278 research outputs found

    Critiquing the pursuit of island sustainability

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    This article critiques a focus on ‘sustainable development’ which highlights a liveable ‘future’ without paying adequate attention to what, we argue, are more pressing issues for a liveable present. We contend that, while inherently commendable, the thrust of many current initiatives related to sustainable development, especially those associated with climate change, promote an ethos which crowds out other pressing policy pursuits with more immediate relevance – although often also associated with sustainable development – such as health, basic education, poverty reduction, and productive employment and livelihoods. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are at the forefront of these initiatives, given their prominence in discussions on sustainable development, but especially climate change, alongside the basic challenges that they face in maintaining viable economies. Long-term thinking and planning is needed and welcomed; but we may now have gone too far in the opposite direction in terms of aiming for sustainable development in, and for, a distant future that emphasises climate change, without better balancing of that concern with the pressing needs of the moment

    Phorinia breviata Tachi and Shima 2006

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    Phorinia breviata Tachi and Shima, 2006 * Phorinia breviata Tachi and Shima, 2006: 260. Type locality: Japan, Fukuoka Pref., Fukuoka City, Mt. Aburayama. Material examined: North Korea, Kangvǒn-do Prov., Kumgang-san Mts., Onjong-ri near Kymgan-san hotel, 28. 08. 1987, 1 male, leg. E. Kierych. Distribution: Palaearctic: Japan (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Tsushima Island). Oriental and Oceanian regions (Tachi and Shima 2006). First record from Korea. Remarks: In the first version of this paper I have given the information that among the specimens examined I found male belonging to the Phorinia aurifrons Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 (after the Key to the insects of Russian Far East. Vol. VI. Diptera and Siphonaptera. Pt 3. Vladivostok. 2004. 124. Fam. Tachinidae. Richter: 197-198). However, one of reviewers, in his comments wrote: ” Phorinia aurifrons Robineau-Desvoidy (…) is considered to be misidentified from East Asia by some authors (see Tachi & Shima 2006, O’Hara et al. 2009, Shima 2014). The author is recommended to confirm identification of this species. If the species P. aurifrons really occurs in North Korea, it is very interesting”. My repeated examination of the specimen from Korea confirmed the suspicions of reviewer. Finally, I decided that it was P. breviata Tachi and Shima.Published as part of DRABER-MOŃKO, Agnieszka, 2015, State of knowledge of the tachinid fauna of Eastern Asia, with new data from North Korea. Part V. Exoristinae, pp. 79-98 in Fragmenta Faunistica 58 (2) on page 90, DOI: 10.3161/00159301FF2015.58.2.079, http://zenodo.org/record/625182

    An icy layer of isolation: Prince Edward Island’s sea-bound particularity

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    The types and degrees of insularity experienced in islands provide considerable material for academics. In the case of Prince Edward Island (PEI), being an Island combined with the isolation caused by sea ice covering the waters around PEI, has impacted Islanders’ sense of relative insularity. Even after the construction of a fixed link to the mainland, Islanders continue to relish in a sense of distinctiveness linked to their Island condition. Since European settlement, PEI’s sea ice barrier has periodically cut off channels of communication and transportation resulting in many societal effects. As ocean temperatures rise due to Climate Change, ice conditions are changing, bringing with them increased coastal erosion and other effects. This article investigates PEI’s relationship with its frozen sea-bound particularity. Drawing upon the Island’s history, culture, and climate data, as well as from the field of Island Studies, the article asks the question: how has this ‘icy layer of isolation’ affected Islanders’ sense of place over time? And what are the potential implications of the effects of Climate Change for PEI

    Lingering colonial outlier yet miniature continent

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    The fortunes of the wider Mediterranean Sea, the world’s largest, have never rested on Sicily, its largest island. A stubbornly peripheral region, and possibly the world’s most bridgeable island, Sicily has been largely neglected within the field of Island Studies. The physically largest island with the largest population in the region, and housing Europe’s most active volcano, Sicily has moved from being a hinterland for warring factions (Sparta/Athens, Carthage/Rome), to a more centrist stage befitting its location, although still remaining a political outlier in the modern era. Unlike many even smaller islands with smaller populations, however, Sicily has remained an appendage to a larger, and largely dysfunctional, state. The Maltese islands are part of ‘the Sicilian archipelago’, and it was a whim of Charles V of Spain that politically cut off Malta from this node in the 1520s, but not culturally. This article will review some of the multiple representations of this island, and its changing fortunes

    Wandering rocks

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    This article addresses the representation of islands within the fiction of the 20th Century writer James Joyce. It is argued that Joyce reveals how islands and concepts of islandness can be made to serve varying political, historical, and literary ends. Writing in the immediate aftermath of Irish independence and partition, Joyce used the island settings of the Aran Islands and the Isle of Man in order to comment on the implications of those recent historical developments. While contemporary writers like Yeats and Synge valued the Aran Islands for their inculcation of traditional Irish values, Joyce rejected that vision as parochial and outmoded. Instead, Joyce drew attention to important comparisons and contrasts between Ireland and the Isle of Man. In Ulysses (1922) Joyce contrasted Ireland’s long and bloody struggle for independence with Man, whose legislature, the House of Keys, presented a dramatic counterexample of legitimate Home Rule. For both Joyce and his characters, Man was associated with familiar island stereotypes, including self-sufficiency and wholeness

    Is the Northern Topography of Orono-Shima Island The Prototype of the Key-Hole Tomb? ~ From Aerial Photography by Drone and Image Analysis by Landsat8 ~

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    application/pdfOrono-shima Island is a remote Island in the Tsushima Strait, it is 4.3km around. Since ancient times, it has been a landmark when crossing from the Korean Peninsula to Japanese archipelago via Tsushima Island and Iki Island. However, large-scale ruins and burial mounds are not known on Orono-shima Island until now. The author has conducted various surveys of Koro Island and found the possibility that this island was an important island in ancient times. As a result of ground survey, the author discovered a topography like keyhole tomb which is a characteristic Japanese burial mound, on the northern cape of the island. It could be up to 150m in size, one of the largest around Kyusyu Island. There is no burial mound comparable to this on a remote island in Japan. Therefore, we created a 3D image using a drone Laser and hand Laser surveying of this terrain and we compared the results with another keyhole tomb. We asked archaeologists to judge the results. He stated that this could be considered an artificial structure and that excavation would eventually be necessary. Therefore, we investigated in detail the sites that could be candidates for excavation. In addition, we analyzed the image of infrared radiation of Orono-shima Island took by Landsat8. In conclusion, it was speculated that this topography was the prototype of the oldest type of keyhole cairn tomb in Japan. The topography of the northern part of Orono-shima could be regaining the missing link between the cairn on the Korean Peninsula of the first century and the oldest type of keyhole cairn tomb in Japan of the third century.論文(Atticle)departmental bulletin pape

    Towards a Top-K SPARQL Query Benchmark Generator

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    The research on optimization of top-k SPARQL query would largely benefit from the establishment of a benchmark that allows comparing different approaches. For such a benchmark to be meaningful, at least two requirements should hold: 1) the benchmark should resemble reality as much as possible, and 2) it should stress the features of the topk SPARQL queries both from a syntactic and performance perspective. In this paper we propose Top-k DBPSB: an extension of the DBpedia SPARQL benchmark (DBPSB), a benchmark known to resemble reality, with the capabilities required to compare SPARQL engines on top-k queries

    GeoFrame outputs

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