Sea region. The goal of this study is to explore the spatial distribution characteristics of heavy metals in the surface sediments of the Zhongsha Islands. The singularity theory and method were used to delineate heavy metal geochemical anomalies and the generalized self-similarity analysis method was used to decompose heavy metal geochemical anomalies and background concentrations. The results showed that there were abnormally high concentrations of heavy metals in the deep-sea plain area and in the western central sand trough area. The results of this study can inform priority areas for environmental monitoring. The element anomalies extracted by the singularity analysis method in this paper can be a guide to the next step in the investigation and provide the basis for the regional environmental assessment.

Purpose Food markets represent a pathway to explore the authenticity and identity of a territory. Markets are a crucial example among food tourism practices in urban contexts. This paper aims to analyze the products that build the particular food landscape of Costa Daurada, Catalonia, Spain. Design/methodology/approach To achieve it, the research was based on the study of foods offered in three regional markets. Findings Results show how Costa Daurada is gastronomically characterized and what products convey the diversity and singularity of the region. Originality/value The originality of this paper lies on the building of a regional gastronomy landscape on the basis of the iconic products delivered at local food markets, regarded as shared spaces between locals and tourists.

In this paper, we propose a mixed Jacobi-Fourier spectral method for solving the Fisher equation in a disc. Some mixed Jacobi-Fourier approximation results are established, which play important roles in numerical simulation of various problems defined in a disc. We use the generalized Jacobi approximation to simulate the singularity of solution at the regional center. This also simplifies the theoretical analysis and provides a sparse system. The stability and convergence of the proposed scheme are proved. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of this new algorithm and coincide well with the theoretical analysis.

Lebanon, for many Armenians, is referred to as “our second homeland” (yergort hayrenik), and it is scarcely difficult to see why. As nowhere else in the regional diaspora, Lebanon has offered its Armenian citizens—initially refugees—the economic freedom to achieve prosperity, the political freedom to pursue their interests, and the communal autonomy to preserve their identity. These freedoms and the efflorescence that they have enabled—to say nothing of Lebanon’s singularity as the scene of unique Armenian ecclesiastical and cultural institutions—have made Lebanon a distinctive part of the Armenian diaspora. This study aims to demonstrate why this was—and continues to be—the case.

A região do Nordeste Asiático destaca-se por sua singularidade geopolítica. É uma região na qual predominam atores cujas ações possuem alcance global, mesmo quando se trata da Coreia do Norte, o país mais pobre da região. Além da Coreia do Norte, as interações entre China, Rússia, Japão, Coreia do Sul, e Estados Unidos como potência extrarregional com presença militar na região, afetam a distribuição de poder no Sistema Internacional. A consolidação da China como Grande Potência reconfigurou a região e tem evidenciado o papel crucial que esse subsistema regional exerce para a polaridade no século XXI. Nos últimos anos, a consolidação do programa nuclear norte-coreano, a ascensão de Xi Jinping na China, a busca por reafirmação japonesa, a chegada de Donald Trump ao poder, reorientam as relações regionais. O presente artigo procura discutir as transformações na ordem regional no Nordeste Asiático desde o final da Guerra Fria até seus desdobramentos recentes e seus efeitos sobre as disputas hegemônicas. Assim, avaliam-se os processos que vêm ampliando a tendência à militarização e competição na região e o papel que a dissuasão nuclear exerce como fator determinante para o balanço regional. Abstract: The region of Northeast Asia stands out for its geopolitical singularity. It is a region dominated by actors whose actions are global in scope, even when it comes to North Korea, the region's poorest country. In addition to North Korea, interactions between China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States as an extra-regional power with military presence in the region affect the distribution of power in the International System. The consolidation of China as a Great Power has reconfigured the region and has highlighted the crucial role that this regional subsystem plays in polarity in the twenty-first century. In recent years, the consolidation of North Korea's nuclear program, the rise of Xi Jinping in China, the search for Japanese reaffirmation, reorient regional relations. This article discusses the transformations in the regional order in Northeast Asia from the end of the Cold War until its recent unfolding and its effects on the hegemonic disputes. Thus, are evaluated the processes that have been increasing the tendency towards militarization and competition in the region and the role that nuclear deterrence plays as a determining factor for the regional balance. Keywords: Northeast Asia; Hegemonic Recomposition; Regionalism. Recebido em: Agosto/2018. Aprovado em: Dezembro/2018.

The insufficient degree of common identity at the state level, the distinct regional character of axiological and ideological differences in the Ukrainian society, direct interference with the internal affairs and imposition of common identifications on the part of other subjects of international relations considerably aggravates the threat of separatism, leads to the increase of joint identification of citizens with other societies and their political interests, which can lead to the territorial disintegration of the country. The annexation of Crimea by Russia became a significant destabilizing factor in the region, which sharpened ethnopolitical controversies on the peninsula. The most ethnically dissatisfied are Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, who experience constant discrimination due to their ethnic origin, language, and religion from the state authorities of Crimea and Russian Federation. According to the population census, conducted by the Federal Service of State Statistics, subordinate to the Russian power, the peninsula has observed a considerable decrease of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar population: 15.8% of Ukrainians and 10.6% of Crimean Tatars. Russians constitute the majority: 68.3% comparing to 58.3% in 2001. Different sociological studies in Crimea claim annexation to cause the intensification of regional tendencies. Thus, according to the 2016 poll, 35% of the citizens identified themselves, first of all, as Crimeans and not as the citizens of Russia, which considerably exceeds average Russian figures. This dynamics does not obviously fit the ideas of the “Russian World”; thus, the peninsula observes the implementation of the “soft deportation” policy of Crimeans, substituted by Russians. The official data state that during four years 178 thousand people have migrated to Crimea, the prevailing majority of them being Russians. Although Ukraine does not have opportunities for implementing the legislation developed in the time period of 2014–2018 for the regulation of Crimean ethnopolitical disputes on the occupied peninsula, the development and implementation of the de-occupation and reintegration strategy of Crimea is crucial for the protection of Crimean ethnic communities’ rights and restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Urban geography is widely used in urban planning, regional planning, and multiform strategy researches about urban and area development. In the new period, urban geography is facing omnifarious innovation request in china. Firstly, the paper indicates that many problems such as lack of concept, disordered definition in basic concepts of urban geography in China; it is important to define basic concepts of urban areas to enhance pertinence and rationality of region research and region policy. Late-development countries have not duplicated the typical urbanized regional model of developed countries, which reveal urban geography possesses broad research prospect and opportunity in the countries whose economy and society reform rapidly. Under globalization, researcher should attach importance to singularity of the subjects and perspectiveness of research conclusions. Then, through introduction of research development, the paper discusses application of technical method in urban geography from angles of constitution of urban development strategy, quantification, facility location and geocomputation. Furthermore, through research development of business center, the paper expounds the significance of combining speculative knowledge with technical method. Finally, the paper summarizes the enlightenments which are beneficial to urban geography research.

AbstractIn the wake of the Government of India Act of 1935, provincial politics emerged as a challenge to the authority and legitimacy of all-India, centralised political parties. While the Congress and the Muslim League set up a binary opposition between secular and religious nationalism, provincial politicians refused to succumb to the singularity of either alternative. Partition historiography has been concerned with the interplay of national and communal ideologies in the 1940s, overshadowing this third trajectory of regional politics that was informed by provincial particularities. This article traces a short-lived alternative that emerged in Bengal between 1940 and 1943 under the premiership of Fazlul Huq. Huq produced a peculiar form of identity politics that appealed not only to religious sentiment but also to regional loyalty that cut across the religious divide. Significantly, he did so without resorting to secular claims. By challenging Jinnah's claim to being the sole spokesman of Muslims in India and highlighting the different concerns of a province with a Muslim majority, Huq reconciled the twin identities of religion and region within the same political paradigm, and foreshadowed the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971.

Beta diversity is useful to explain community assembly across landscapes with spatial variation. Its turnover and nestedness components help explain how beta diversity is structured across environmental and spatial gradients. Assessing beta diversity in freshwater ecosystems is essential to conservation, as it reveals the mechanisms that maintain regional diversity. Nonetheless, so far, no studies have examined the beta diversity patterns of benthic macroinvertebrates in tropical lakes. We aimed to examine the beta diversity patterns and components of the deep benthic macroinvertebrate communities of tropical Lakes of Montebello, Mexico, along spatial and environmental gradients. We used presence/absence data of deep benthic macroinvertebrates from 13 lakes distributed along environmental and spatial gradients. We calculated beta diversity indices and correlated them to each lake’s environmental and spatial variables. The macroinvertebrate communities of the Lakes of Montebello showed high beta diversity driven by a turnover pattern that emphasises the importance of regional-scale conservation efforts. Short distances between lakes and high environmental heterogeneity promoted species turnover, resulting in a great singularity level among lakes. We did not find significant correlations between the beta diversity components and the environmental variables, suggesting a random distribution given by the species’ high dispersal capacity in a reduced spatial extent across the lake district.

Marinas are highly anthropized environments, with singular ecological characteristics. In the present study the spatial variability of the amphipod assemblage associated to floating pontoons was analyzed. Moreover, the influence of the environmental data and the sessile biota on the amphipod assemblage structure were assessed. Six marinas were selected along the Southern Iberian Peninsula, three in the Atlantic and three in the Mediterranean, and three floating pontoons were sampled at each marina. Four-teen amphipod species were identified, most of them corresponded to detritivores and generalist species. Statistical analyses considering amphipod composition and abundance did not show significant differences between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, but there were significant differences among marinas. Copper had a significant correlation with the amphipod assemblage. The sessile species Bugula neritina and Ellisolandia elongata also showed a significant influence on the spatial patterns of the amphipod assemblages. Therefore, environmental conditions and sessile composition seem to affect, simultaneously, the spatial variability of amphipod assemblage associated to floating pontoons in marinas. Both factors are key to understand the singularity of marinas. This fact should be taken into consideration to prevent the use of a single management program in these environments.

Abstract The emergence of humanistic geographers like Tim Cresswell, Edward Relph, and Yi-Fu Tuan from the 1970s onwards redefined the meaning of ‘place’, through extensive emphasis on human experience within and beyond the physical landscape. Since then ‘place’ has stretched its domain and traversed the terrains of various disciplines, including literary study and production. Discussing ‘place’ in relation to how the acclaimed Indian writer Neelum Saran Gour represents Allahabad shows how she reframes the ‘cultural geography’ of the city. While decoding her literary spaces, this interview focusses on the multidimensional concept of ‘place’ from geographical and social–cultural perspectives and how Allahabad, or any other place like Allahabad for that matter, becomes an extension of the writer’s ‘self’ and its inhabitants. This interview also explicates how Gour conceives the invisibilities of multicultural North Indian society in terms of its various linguistic and gendered identities. In turn, Gour’s work moves from regional singularity to represent ‘Indianness’ more broadly.

Interest in the situation of women scientists has increased in recent years. Scientific institutions and governmental authorities have launched initiatives to promote science as a vocation among women. Within this context, the effort made by the media in disseminating role models is of vital importance. The aim of this research is to analyse the presence of women scientists in the media, and to conduct an appraisal of the status granted to them and the image conveyed about them. To this end, we analysed the content published on the websites of the regional newspapers Berria, Gara, El Correo and Diario de Navarra between 2014 and 2019 citing women scientists and researchers (N = 2362). The results indicate that presence is greater in quantitative terms, as is the prominence given to them in headlines. However, the disciplines in which they practise and the stereotypes which are conveyed shape their image, which in the case of STEM areas emphasise their role as carers and their singularity in the scientific field.

Abstract. This paper presents a new model proposed on the basis of multiplicative cascade process (MCP) theory for integrating spatial information to be used for mineral resources prediction and environmental impact assessment. Probability of a spatial point event is defined as the probability that a small map calculating unit (map unit) randomly selected from a study area contains one or more points. The probability that such unit randomly selected from a subarea with known spatial binary map patterns (evidential layers) contains one or more points is defined as the posterior point event probability. In this paper, processes of integrating multiple binary map patterns that divide the study area into smaller areas with updated posterior probabilities are viewed as multiplicative cascade processes resulting in a new log-linear model for calculating conditional probabilities from the multiple evidential input layers. The coefficients (weights) involved in this model measuring degree of spatial correlation between point event and the evidential layers are found to be associated with singularity indices involved in multifractal modeling. It is demonstrated that the model is simple and easy to be implemented in comparison with the existing weights of evidence model which is commonly applied in spatial decision modeling. In addition, the posterior probability as the end product of a multiplicative cascade process can be used to describe multifractality and singularity which are useful properties for characterizing spatial distribution of predicted point events. A case study of tin mineral potential mapping in the Gejiu mineral district in China is used to illustrate principles and use of the modeling process. Four binary layers: formation of limestone, buffer distance for intersections of three groups of faults, local and regional geochemical anomalies of elements As, Sn, Cu, Pb, Zn and Cd, were combined for mapping potential areas for occurrence of tin mineral deposits.

Based on modern economic theories and their comparative analysis, the role and essence of localism and its derived phrases formed under the influence of globalization and regionalization of the world economic space are clarified. The authors highlight the methodological foundations of localization, transformation of homogeneous and heterogeneous structures of modern regions, instruments of regional and local security and many other developments. Modern trends in the development of local areas in particular and localism in general are highlighted. The advantages and risks of global localization (new organizational design, cost optimization, global hubizm, growing singularity) are identified. The paper argues that parameterization and platformization are the important identification base of localization, which allow local governments to choose the appropriate development strategies (expansion, narrowing, cybernetic). Systematic analysis and generalization of different points of view by mostly foreign authors allow defining localism as a systemic ideology, methodology and practice of hyperconcentration of entrepreneurial and governmental activities within the traditional economic space (linear level), office-entrepreneurial and entertainment business in the form of multi-storey modules and systems (vertical level), as well as digitized networks and nodes (virtual level). Therefore, the paper concludes that localization should be understood as a complex multistructural economic and sociocultural process of microregions development and harmonization with the help of selective regulatory instruments, as well as a verified model of competitive relations between individual taxonomic units. Authors argue, that the modern process of localization is under the influence of creativity, westernization, cosmopolitanization, clustering, intellectualization and collaboration, the systemic influence of which will contribute to the formation of one of the possible strategies of economic activity. At the applied level, European regional localization design is represented by the ever-increasing amount of funding from the European Regional Development Fund. The article identifies the features of the European local-regional taxonomy and shows the role of EU mechanisms and tools in the process of regulating the development of local models.

Tomando como eje de la reflexión los procesos en torno a una peculiar experiencia de participación política que se configuró en Jujuy –provincia ubicada en el extremo norte de Argentina– hacia la década de 1930 se argumenta que las posibilidades de diálogo entre la historia regional y la microhistoria italiana dependen del posicionamiento previo en torno a la problemática epistemológica de la tensión entre explicación y comprensión, entendiendo que el rescate de una singularidad histórica no entra en coalición con la búsqueda de regularidades en la acción social. El análisis del caso concreto bajo estudio parte de la premisa metodológica según la cual el sentido mentado por los actores en sus prácticas se captura a través de un fuerte ejercicio de contextualización que apunta hacia el particular marco histórico en el que el fenómeno resulta inteligible. La alusión a procesos configurados regionalmente y aprehensibles a este nivel espacial– resultó fundamental. Se deja abierta la reflexión en torno a la pertinencia de considerar el nivel de lo “regional” como espacio de análisis adecuado a fin de que los resultados de la reconstrucción histórica trasciendan sus originales marcos y puedan arrojar luz sobre realidades distantes en el espacio o el tiempo.Palabras clave: historia regional, microhistoria italiana, explicación-comprensión, contextualización, proyección del análisis. About regional history and Italian microhistory. Dialogues on the occasion of a local political experience in the Argentina of the 1930s AbstractTaking as the centre of reflection the process around a peculiar experience of political participation which took place in Jujuy –a northern province of Argentina– at about the 1930s we say that the chances of dialogue between regional history and Italian microhistory depend on previous position around the epistemological question of the tension between explanation and understanding, assuming that the rescue of historical singularity does not collide with the search of regularities in social action. The analysis of the concrete event under consideration is based on the methodological premise in accordance with it the sense make aware by the actors in their practices it captures through a strong exercise of contextualization that points towards the particular historical framework in which the phenomenon becomes intelligible. It was fundamental the allusion to the process that had been formed and grasped with reference to a regional level. We want to install the reflection around the appropriateness of regard the regional level as an adequate space of analysis in order to the results of historical reconstruction exceed its original frameworks and light up distant realities across the space or the time.Keywords: regional history, Italian microhistory, explanation-understanding, contextualization, projection of analysis.

The remarkable richness and singularity of the Azorean Region (located 38° North) and its landscapes require a sharp, well-defined, and comprehensive planning policy. Bearing in mind the significance of this issue in the enlightenment of sustainability, planning strategies should be based and supported by different studies and thematic domains to understand the problem thoroughly. Using GIS (Geographic Information Systems), the present article enables us to identify the dynamics and patterns of the evolution of the Land-Use Changes in the Azores Region from 1990 to 2018. In aggregate, the Azores islands showed growth in artificial surfaces and forest and seminatural land-uses by essentially decreasing agricultural areas—most resulting from the economic and social development strategy pursued by several Azorean governments. Moreover, this study permits us to reinforce that the Azores Archipelago’s land-uses has undergone multiple changes—marked by increasing and decreasing periods. In fact, some of these reducing dynamics are disturbing. They require closer monitorization by regional government actors to give protection, preservation, and conservation to these incomparable ultra-peripheral landscapes, environments, ecosystems, and the region as a whole.

The genre of metapoetry thematizes the fictional elements – the inspiration of a poet, his poetic process, meta-poetic metaphors, the role of the poet in society, and intertextual references – partaking in the making of poetry explicitly or implicitly carried through a poem within a poem technique. This paper presents Eva Müller-Zettlemann’s theoretical pronunciation of meta-poetic elements, i. e., poetic inspiration, poetic process, and meta-poetic metaphors, at play in the metalyrics of Taufiq Rafat from his anthologies Arrival of the Monsoon: Collected Poems 1947-78 (1985) and Half Moon: Poems 1979-1983 (2008). Rafat’s inspiration is the South-Asian terra firma and lived experience that makes him infuse the regional sensibility through a poetic process of perceiving and penning down immediately. His meta-poetic metaphor involves the invention of an image of cultural genesis that informs the process of poetic creativity. Moreover, the study also considers the explicit expression of the role of the poet in society and the functions of poetry in Rafat’s poems, otherwise a prose phenomenon. Thus, the paper analyzes the conscious expression of the construction of South-Asian singularity inspired by the cultural kernel in content and form in Rafat’s metalyrics.

This paper briefly reviews our recent analytical and experimental results on 3 interrelated features beyond the peak load in heterogeneous media: continuous bifurcation, damage localization and catastrophic rupture (CR). Firstly, an Elastic Statistically-Brittle model (ESB) was introduced to formulate the basic features of a kind of heterogeneous media, like rocks and cements. The global mean field approximation (GMF) shows that the measure of heterogeneity, like the Weibull modulus m in the distribution of meso-strength plays a key role to distinguish CR from gradual failure. Then, with the ESB model and corresponding experimental results, continuous bifurcation and damage localization are discussed. In accord with these, regional mean field approximation (RMF) is adopted and it shows that any scale of damage localization can satisfy the conservation laws in continuum mechanics. This implies that catastrophic rupture could appear at any state beyond the peak load, depending on the unknown evolution of damage localization zone. Hence, catastrophic rupture seems to occur stochastically at macroscopic level. On the other hand, both experimental and analytic studies demonstrate that a robust power law singularity (-1/2) appears ahead of CR. Preliminary applications of these ideas are briefly described.

Methane (CH4) is one of important greenhouse gases that affects the global radiative balance after carbon dioxide (CO2). Previous studies have demonstrated the detection of known sources of CH4 emission using the hyperspectral technology based on in situ vertical CH4 profile or ground CH4 emissions data. However, those approaches have not yet to detect the unknown terrestrial sources of CH4 emission at local-scale or regional-scale. In this paper, the Shortwave Airborne Spectrographic Imager (SASI) was employed to detect concentrated sources of CH4 emissions based on the absorption of CH4 in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) region. As a result, a band ratio (namely RCH4, RCH4 = Band91/Band78) determined through wavelet transform singularity detection has proposed for detection of the terrestrial CH4 emissions sources using SASI hyperspectral radiance image data, and elevated CH4 locations in the oil shale retorting plants were identified. Additionally, SASI surface reflectance data and multiple reference spectra in the spectral angle mapper (SAM) were used to classify surface sources of CH4 release. High-resolution Google Earth imagery and thermal imaging camera (FLIR GF320) had also verified that the CH4 releasing sources are mainly the oil shale mining field and the retorting plant. Therefore, the high-resolution imaging hyperspectral spectrometer can provide a powerful tool for detecting terrestrial CH4 release sources at local-scale to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions related to hydrocarbon development.

Biodiversity research in tropical ecosystems—popularized as the most biodiverse habitats on Earth—often neglects invertebrates, yet invertebrates represent the bulk of local species richness. Insect communities in particular remain strongly impeded by both Linnaean and Wallacean shortfalls, and identifying species often remains a formidable challenge inhibiting the use of these organisms as indicators for ecological and conservation studies. Here we use DNA barcoding as an alternative to the traditional taxonomic approach for characterizing and comparing the diversity of moth communities in two different ecosystems in Gabon. Though sampling remains very incomplete, as evidenced by the high proportion (59%) of species represented by singletons, our results reveal an outstanding diversity. With about 3500 specimens sequenced and representing 1385 BINs (Barcode Index Numbers, used as a proxy to species) in 23 families, the diversity of moths in the two sites sampled is higher than the current number of species listed for the entire country, highlighting the huge gap in biodiversity knowledge for this country. Both seasonal and spatial turnovers are strikingly high (18.3% of BINs shared between seasons, and 13.3% between sites) and draw attention to the need to account for these when running regional surveys. Our results also highlight the richness and singularity of savannah environments and emphasize the status of Central African ecosystems as hotspots of biodiversity.

RESUMEN. Flora brio-pteridolítica de los bosques lauroides de Rhododendron ponticum L. del Parque Natural de los Alcornocales (Cádiz-Málaga, España). Se ha estudiado parte de la diversidad brio- pteridofítica en el Parque Natural de los Alcornocales (Cádiz-Málaga; Sur de España). Nos hemos centrado en las comunidades caracterizadas por la presencia de Rhododendron ponticum, uno de los hábitats más representativos del Parque por su originalidad. Para ello hemos muestreado 23 localidades repartidas por todo el Parque y que varían por sus características climáticas. Se han identificado 171 especies de las que 111 son musgos, 2 antocerotas, 42 hepáticas y 17 helechos. Para cada una de las localidades (canutos) se aporta su diversidad total y las especies más representativas y exclusivas. Pretendemos contribuir con ello a una correcta identificación de zonas susceptibles de ser tenidas en cuenta para futuros planes de zonificación y conservación de este tipo de comunidades, únicas y frecuentemente olvidadas en los planteamientos conservacionistas a nivel regional y nacional.Palabras clave. Briófitos, pteridófitos, Rhododendron ponticum, bosque lauroides, Los Alcornocales, Andalucía, Península Ibérica.ABSTRACT. Bryo-pteridophytic flora in the lauroid forests (Rhododendron ponticum L.) of the Natural Park Los Alcornocales (Cadiz-Malaga, Spain). A great part of the bryo-pteridophytic diversity of the Natural Park of Los Alcornocales (Cadiz and Málaga provinces, Andalusia, south of Spain) has been studied. The study has been focused on the woody lauroid, relic communities of Rhododendron ponticum L., one of the more representative habitats of the Park because of its singularity. 23 localities extensively distributed in the Park have been inventoried, taking into account climactic variability. 171 species have been identified: 111 mosses, 2 anthoceros, 42 liverworts and 17 pteridophytes. Total species diversity and the most representative and/or exclusive species are given for each locality. We want to contribute to identifying areas to bear in mind for future conservation and land planning for this kind of communities, unique and frequently forgotten in territory politics at regional and national levels.Key words. Bryophytes, pteridophytes, Rhododendron ponticum, lauroid forests, Los Alcornocales, Andalusia, Iberian Peninsula.

Abstract. Trends of extreme-temperature episodes in cities are increasing (in frequency, magnitude and duration) due to regional climate change in interaction with urban effects. Urban morphologies and thermal properties of the materials used to build them are factors that influence spatial and temporal climate variability and are one of the main reasons for the climatic singularity of cities. This paper presents a methodology to evaluate the urban and peri-urban effect on extreme-temperature exposure in Barcelona (Spain), using the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification as a basis, which allows a comparison with other cities of the world characterised using this criterion. LCZs were introduced as input of the high-resolution UrbClim model (100 m spatial resolution) to create daily temperature (median and maximum) series for summer (JJA) during the period 1987 to 2016, pixel by pixel, in order to create a cartography of extremes. Using the relationship between mortality due to high temperatures and temperature distribution, the heat exposure of each LCZ was obtained. Methodological results of the paper show the improvement obtained when LCZs were mapped through a combination of two techniques (land cover–land use maps and the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools – WUDAPT – method), and the paper proposes a methodology to obtain the exposure to high temperatures of different LCZs in urban and peri-urban areas. In the case of Barcelona, the distribution of temperatures for the 90th percentile (about 3–4 ∘C above the average conditions) leads to an increase in the relative risk of mortality of 80 %.

The collapse of the so-called "socialist bloc" of states at the turn of the 1980-1990s. raised, among other things, the question of the formation and / or reformatting of national, regional and local identities in Central and Eastern Europe. This question turned out to be relevant in the context of rethinking the image of a post-socialist city. In this article, we plan to address a number of aspects of processes and practices related to architecture and cultural heritage policy, urban planning and identity in the post-socialist city. Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Bratislava, cities of the former GDR and others, which developed for several decades under the conditions of the socialist (with all possible remarks) regime, at the new stage retained a number of visual features that referred to the socialist past. The surviving monuments, elements of toponymy, urban space planning, recognizable buildings (such as, for example, the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw), on the one hand, create a common space of historical memory in the region of Central and Eastern Europe; on the other hand, the new nationalizing projects of post-socialist societies have set and are setting the contours of singularity, national and local selfness, redefining the political and cultural maps of cities. While exploring the city as a political text, we plan to take a closer look at how the visual experience of everyday life influences the formation of post-socialist national identity and determines the commemorating practices of residents of such cities.

During the last 15 years disagreements between the process of urbanization and environmental (historic, cultural) heritage have clearly increased. Klaipėda old parks and their fragments are disappearing fast, and hard efforts for protection of parks in Palanga, Kretinga, Plungė, Rietavas are needed. The density of construction in park surroundings is increased, and approaches to the parks and their environmental quality are reduced. The formation of settlement greenery systems in which old parks are the basic components of their spatial structure becomes more complicated. In accordance with modern European requirements and the Lithuanian Master Plan, priority should be given to greenery in the spatial settlement structure. To preserve the individuality of Lithuanian landscapes it is necessary to apply measures of planning that would help to combine natural and cultural components providing for a high quality of landscape not only in a short run but also in the remote future. One of such measures is understanding of an important role of historic parks in the spatial structure of coastal settlements and their management. The provision of sustainable development declared by world community commits to analysing particular regional and settlement possibilities, resources for significant improvement of peoples life quality. Resorts are distinguished by their singularity. They have an influence on the national attraction of Lithuania and facilitate state image formation. Some strategic aspects of a harmonious development of historic parks on the Lithuanian seacoast are analised in the work. Specific proposals for improving the results of landscape formation are also presented.

Abstract. The Arctic Front (AF) in the Norwegian Sea is an important biologically productive region which is well-known for its large feeding schools of pelagic fish. A suite of satellite data, a regional coupled ocean–sea ice data assimilation system (the TOPAZ reanalysis) and atmospheric reanalysis data are used to investigate the variability in the lateral and vertical structure of the AF. A method, known as “singularity analysis”, is applied on the satellite and reanalysis data for 2-D spatial analysis of the front, whereas for the vertical structure, a horizontal gradient method is used. We present new evidence of active air–sea interaction along the AF due to enhanced momentum mixing near the frontal region. The frontal structure of the AF is found to be most distinct near the Faroe Current in the south-west Norwegian Sea and along the Mohn Ridge. Coincidentally, these are the two locations along the AF where the air–sea interactions are most intense. This study investigates in particular the frontal structure and its variability along the Mohn Ridge. The seasonal variability in the strength of the AF is found to be limited to the surface. The study also provides new insights into the influence of the three dominant modes of the Norwegian Sea atmospheric circulation on the AF along the Mohn Ridge. The analyses show a weakened AF during the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO−), even though the geographical location of the front does not vary. The weakening of AF during NAO− is attributed to the variability in the strength of the Norwegian Atlantic Front Current over the Mohn Ridge associated with the changes in the wind field.

Purpose The purpose of this study aims to analyze the dynamic behavior of the relationship between atmospheric carbon emissions and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) industrial production index (IPI) in the short and long term by applying multifractal techniques. Design/methodology/approach Multifractal de-trended cross-correlation technique is used for this analysis based on the relevant literature. In addition, it is the most widely used approach to estimate multifractality because it generates robust empirical results against non-stationarities in the time series. Findings It is revealed that industrial production causes long and short term environmental costs. The OECD IPI and atmospheric carbon emissions were found to have a strong correlation between the time domain. However, this relationship does not mostly take into account the frequency-based correlations with the tail effects caused by shocks that are effective on the economy. In this study, the long-term dependence of the relationship between the OECD IPI and atmospheric carbon emissions differs from the correlation obtained by linear methods, as the analysis is based on the frequency. The major finding is that the Hurst coefficient is in the range 0.40-0.75 indicating. Research limitations/implications In this study, the local singular behavior of the time-series is analyzed to test for the multifractality characteristics of the series. In this context, the scaling exponents and the singularity spectrum are obtained to determine the origins of this multifractality. The multifractal time series are defined as the set of points with a given singularity exponent a where this exponent a is illustrated as a fractal with fractal dimension f(α). Therefore, the multifractality term indicates the existence of fluctuations, which are non-uniform and more importantly, their relative frequencies are also scale-dependent. Practical implications The results provide information based on the fluctuation in IPI, which determines the main conjuncture of the economy. An optimal strategy for shaping the consequences of climate change resulting from industrial production activities will not only need to be quite comprehensive and global in scale but also policies will need to be applicable to the national and local conditions of the given nation and adaptable to the needs of the country. Social implications The results provide information for the analysis of the environmental cost of climate change depending on the magnitude of the impact on the total supply. In addition to environmental problems, climate change leads to economic problems, and hence, policy instruments are introduced to fight against the adverse effects of it. Originality/value This study may be of practical and technical importance in regional climate change forecasting, extreme carbon emission regulations and industrial production resource management in the world economy. Hence, the major contribution of this study is to introduce an approach to sustainability for the analysis of the environmental cost of growth in the supply side economy.

The article is devoted to the review of the reports of the traditional conference “Dylnovsky Readings” held at the Faculty of Sociology in February 2021. “The Modern Society in the Conditions of Social Uncertainty: Theory and Practice”. Within the framework of five discussion platforms, the most relevant and significant problems of modern society were discussed. The discussion platform “Society, Institutions, Personality: Transformational Design” considered a whole range of issues – from the potential academic mobility of students, the peculiarities of youth participation in the public life of the country, the legal culture of youth, to the change of generations of the political elite in the conditions of social uncertainty, the specifics of interethnic relations in Saratov border region and the characteristics of the transformation of Russian single-industry towns. The discussion that unfolded on the platform “Digital Transformation: Singularity, Everyday Life, New Sociality” in terms of the breadth of copyright reflections, fit into the problematic field of historical inevitability of the information society. In the discussion platform: “COVID Generation: New Forms of Youth Development and Support during the Pandemic”, the speakers’ reports were devoted to topical issues. The full impact of the pandemic on humans is not only related to the potential risks of infection. Quarantine, which was announced due to the spread of COVID-19, negatively affected all areas – from the economy to the field of culture and business. The site “Specifics of Social Processes in Conditions of Social Uncertainty at the regional level” unfolded the discussion on the current characteristic of modern social phenomena in Russian regions, mainly in Saratov region. A large number of representatives of various cities, republics and professional groups participated in the discussion platform “Discourse of Age and Gender in Modern Sociological Research,” confirming the relevance and demand for such a form of work of scientific forums.

During the late 1920s and 1930s, a group of Italian modernist architects, known as ‘rationalists’, launched an ambitious bid for convincing Mussolini that their brand of architectural modernism was best suited to become the official art of the Fascist state (arte di stato). They produced buildings of exceptional quality and now iconic status in the annals of international architecture, as well as an even more impressive register of ideas, designs, plans, and proposals that have been recognized as visionary works. Yet, by the end of the 1930s, it was the official monumental stile littorio – classical and monumental yet abstracted and stripped-down, infused with modern and traditional ideas, pluralist and ‘willing to seek a third way between opposite sides in disputes’, the style curated so masterfully by Marcello Piacentini – that set the tone of the Fascist state’s official architectural representation. These two contrasted architectural programmes, however, shared much more than what was claimed at the time and has been assumed since. They represented programmatically, ideologically, and aesthetically different expressions of the same profound desire to materialize in space and eternity the Fascist ‘Third Way’ future avant la lettre. In both cases, architecture (and urban planning as the scalable articulation of architecture on an urban, regional, and national territorial level) became the ‘total’ media used to signify and not just express, to shape and not just reproduce or simulate, to actively give before passively receiving meaning. Still, it was the more all-encompassing and legible coordinates of space and time in the ‘rooted’ modernism of the stile littorio that captured and expressed a third-way mediation between universality and singularity and between futural modernity and tradition better than the trenchant, inflexible anti-monumentalism of the rationalists.

Large-scale ecological variations across Earth have important consequences for biodiversity and, therefore, forbiological conservation. Despite the widespread use of ecological maps in conservation schemes, they have been based mainly on structural and compositional features but scarcely on functional dimensions of life. Incorporating functional variables complements and improves the descriptions of regionalizations and offers a new understanding of biodiversity patterns. The development of remote sensing measurement allows for the description of the functional patterns of ecosystems through Ecosystem Functional Types (EFTs), opening new opportunities to analyze the geography of life. This article aims to examine the relationships between ecological regionalization based on components and structure and patterns of ecosystem functioning. As proof of case, we chose the Baja California peninsula, whose singularity has generated a rich variety of ecological and biogeographical interpretations, mainly based on ecosystem components and structure. We hypothesize that patterns in ecosystem functioning reflect ecoregionalization based on composition and structure features. We identified Ecosystem Functional Types (EFTs), from three descriptors of the seasonal curves of MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from 2001 to 2017. We characterized each ecoregion in terms of ecosystem functioning and we carried out a correspondence analysis between the EFTs classification and the ecoregions. At a large scale, EFTs showed a pattern with three general regions from northwest to south, capturing the north-south transition of climatic regimes shown in the ecoregions map, from the northwestern Mediterranean area to the southern tropical zone, with a desert transition area between them. However, differences between the functional characterization and some ecoregions were detected in ecoregions identified as discrepancy areas between authors. In particular, some ecoregions considered Mediterranean showed a Desert character in its functioning, and others considered as Desert were Tropical functionally. EFTs remotely sensed measured at regional scales provide the basis for a more comprehensive regionalization of geographical patterns of life and, therefore, an improvement for future conservation purposes.

The notion of violence especially on the rights of women has been plagued with lots of plausible euphoria jeopardizing the initial rational and objective of the human rights placement, that of ensuring that everyone should be treated with respect and fundamental dignity. The situation has become appalling and frustrating as women encounter violations on their various status and rights, making them becoming subjects of ridicule. Willing to ensure the recognition and protection of women, Cameroon has adopted a series of international, regional and national laws aiming at ensuring a safe and secured environment for the protection of women rights and status. Regardless of the various measures set by the country, the notion of domestic violence appears to be more of a pandemic than a curable substance as issues of women protection are concerned. This article is of the opinion that the concept of domestic violence in Cameroon is accelerating as most women are still treated as an object of commodity in the eyes of many. There is a continuous violation of women rights especially in aspects of sexual violence and discriminatory practices meted on women. This situation has become worrisome, as many question the future of women rights in Cameroon as issues of sexual violence escalate, thus affecting tremendously the prestigious status to be occupied by women in the society. In answering the above question and hypothesis, there will be the need to evaluate the domestic violence environment in Cameroon by questioning the complexities in the country on issues related to combatting domestic violence, and examining the way forward. It is convenient and an established scourge beyond all reasonable doubt that, the singularity of sexual violence continues to be a hard nut to crack notwithstanding all the remarkable efforts put in place by the government of Cameroon in ensuring its fight. we continue to experience aspect of violations and abuses on the women right making those harmful practices meted on the women to be turned an unrealistic atmosphere. To this set, it is advisable that more efforts, mechanisms and methods should be invested by the government of Cameroon to establish a favorable climate and environment in the protection and preservation of women rights and status in the country.

The research will focus on the “Unto our kin and posterity” Festival, which is the leading scenic presentation of Dinaric Serbs in Vojvodina. The festival enables a reinterpretation of the local-regional identities of Dinaric Serbs, and a public display and affirmation of their subcultural identity. The methodology used to approach the issue of importance and emphasis placed on the Festival as a singularly important event which features the infallible element of dance, is van Gennep’s concept of “rite of passage”, in its broader sense.

Abstract. We present a procedure to detect landslide events by analyzing in-sequence data acquired from regional broadband seismic networks and spaceborne radar imagery. The combined used of these techniques is meant to exploit their complementary elements and mitigate their limitations when used singularly. To test the method, we consider a series of six slope failures associated to the Piz Cengalo rock avalanche that recently occurred in the Swiss Alps, a region where we can benefit from high spatial density and quality of seismic data, as well as from the high spatial and temporal resolution of the European Space Agency (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar satellites. The operational implementation of the proposed approach, in combination with the future increase in availability of seismic and satellite data, can offer a new and efficient solution to build and/or expand landslide catalogues based on quantitative measurements and, thus, help in hazard assessments and the definition of early warning systems at regional scales.

This paper discusses how the community of Taboãozinho has promoted the appreciation, dissemination, and conservation of paleontological heritage in its territory through the Pinheiro de Pedra geosite. The socio-spatial characteristics of the community in synergy with the geopatrimonial heritage and geoconservation give the tone of the singularity of the natural landscape and its territory. Through bibliographic and documental surveys, participative diagnosis, and interviews with local people, we identified factors that point to the process of cultural appropriation of the geosite by the community. We detected that the care with the fossil logs and the maintenance of the collection of legends, stories, and cultural manifestations about the "stone pines" are actions that culminate with the protection of heritage and its dissemination. Based on this study, educational and cultural valorization actions were promoted in partnership with other organizations, enabling advances in the development of geotourism and appreciation of the region's cultural heritage. The historical knowledge of the presence of fossil trunks, associated with legends, stories and cultural manifestations about the "stone pines", in addition to actions of care and conservation of the heritage are factors that point to a process of cultural appropriation by the community with the geosite.

Establishing a modern state in Europe has brought about the appearance of a system of introducing state on all of its territory. The reason this has come about is the need for government decisions to be applied in an equal way to everyone. This can only be ensured if officials, whom the government appoints and who are responsible for implementing and following government policy, effectively transfer them from government official level onto local and regional level. Central administration generally singularly carries out tasks of a national character the implementation of which pursuant to law cannot be placed onto a regional level. However, the state also must have officials at a local level who will implement real powers when making decisions (based on delegating powers), in order to take care of local needs and circumstances. «Deconcentration» precisely represents that. Therefore, we are dealing with services which include appointed officials who are subject to central body authority and who locally represent the government and ministries. In France and in general, we differentiate among three categories of administration: central administration, peripheral administration (decentralized or deconcentrated), independent specialized administration which are nevertheless still linked to one of the relevant ministries which supervise the bodies which are under government control. Deconcentration French style enriches the inter-department dimension, locally present in the person named prefect who represents government president and ministers and who is in charge of managing territory, maintaining dialogue with local representatives of executive powers and modernization of administration. Given the administrative map of France which includes thirty thousand municipalities, about a hundred departments and twenty regions (13 since 2015), deconcentration is based on the following : regional prefect implements national policy and policy of (European) community establishes strategic goals, allocates resources, evaluates state activity. The department prefect is responsible for operative activity and administering public policies. The vice-prefect initiates and joins partners in so-called «life centers» (towns and villages) within a department framework.

Optical luminescence dates for 19 samples from the degraded linear dune field of western Zambia indicate multiple periods of regional dune building for the late Quaternary, 32,000–27,000, 16,000–13,000, 10,000–8000, and 5000–4000 yr ago. These dates show that the last glacial maximum was not the only time when dune construction, commonly linked to marked aridity, occurred in central-southern Africa during the late Quaternary. Whereas rainfall significantly less than today's ca. 1400 mm yr−1 is a prerequisite for dune construction in the area, adequate sediment supply also determines dune construction and preservation, so that dune building cannot be simply and singularly linked to marked aridity. The Zambezi River system is proposed as an important source of dune sediments, with the nature of linear dune activity explaining why stacked sediments preserve several phases of dune formation. Chronologies of dune construction in western Zimbabwe and the southwest Kalahari are in broad agreement with our Zambian chronology and support a model of rainfall shifts along a SW–NE gradient, with some notable disparities. These are probably a function of interregional sediment supply differences, the number of samples used to delimit constructional periods, and the multicausal nature of forcing mechanisms.

A mathematical model of the electron-hole plasma stationary distribution in the active region (i-region) of p-i-n-diodes in the dif-fusion-drift approximation is proposed. The model is represented in the form of a nonlinear singularly perturbed boundary value prob-lem for the system of equations of the electron-hole currents conti-nuity, the Poisson equation and the corresponding boundary condi-tions. The decomposition of the nonlinear boundary value problem of modeling the stationary distribution of charge carriers in the plasma of p-i-n-diodes is carried out on the basis of the solutions asymptotic representation. The model problem is reduced to a se-quence of the linear boundary value problems with a characteristic separation of the main (regular) components of the asymptotics and a boundary corrections. It was found that the formulation of the problem for finding the zero term of the asymptotics regular part coincides with the classical formulation of the p-i-n-diodes charac-teristics modeling problem, which is carried out in the approxima-tion of the ambipolar diffusion (approximation of a self-consistent electrostatic field).The proposed mathematical model and the method of its linearization make it possible to determing the main components in the diffusion-drift process and to study their role. For example, it becomes possible to study (including by analytical methods) the behavior of plasma in the p-i-, n-i-contacts zones. The results of the study are aimed at developing methods for de-signing p-i-n-diode structures, used, in particular, as active ele-ments of the signals switches of a microwave data transmission systems and the corresponding protective devices.

The study of grassland vegetation of the Sea of Japan coast in the Lazovskiy nature reserve (Primorye Territory, Russia) on the current sandy sea terraces is based upon the analysis of 110 relevés of coastal ve­getation obtained in 2009 at Zarya and Proselochnaya Bays (Fig. 1). The halophytic vegetation in supralittoral zone is formed under the influence of salinity from surges and pulverization. Communities belong to the class Honckenyo-Elymetea Tx. 1966, the order Hon­ckenyo majoris–Elymetalia mollis Ohba, Miyawaki et Tx. 1973, the alliance Senecioni pseudoarnicae–Leymion mollis Ohba, Miyawaki et Tx. ex Peinado et al. 2011 and the ass. Glehnio littoralis–Caricetum ma­crocephalae (Miyawaki 1967) Ohba, Miyawaki et Tx. 1973. This association is a pioneer stage of vege­tation development on sandy sea coast. The communities form a stripe of 15–150 m width on the offshore bar side exposed to sea. The association is typical for the continental coast of the Sea of Japan (Komarov, 1917; Kurentsova, 1969), southern Sakhalin (Stepanova, 1956) and northern part of Hokkaido Isl. (Ohba et al., 1973). Diagnostic species of ass. Glehnio littoralis–Caricetum macrocephalae (Table 1; Fig. 2) are obligate halophytes adaptated for growing on unstable sandy substrate (Carex macrocephala, Chorisis repens, Glehnia littoralis, Linaria japonica) The plant cover varies between 2 % and 70 %. Carex macrocephala and Leymus mollis are dominants. On the other offshore bar side with relatively ­stable substrate and grey sand soils, the glycophytic steppe-like grasslands with plants adapted to a moderate drought are developed. These communities include such coastal vascular plants as Festuca vorobievii, F. kolesnikovii, Dracocephalum charke­viczii, Oxytropis mandshurica, Plantago camtschatica, Carex gmelinii, and the others, while their floristic singularity is provided by 2 specific coastal grasses — Arundinella hirta and Koeleria tokiensis related to the meadow-steppe species Arundinella anomala and Koeleria cristata (Probatova, Seledets, 1999). Such grasslands are close to the steppe meadows of the alliance Arundinellion anomalae Akhtyamov et al. 1985 (the order Artemisietalia mandshuricae Akhtyamov et al. 1985, the class Arundinello anomalae–Agrostietea trinii Ermakov, Krestov 2009) in their composition (Akhtya­mov, 2000; Ermakov, Krestov, 2009) and high constancy values of diagnostic species of the forenamed alliance (e. g. Artemisia laciniata, A. manshurica, Dianthus chinensis). The presence of some xerophilous and meso-xerophilous species like Carex korshinskyi, Clematis hexapetala and Lespedeza juncea shows floristic relationships with dahurian steppes of the alliance Filifolion Akhtyamov ex Korolyuk 2002 (the class Cleistogenetea squarrosae Mirkin et al. ex Korotkov et al. 1991). For these grasslands, which have not been described within the J. Braun-Blan­quet approach, we suggest the preliminary alliance Festuco ovinae–Arundinellion hirtae all. nov. prov. with diagnostic species Festuca ovina s. l., Arundinella hirta, Dianthus chinensis, Artemisia manshurica, Viola mandshurica (Table 4, 5). Two association are described within it. Coastal steppe-like grasslands of the ass. Festuco ovinae–Arundinelletum hirtae ass. nov. hoc loco (Table 2, relevé 8–17; holotypus hoc loco — relevé 11) are deve­loped on the unstable substrate on psammozems with thin grey horizon on the reversal side of the offshore bar. At the sea side they border with the halophytic stands while on the opposite side the grasslands with closed cover are developed. The diagnostic species of the association are Festuca ovina s. l., Arundinella hirta, Dianthus chinensis, Artemisia manshurica, Viola mandshurica, Scutellaria strigillosa,dominants areusually Festuca ovina and Arundinella hirta.Plant covervaries between 7 % and 50 %. Mean height of herb layer is 25 cm; mean number of species amounts to 14 ± 4. Within the association we describe var. Juniperus davurica with prostrate Juniperus davurica and J. rigida (Fig. 3). These communities arelisted as the rare ones for the Amur Region (Krestov, Verkholat, 2002). Coastal grasslands of the ass. Koelerietum tokiensis ass. nov. hoc loco (Table 3, relevé 1–20; holotypus hoc loco — relevé 4) cover subhorizontal surface of the coastal terrace behind the offshore bar. Plant cover is 90 %; mean height of herb layer is 30–40 cm; the mean species number is 18 per sample plot of 25 m2. Diagnostic species are Koeleria tokiensis, Artemisia laciniata and Potentilla fragarioides. As the distance from the sea shore increases the community composition becomes more mesophilous. We propose 2 subassociations within this syntaxon. Grasslands of the subass. K. t. caricetosum lanceolatae subass. nov. hoc loco (Table 3, relevé 1–10; holotypus hoc loco — relevé 4) are widely spread on the coastal terraces. Diagnostic species are Carex lanceolata and Lespedeza juncea. Communities of the subass. K. t. artemisietosum stoloniferae subass. nov. hoc loco (Table 3, relevé 11–20; holotypus hoc loco — relevé 17; Fig. 4) occur at the fringe of the terraces and border on oak forests. Diagnostic species are Artemisia stolonifera, Pteridium aquilinum, Solidago pacifica, Lupinaster pacificus, Hieracium umbellatum, Galium verum and Cirsium vlassovianum. The described syntaxa form a spatial and temporal range due to the coastal terrace changes and shifts in the environmental conditions at a distance from the sea (Fig. 5–8). Under the humid climate the peculiar grasslands with mesoxerophytes are the specific features of the accumulative sea terraces in southern part of the Amur region. This peculiarity demonstrates phytogeographical relations between the coastal vegetation and the continental arid communities of the Central Asia and is likely to be a regional feature of the South Sikhote-Alin plant cover.

Resumen:En este artículo se abordan dos elementos que han estado presentes en la conformación de nuestra identidad nacional: la bandera y la capitalidad.En primer lugar, se analiza el papel de los símbolos en la relación entre socialización e individualidad, entre lo racional y lo emocional, lo mítico o lo intuitivo, algo esencial en los Estados democráticos para alejarnos de los totalitarismos, teniendo en cuenta la capacidad de los nacionalismos, los fascismos y los populismos de manipular en ese espacio. En segundo lugar se estudia la bandera como símbolo del Estado tanto desde una perspectiva de derecho comparado y de historia constitucional como teniendo en cuenta su actual regulación constitucional. Igualmente se analiza la exhibición de la bandera como elemento de integración voluntaria y consciente de los ciudadanos en la comunidad y como defensa de la unidad de España y de reivindicación de la CE y de las libertades de todos, también de los ciudadanos catalanes, ante el problema de libertad que ha supuesto la declaración unilateral de independencia, como ha ocurrido recientemente con la presencia masiva de la bandera española en los balcones. También se estudia la constitucionalización de las banderas autonómicas y el establecimiento de una obligación de utilización conjunta de éstas junto a la bandera de España, símbolo de una España constitucional y democrática, que reconoce un alto nivel de autogobierno a sus nacionalidades y regiones. Asimismo se abordan los conflictos por el uso de las banderas —la llamada guerra de las banderas— , analizándose las Sentencias más recientes, que ponen de manifestó la crisis en el sentido de pertenencia a España derivada de nuestra diversidad territorial. Así, se analiza el incumplimiento de la obligación de utilizar la bandera de España en edificios públicos y actos oficiales. También se aborda la bandera como bien jurídico merecedor deprotección penal y el cuestionamiento del delito de ultrajes a la bandera, un límite a la libertad de expresión querido por el legislador, lo que proscribe una conducta expresiva como la quema de la bandera. Igualmente se analiza la doctrina de la JEC sobre la prohibición de la exhibición de banderas esteladas en edificios públicos en aplicación del principio de neutralidad política de la Administración Pública, sin perjuicio de su uso legítimo por entidades privadas en virtud de la libertad de expresión, así como la prohibición de la utilización de la bandera de España como símbolo oficial de un partido político, que traslada a la sociedad la idea de que la bandera es patrimonio de una parte de la población. En tercer lugar, se analiza el concepto constitucional de capitalidad. La capitalidad no es en puridad un símbolo aunque tiene un importante componente simbólico. Atribuir a una ciudad la capitalidad significa convertirla en cabeza política de un territorio y concederle una posición central dentro del Estado. Igualmente la capitalidad hace referencia a un lugar fijo donde se ejerce la soberanía y, por tanto, sede de los órganos de poder del Estado. Este estudio aboga por una interpretación flexible que no vacíe de contenido constitucional la noción de capitalidad y que al mismo tiempo permita un margen de maniobra al legislador en el marco de un Estado fuertemente descentralizado. Así, los órganos de poder del Estado y los órganos constitucionales deben tener su sede en Madrid, si bien la existencia de alguna excepción no vulneraría el precepto constitucional. Finalmente el trabajo aborda cuáles son las materias objeto del régimen de capitalidad y las otras singularidades de Madrid.Summary:I. The symbols. II. The flag. 1. The flag as a symbol of the State and as an element of integration of citizens in the community and the constitutionalization of regional flags 2. The conflicts over the use of the flags: the flags war. a) The obligation to use the Spanish flag in public buildings and official acts and their non-compliance. b) The criminal protection of the flag and its questioning as a limit to freedom of expression. c) The prohibition of the display of partisan flags in public buildings and the partisan use of the Spanish flag. d) Conflicts over the use of the flags of the Autonomous Communities. III. The capital. 1. The constitutional concept of the capital: the seat of the general institutions of the State. 2. Competences regulated by the Capital Law. The singularity of Madrid.Abstract:This article deals with two elements that have been present in the shaping of our national identity: the flag and the capital. Firstly, it analyzes the role of symbols in the relationship between socialization and individuality, between the rational and the emotional, the myth or the intuitive, something essential in democratic states to steer ourselves away from totalitarianism, taking into account the capacity of the nationalisms, fascism and populisms to manipulate in that space. Secondly, it studies the flag as a symbol of the State, both from the point of view of Comparative Law and constitutional history, as well as considering its current constitutional regulation. Thus, the display of the flag is also analyzed as an element of voluntary and conscious integration of citizens in the community, and as a defense of Spain`s unity and the Constitution and the freedoms of allcitizens, including Catalan citizens, in response to the problem of freedom that the unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia has implied, as we have seen recently with a massive presence of the Spanish flag on the balconies. The article also studies the constitutionalization of the regional flags and the establishment of an obligation of the joint use of these together with the flag of Spain, which is a symbol of a constitutional and democratic Spain, that recognizes a high level of self-government towards its nationalities and regions. Furthermore, it also studies the conflicts that arise from the use of flags —the so-called «war of the flags»— , analyzing the most recent cases, which highlights the crisis in the sense of belonging to Spain derived from our territorial diversity. In the same manner, it also examines the breach of the obligation to use the Spanish flag in public buildings and official acts. Moreover the flag is also analysed as a constitutional value worthy of criminal protection; this also study the crime for flag desecration as a limit on the freedom of speech, which outlaws the burning of the flag as expressive conduct. It also discusses the JEC doctrine on the prohibition of the display of the «estelladas» in public buildings as a result of the application of the principle of political neutrality of the Public Administration, even though they can be used legitimately under the freedom of expression by private entities. Furthermore, the article also examines the prohibition of the use of the flag of Spain as an official symbol of a political party, which consequently conveys to society the idea that the flag belongs to a part of the population rather than to the entire country. Thirdly, the study analyzes the constitutional concept of the capital. The capital is not strictly speaking a symbol, but it has an important symbolic meaning. To attribute to a city the capitality means to turn it into the political head of a territory and to grant it a central position within the State. Likewise, the capital status refers to a fixed place where sovereignty is exercised and, thus, is the seat of the general institutions of the State. This study pleads for a flexible interpretation that does not empty the constitutional content of the notion of capital and at the same time allows a margin of freedom to the legislator in the framework of a strongly decentralized State. Therefore, the organs of state power and constitutional bodies must have their headquarters in Madrid, although the existence of any exception would not violate the constitutional provision. Finally, the paper addresses which the competences regulated by the Capital Law are as well as other singularities of Madrid.

Home to one fifth of the world’s waterbody, the Indian Ocean is abundant with a variety of mineral and biological resources. As the ocean space housing one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, it is crucial that its natural resources and its environment are safeguarded. In ancient times, this ocean space has been an area of great cooperation, however, in present times the Indian Ocean has been largely confounded by distrust. The problem under study in this research was: even though the Indian Ocean Region is an extremely important and highly utilised ocean space that a vast majority of the world relies on, there is inadequate cooperation between the littoral states as well as the extra-regional states in ensuring the waterbody is safe. As such, the objectives of this research were to analyse why there is inadequate cooperation within the Indian Ocean Region; and to analyse how the Indian Ocean littoral countries and its users can cooperate with one another in ensuring maritime security cooperation. Primary sources for the qualitative research included policy documents and correspondence whilst secondary data included newspaper articles, reputed journals and websites. The data gathered from these sources were coded to derive the analysis in this research. As present challenges are diverse and dynamic, countries are singularly unable to ensure ocean spaces are safe unless they have shared intelligence and information from a variety of stakeholders. The paper argues that Maritime Domain Awareness enables intelligence sharing, as well as in exchanging capabilities and resources. In conclusion, there are many avenues for maritime security cooperation in the Indian Ocean such as by sharing capabilities, resources and skills. It can also cooperate to eliminate non-traditional security threats, which affects both the littoral states as well as the users of the Indian Ocean.

In the last decade, influenced by current economic trends, Cold War historians have made an effort to de-center the story of the Cold War. They have shifted their gaze from the center of the conflict—the face-offs in Europe between the Soviet Union and the United States—and cast an observing eye on the Third World. Unlike many Middle East historians who seek to understand the Middle East in terms of its unique cultures, languages, and religions, Cold War historians treat that area as part of a revolutionary arc that stretched from the jungles of Latin America to the jungles of Vietnam. Rather than emphasizing the region's singularity, they focus on the themes that united guerilla fighters in the West Bank and the Makong Delta as well as leaders from Havana to Damascus: anticolonial and anti-imperial struggles, the yearning for self-definition, and the fight against what Third World revolutionaries perceived as economic exploitation. The sudden interest in what was considered, until recently, the periphery of the Cold War has undoubtedly been fueled by the zeitgeist of a new century in which the so-called peripheral regions are set to become more dominant economically. Southeast and Southwest Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East have a surplus of young skilled workers who are increasingly in demand by the global economy as the growth of world population slows and more prosperous countries in West Europe and North America are graying fast. The Third World consists today of the very regions where most of the economic growth in coming decades will take place. Dependency theory has gone topsy-turvy: leading economists now look with hope at countries such as China, India, Turkey, and Egypt and expect them to become the new engines of global growth. It is not surprising, then, that historians are now taking a stronger interest in the tangled history of the Cold War in the Third World and discovering the agency that these countries always had.

Abstract ContextSignificant resources have been devoted to the control of introduced mesopredators in Australia. However, the control or removal of one pest species, such as, for example, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), may inadvertently benefit other invasive species, namely feral cats (Felis catus) and rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus), potentially jeopardising native-species recovery. AimsTo (1) investigate the impact of a large-scale, long-term fox-baiting program on the abundance of foxes, feral cats and introduced and native prey species in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, and (2) determine the effectiveness of a short time period of cat removal in immediately reducing feral cat abundance where foxes are absent. MethodsWe conducted an initial camera-trap survey in fox-baited and unbaited sites in the Flinders Ranges, to quantify the impact of fox baiting on the relative abundance of foxes, feral cats and their prey. We then conducted a secondary survey in sites where foxes were absent, following an intensive, but short, time period of cat removal, in which 40 cats were shot and killed. Key resultsNo foxes were detected within baited sites, but were frequently detected in unbaited sites. We found a corresponding and significant increase in several native prey species in fox-baited sites where foxes were absent. Feral cats and rabbits were also more frequently detected within baited sites, but fox baiting did not singularly predict the abundance of either species. Rather, feral cats were less abundant in open habitat where foxes were present (unbaited), and rabbits were more abundant within one predominantly open-habitat site, where foxes were absent (fox-baited). We found no effect of short-term cat removal in reducing the local abundance of feral cats. In both camera-trap surveys, feral cat detections were positively associated with rabbits. ConclusionsLong-term fox baiting was effective in fox removal and was associated with a greater abundance of native and introduced prey species in the Flinders Ranges. To continue to recover and conserve regional biodiversity, effective cat control is required. ImplicationsOur study showed fox removal has likely resulted in the local release of rabbits and an associated increase in cats. Because feral cat abundance seemingly fluctuated with rabbits, we suggest rabbit control may provide an alternative and more effective means to reduce local feral cat populations than short-term removal programs.

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

AbstractWe prove a conjecture of Kollár stating that the local fundamental group of a klt singularity x is finite. In fact, we prove a stronger statement, namely that the fundamental group of the smooth locus of a neighbourhood of x is finite. We call this the regional fundamental group. As the proof goes via a local-to-global induction, we simultaneously confirm finiteness of the orbifold fundamental group of the smooth locus of a weakly Fano pair.

Summary Point-mass inversion is widely employed in GRACE level-2 data processing. Conventionally, the spherical harmonic (SH) coefficients are used indirectly: a set of pseudo measurements is generated first using the SH coefficients through SH synthesis; then the point-mass inversion is done with these pseudo measurements. To be statistically optimal, the covariance matrix of pseudo measurements should be calculated and used to appropriately weigh the parameter estimation. In this work, we propose a statistically optimal point-mass inversion scheme by directly using the SH coefficients as measurements. We prove the equivalence between this direct approach and the conventional indirect approaches. We also demonstrated their comparable performance through both simulation and real GRACE data processing. Choosing and calculating pseudo measurements, propagating covariance matrix, and potentially dealing with the singularity of the covariance matrix involved in the conventional indirect approaches are avoided in the proposed direct approach. This statistically optimal direct approach can readily be employed in mascon inversion of GRACE data and other radial basis functions-based approaches in regional gravity modeling.

Abstract Person-centred care is at the core of a value-based health system. Its transformative potential is to enable and support key policy, planning and service developments across the system even when these go against the self-interest of individual major players. It offers a potent test for decision makers at all levels. It demands responses that are multi-level, empirically grounded, expert-informed and data-driven that must converge on the singularity of individuals in the places that they live. This requires different approaches that recognise, respect and reconcile two necessary but constitutionally disparate perspectives: the bureaucratic, overtly decontextualised, top-down, policy and planning objectives of central governments and the formally complex, dynamic and contextualised experience of individuals in the system. Conflating the latter with the former can lead unwittingly to a pervasive and reductive form of quasi-Taylorism that nearly always creates waste at the expense of value. This has parallel application in the treatment domain where outcomes are non-randomly clustered and partitioned by socioeconomic status, amplifying unwarranted variation by place that is striking in its magnitude and heterogeneity. In this paper, we propose that a combination of (1) relevant, local and sophisticated data planning, collection and analysis systems, (2) more detailed person-centred service planning and delivery and (3) system accountability through co-design and transparent public reporting of health system performance in a manner that is understandable, relevant, and locally applicable are all essential in ensuring planned and provided care is most appropriate to more than merely the ‘average’ person for whom the current system is built. We argue that only through a greater appreciation of healthcare as a complex adaptive (eco)system, where context is everything, and then utilising planning, analysis and management methodologies that reflect this reality is the way to achieve genuine person-centred care.