522 research outputs found
Metallothioneins as biomarkers of metal pollution in estuaries on the south coast of England
No full textContamination of aquatic environments via anthropogenic release of metals is an increasing global environmental concern. The greatest concerns exist within estuarine and harbour environments, where point and non-point metal sources are prevalent. Historically, monitoring programs were initially (and largely) based on chemical analyses; however, the identification of a number of shortcomings in this approach resulted in a shift towards the complementary use of biological monitoring (biomonitoring). The aim of this study is to investigate and compare the suitability of selected aquatic invertebrate taxa biomarker responses (by production of metallothionein- MT) for assessment of aquatic environmental conditions in three coastal estuaries in Southern England: Poole Harbour, the Fal estuary and the Solent. This was delivered through a critical review of the current status of metal contamination in biota, water and sediment within these estuaries; by investigation of the suitability of selected species’ metallothioneins to act as biomarkers by assessing their correlation with metal pollution; by assessment of the effectiveness of these organisms as bioindicators in biomonitoring studies; and though investigation of the potential use of MT concentrations in these species as biomarkers of metal exposure in monitoring programmes.Legislation has been established to facilitate the protection, and enhance the quality, of all water bodies, including coastal waters and estuaries to prevent their deterioration and to ensure they achieve ‘good’ ecological health; but examination of water and sediment samples showed that historical metal pollution has not been dispersed and still affects environmental quality. In Poole Harbour, metal contamination was detected in all environmental compartments. The enclosed nature of the harbour and its secondary embayments make it vulnerable to the effects of these metal sources which disperse extremely slowly due to restricted tidal exchange; and a significant part of the pollution load remains in coastal areas close to land based contamination sources. In Poole Harbour, water was polluted with As (ranged from 29.6 to 212.8 ?g/l) and Hg (ranged from 0.368 ?g/l to 11.06 ?g/l) which are above the Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) set by the European Union dangerous substances directive (EUDSD). Sediment metals were mostly within “the possible effect range” at which adverse effects occasionally occur, according to the Canadian Sediment Quality Guidelines (CSQG). Although cockles (Cerastoderma edule) had higher tissue concentrations of Ni, Ag and Hg in areas close to pollution sources, and sponges (Haliclona oculata) had accumulated Cu and Zn with a very high magnitude, the absence of EQS for metals in living organisms’ tissues makes it difficult to specify whether the metal concentrations reached a dangerous level or not in these organisms. The results confirmed the presence of a marked metal pollution gradient in the Fal Estuary between the ‘clean’ sites in the north and east of the estuary and the ‘polluted’ sites in the west of the estuary which were historically polluted by water from mines. Moreover, the concentrations of metals in almost all of the contaminated sites in the Fal and Solent estuaries have not changed significantly over the past few decades.This study investigated the potential of MT as biomarker of metal pollution in the following wild species: two well-studied bioindicators- common cockles (C. edule) from Poole Harbour, and mussels (Mytilus edulis) from the Fal estuary and the Solent; and tested the following novel bioindicators: sponges (H. oculata) from Poole Harbour, ragworms (Hediste diversicolor) From the Fal estuary, and limpets (Patella vulgata) from the Solent. The spectrophotometric method was used to measure MT in these species as it has been reported to be a sensitive, time saving, and low-cost technique able to detect MT content in the tissues of aquatic organisms. The results showed that MT concentration in these estuarine wild invertebrates vary between sites; however, these variations were not exclusively associated with metal concentrations and that other environmental factors may explain some of the MTs variability. The many uncertainties surrounding MT in wild organisms indicate that it may have limited potential as a biomarker in estuarine environments. It is also apparent that the importance of biotic and abiotic factors at polluted sites may limit its application.In this study, transplanted mussels (M. edulis) and Manila clams (Tapes philippinarum) were used as active biomonitoring tools in Poole Harbour. It was found that under extreme conditions of metal pollution, the relationship between metal concentrations and MT deviates from linearity: a threshold appears to be reached beyond which the physiological capacity of organisms introduced to polluted areas is exceeded. In the above transplanted animals, MT induction increased to peak levels with increased metal concentration, and then declined with further increases in the concentration
Persepsi Mahasiswa terhadap Nilai Moderasi Beragama dalam Film Walid: Telaah Kritis Perspektif Pendidikan Islam
No full textReligious moderation is a fundamental principle in fostering harmonious religious life within Indonesia\u27s plural society. Islamic education holds a strategic role in instilling these values, particularly in the digital era dominated by visual media and shifting learning patterns. This study aims to analyze the perceptions of Islamic Education students toward the representation of religious moderation in the Walid movie, and to assess the role of Islamic education in shaping a moderate religious worldview. Using a qualitative case study approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews with students who had watched the movie of Walid. The findings reveal that Walid serves as a reflective medium that enhances critical awareness of the importance of religious moderation. However, the film also carries the risk of misinterpretation not supported by adequate religious and media literacy. Islamic education is perceived as a central force in forming a balanced understanding of religious issues, serving as a bulwark against both extremism and interpretive liberalism. The study concludes the necessity of integrating contextual Islamic education curricula and media literacy as strategies to cultivate a generation that is religiously moderate, critical, and inclusive
Metal contamination in water, sediment and biota from a semi-enclosed coastal area
No full textThis study identifies and quantifies the spatial variations of metal contamination in water, sediment and biota: the common cockle (Cerastoderma edule) and the Mermaid’s glove sponge (Haliclona oculata), within a heavily anthropogenically impacted semi-enclosed estuarine–coastal area with a low ability to disperse and flush contaminants (Poole Harbour, UK). The results showed that metal contamination was detected in all environmental compartments. Water was polluted with As, and Hg sediment metals were mostly within “the possible effect range” in which adverse effects occasionally occurs. Cockles had considerable concentrations of Ni, Ag and Hg in areas close to pollution sources, and sponges accumulate Cu and Zn with very high magnitude. A systematic monitoring approach that includes biological monitoring techniques, which covers all embayments, is needed, and an integrated management of the semi-enclosed coastal zones should be based on the overall hydrological characteristics of these sensitive areas and their ability to self?restore which is different than open coastal zone
Towards efficient processing of big spatial data
No full textThe ubiquity of location-aware devices has resulted in a plethora of location-based services in which huge amounts of spatial data need to be efficiently processed. To cope with such proliferation of spatial data, this dissertation addresses two key issues that are overlooked by existing spatial-query processing platforms: i) the multiplicity of predicates in spatial queries, and ii) the dynamic nature of big spatial data. A user\u27s query can include multiple spatial and relational predicates. However, existing spatial-query processors focus only on the execution of queries with single spatial predicates, e.g., range or k-nearest-neighbor (kNN, for short). Queries with multiple kNN and relational predicates raise correctness and performance challenges. Because a kNN predicate implicitly applies a ranking operation, applying a kNN predicate before or after another (spatial or relational) predicate in a query evaluation pipeline may result in different outputs. Hence, classical query optimization heuristics, e.g., pushing selects below joins, may compromise the correctness of evaluation of these queries. This dissertation presents new algorithms and optimizations that can enhance the performance of these queries while maintaining the correctness of their evaluation. Furthermore, to arbitrate between the different optimizations, novel techniques for estimating the cost of the kNN predicates are presented. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the proposed algorithms and optimizations, coupled with the cost estimation techniques, achieve orders of magnitude enhancement in query performance. To process large-scale spatial data, several cluster-based spatial-query processing systems have been proposed in the literature. However, these systems employ static data-partitioning structures that cannot adapt to data changes, and that are insensitive to the query workload. Hence, these systems are incapable of consistently providing good performance. To close this gap, this dissertation presents AQWA, an adaptive and workload-aware mechanism for partitioning large-scale spatial data. AQWA does not assume prior knowledge of the data distribution or the query workload. Instead, as data is consumed and queries are processed, the data partitions are incrementally updated. Experimental evaluation, which is based on real spatial data and various workloads of range and kNN queries, demonstrates that, compared to the state-of-the-art systems, AQWA achieves an order of magnitude enhancement in query performance
Knowledge Type Identification in API Documentation
No full text<p>This release contains the source code and instruction on how to obtain the dataset to reproduce the results presented in the following paper</p>
<pre><code>@inproceedings{FMM19,
title={On Using Machine Learning to Identify Knowledge in API Reference Documentation},
author={Fucci, Davide and M. Alizadeh B., Alireza and Maalej, Walid},
booktitle={27th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering},
pages={103--112},
year={2019},
doi={10.1145/3338906.3338943}
organization={IEEE}
}
</code></pre>
The formation of the classical tafsīr tradition : the Qurʼān commentary of al-Thaʻlabī (d. 427/1035) by Walid A. Saleh.
No full text"This work is both an introduction to the genre of classical tafsir and a detailed study of one of its major architects, al-Thalabi (d. 427/1035). The book offers a detailed study of the hermeneutical principles that governed al-Thalabi's approach to the Quran, principles which became the norm in later exegetical works. It is divided into three main sections: the first outlines the life and times of the author; the second is a detailed study of his major exegetical work, al-Kashf; the third charts a brief history of the genre of tafsir through documenting the reactions of later exegetes to al-Kashf. This work brings together material never examined before and tries to offer anew way of understanding the history of classical Quran exegesis."--Jacket.Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-259) and indexes."This work is both an introduction to the genre of classical tafsir and a detailed study of one of its major architects, al-Thalabi (d. 427/1035). The book offers a detailed study of the hermeneutical principles that governed al-Thalabi's approach to the Quran, principles which became the norm in later exegetical works. It is divided into three main sections: the first outlines the life and times of the author; the second is a detailed study of his major exegetical work, al-Kashf; the third charts a brief history of the genre of tafsir through documenting the reactions of later exegetes to al-Kashf. This work brings together material never examined before and tries to offer anew way of understanding the history of classical Quran exegesis."--Jacket
Fisheries Management Interventions in Lake Nasser; Improving fish production and food security in Upper Egypt
No full textAs part of the IFPRI Egypt Seminar in partnership with WorldFish: “Leveraging Aquaculture and Fisheries for Improving Food and Nutrition Security in Egypt
Exploring Author Context for Detecting Intended vs Perceived Sarcasm
No full textWe investigate the impact of using author context on textual sarcasm detection. We define author context as the embedded representation of their historical posts on Twitter and suggest neural models that extract these representations. We experiment with two tweet datasets, one labelled manually for sarcasm, and the other via tag-based distant supervision. We achieve state-of-the-art performance on the second dataset, but not on the one labelled manually, indicating a difference between intended sarcasm, captured by distant supervision, and perceived sarcasm, captured by manual labelling.<br/
Exploring Author Context for Detecting Intended vs Perceived Sarcasm
No full textWe investigate the impact of using author context on textual sarcasm detection. We define author context as the embedded representation of their historical posts on Twitter and suggest neural models that extract these representations. We experiment with two tweet datasets, one labelled manually for sarcasm, and the other via tag-based distant supervision. We achieve state-of-the-art performance on the second dataset, but not on the one labelled manually, indicating a difference between intended sarcasm, captured by distant supervision, and perceived sarcasm, captured by manual labelling.<br/
Flaubert lecteur de l'Histoire naturelle de Pline
No full textThis article questions the relationship between flaubertian writing and the latin text that represents one of the major sources of Salammbo’s composition. It intends more specifically to examine the way in which the details taken from Pliny’s Natural History and which were diversely used by Flaubert during the composition of the “ roman carthaginois” were processed. In fact, various methods and techniques were implemented in the genesis : – combining data stemming from the author''s reading with issues of his own experience – condensating data – deliberately pursuing strangeness and seeking inaccuracy – description serving narration. With Flaubert, the ancient works lose their exemplary nature and become sources of documentation and the Ancients cease being the ideals they were during the renaissance and the classical periods. Analyzing these methods and processes can bring us to reflect on the poetic aspect of Flaubert’s writing largely based on documentation.Cet article s’interroge sur la relation qu’entretient l’écriture flaubertienne avec le texte latin et qui constitue l’un des ressorts clefs de la composition de Salammbô : il se propose plus précisément d’examiner la façon dont sont transformés les détails empruntés à l’Histoire naturelle de Pline, et qui sont diversement exploités par Flaubert pendant la composition du roman carthaginois. En effet, différentes méthodes et techniques sont utilisées au cours de la genèse de l’oeuvre : combinaison entre des données tirées des lectures de l’auteur et d’autres provenant de son expérience propre, condensation de données, recherche de l’étrangeté, imprécision volontaire, description au service de la narration. Avec Flaubert, les ouvrages anciens perdent leur exemplarité pour devenir sources de documentation et les Anciens cessent d’être des modèles comme ils l’étaient à la Renaissance et à l’époque classique. L’analyse de ces méthodes et procédés peut nous amener à réfléchir sur la poétique d''une écriture flaubertienne fondée en grande partie sur la documentation.Ezzine Walid. Flaubert lecteur de l'Histoire naturelle de Pline. In: Ktèma : civilisations de l'Orient, de la Grèce et de Rome antiques, N°35, 2010. pp. 393-401
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