1,240 research outputs found
Geographic isolation reduces genetic diversity of a wide-ranging terrestrial vertebrate, Canis lupus
No full textGenetic diversity is theorized to decrease in populations closer to a species’ range edge, where habitat may be suboptimal. Generalist species capable of long-range dispersal may maintain sufficient gene flow to counteract this, though the presence of significant barriers to dispersal (e.g., large water bodies, human-dominated landscapes) may still lead to, and exacerbate, the edge effect. We used microsatellite data for 2421 gray wolves (Canis lupus) from 24 subpopulations (groups) to model how allelic richness and expected heterozygosity varied with mainland–island position and two measures of range edge (latitude and distance from range center) across >7.3 million km2 of northern North America. We expected low genetic diversity both at high latitudes, due to harsh environmental conditions, and on islands, but no change in diversity with distance to the range center due to the species’ exceptional dispersal ability and favorable conditions in far eastern and western habitats. We found that allelic richness and expected heterozygosity of island groups were measurably less than that of mainland groups, and that these differences increased with the island’s distance to the species’ range center in the study area. Our results demonstrate how multiple axes of geographic isolation (distance from range center and island habitation) can act synergistically to erode the genetic diversity of wide-ranging terrestrial vertebrate populations despite the counteracting influence of long-range dispersal ability. These findings emphasize how geographic isolation is a potential threat to the genetic diversity and viability of terrestrial vertebrate populations even among species capable of long-range dispersal
The construction of Karen Karnak: The multi-author-function
No full textThis thesis is situated within the comparatively recent developments of Web 2.0 and the emergence of interactive WikiMedia, and explores the mode of authorship within a Read/Write culture compared to that of a Read/Only tradition. The hypothesis of this study is that the role of the audience has become merged with the author, and as such, represents new functions and attributes, distinct from a more conventional concept of authorship, in which the roles of audience and author are more separate. Read/Write and participatory culture, as defined by this study, is focused on collaboration, and includes the influences of D.I.Y. culture, Open-Source practices and the production of text by multiple authors. Multi-authorship presents a re-thinking of several concepts which support the notion of the individual author, since the focus of multi-authorship is not on attribution and ownership of a finished text, but on the continued malleability of a text. Modes of multi-authorship, demonstrated in the use of the pseudonyms Alan Smithee and Karen Eliot, represent declarative authors whose names signify multiple origins, whilst concurrently indicating a distinct body of work. The function of these names form an important context to this study, since primary research involves the construction of an experimental mode of multi-authorship utilising WikiMedia technology and the interaction of thirty nine participants, who are invited to create a body of work under the collective pseudonym Karen Karnak. The data generated by this experiment is analysed using aspects of Michel Foucault's author-function to identify and determine power structures inherent in the WikiMedia context. The interplay of power structures, including concepts such as identity, ownership and the body of work, affect the resulting mode of authorship and contribute to the construction of Karen Karnak, suggesting further areas of research into the emerging multi-author
Wild canine viruses in the news. Better understanding multi-host transmission by adopting a disease ecology species community-based approach
No full textJames H. Cathey Author of "Genesis of Lincoln"
No full textThis undated photograph showing James H. Cathey (1866-1929) is part of the William E. Bird Collection. On the back of the photograph is written “James H Cathey Senator from Jackson, Transylvania, Haywood, Swain. Author of ‘Genesis of Lincoln.’” William Ernest Bird (1890-1975) was born in the Qualla community of Jackson County, NC. Bird served Western Carolina University in various capacities during his long career. Bird’s roles at WCU included head of the English Department, Dean of Men, Acting President, and President. In 1963, he published The History of Western Carolina College: The Progress of an Idea. He was married to Myrtle Wells (1891-1983)
Deprivation of trade marks through state interference in their usage
No full textInaugural lecture delivered on 21 May 2013Owen Dean holds the
degrees BA (Law), LLB and
LLD from Stellenbosch
University, obtained in,
respectively, 1964, 1966
and 1989. He is admitted
to practice as an attorney in
South Africa, Namibia and
Botswana.
Dean is a previous Chairman,
presently a consultant, of Spoor and Fisher, leading
intellectual property attorneys. His personal fields of
specialisation include trade mark and copyright law, with
a special emphasis on litigation and opinion work. He
served on the Government’s Advisory Committee on
Intellectual Property Law for 20 years and as Chairman
of the Copyright Subcommittee of that committee. He
is also a former President of the South African Institute
of Intellectual Property Law. He conceived and chaired
the Drafting Committee of the Counterfeit Goods Act
and also conceived and drafted section 15A of the
Merchandise Marks Act (ambush marketing).
Dean is the author of the Handbook of South African
Copyright Law; the author of the chapter on “South
Africa” in International Privacy, Publicity and Personality
Laws, edited by Michael Henry; the author of the chapter
on “South Africa” in Copyright: World Law and Practice,
edited by Morag McDonald, Uma Suthersanen and
Cristina Garrigues; and co-author of the title “Copyright”
in Butterworths Forms and Precedents.
Dean has served as a member of the international
editorial boards of Copyright World and Entertainment Law
Review. He has published articles in, inter alia, the following
journals: Trademark World, Copyright World, Managing
Intellectual Property, European Intellectual Property Review
(EIPR), Entertainment Law Review, Canadian Intellectual
Property Review, De Rebus, Tydskrif vir Hedendaagse
Romeins-Hollandse Reg/Journal of Contemporary Roman-
Dutch Law, South African Law Journal, Businessman’s Law,
Stellenbosch Law Review, SA Mercantile Law Journal, Juta’s
Business Law, Responsa Meridiana and Encyclopaedia of
Brands and Branding.
Dean is a frequent speaker on intellectual property
matters at seminars and conferences, including
international meetings organised by the International
Trademarks Association (INTA), the Institute of
Trademark Agencies (ITMA) the World Intellectual
Property Organisation (WIPO) and the International
Association of Entertainment Lawyers (IAEL). He has
lectured on intellectual property law at the University
of the Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town,
Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Rand
Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg).
Dean has been appointed to the Panel of Adjudicators
for South African Domain Name Disputes, the World
Intellectual Property Organization Panel of Arbitrators
for Domain Name Disputes, the Stellenbosch University
Business School Panel of Mediators and the Intellectual
Property Panel of the Arbitration Federation of South
Africa (AFSA).
He was listed as a Senior Statesman of Intellectual
Property and a Key Individual of Spoor and Fisher by
Chambers and Partners in 2012 and 2013 in the Global-
Wide and Pan-Regional sections of the Chambers Global
rankings.
With effect from 2011, he was appointed as a professor
at the Faculty of Law at Stellenbosch University, where
he is the incumbent of the Anton Mostert Chair of
Intellectual Property Law
Extension of Coyote, Canis latrans, Breeding Range in the Northwest Territories, Canada
No full textCoyotes (Canis latrans) have resided in the Northwest Territories for several decades but have only rarely been sighted north of Great Slave Lake (>62° N. latitude) in the Taiga Shield ecozone. Records show Coyotes have been seen since the 1960s. Prior to 2000, evidence of Coyotes breeding in the Taiga Shield has been anecdotal. In 2000, a Coyote was repeatedly seen at the Yellowknife airport and in 2001, a pair of Coyotes was observed with two pups. Since then, Coyote pups have been observed annually at the airport and adult Coyotes are seen regularly within the city of Yellowknife, an urban island within the Taiga Shield ecozone. Unlike in most regions occupied by Coyotes, medium-sized prey are rarely seen. Recently, Coyotes have become a potential hazard to aircraft at the Yellowknife airport. Although Coyotes appear to have established themselves within the city of Yellowknife, maintaining a presence beyond the urbanized area remains uncertain
Petrology and Geochemistry of Knobby Peridotite Zones within Unltramafic Flows at Pyke's Hill, Munro Township, Ontario
No full textTitle: Petrology and Geochemistry of Knobby Peridotite Zones within Unltramafic Flows at Pyke's Hill, Munro Township, Ontario, Author: Dean W. A. McDonald, Location: ThodeKnobby peridotite forms a distinctive zone within the cumulus
member of spinifex and non-spinifex bearing ultramafic komatiitic
flows. Detailed measurements of flows at Pyke's Hill indicate the
relative abundance and spatial relationships of knobby peridotites
within specific types of flows. Petrographic and geochemical analysis
(including whole rock, rare earth and neutron activation) have been
implemented and discussed in terms of a comparison to analysis of
other zones within the flow. Polished sections indicate relationships
between silicate and opaque mineralogy.ThesisBachelor of Science (BSc
Addressing the education puzzle : the distribution of education and economic reform
No full textNo country has achieved sustained economic development without substantially investing in human capital. Previous studies have shown the handsome returns to various forms of basic education, research, training, learning-by-doing, and capacity-building. But education by itself does not guarantee successful development, as history has shown in the former Soviet bloc, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the Indian states of Kerala and West Bengal. The question is, when and how does education bring high payoffs? Although theory has suggested a strong causal link between education and growth, the empirical evidence has not been unanimous and conclusive. The authors examine two explanatory factors. First, who gets educated matters a good deal, but the distribution of education is complex and not much has been written about it. They construct an asset allocation model that elucidates the importance of the distribution of education to economic development. Second, how education affects growth is greatly affected by the economic policy environment. Policies determine what people can do with their education. Reform of trade, investment, and labor policies can increase the returns from education. Using panel data from 12 Asian and Latin American countries for 1970-94, they investigate the relationship between education, policy reform, and economic growth. Their empirical results are promising. First, the distribution of education matters. Unequal distribution of education tends to have a negative impact on per capita income in most countries. Moreover, controlling for human capital distribution and the use of appropriate functional form specifications consistent with the asset allocation model makes a difference for the effect of average schooling on per capita income. Controlling for education distribution leads to positive and significant effects of average schooling on per capita income, while failure to do so leads to insignificant, even negative effects, of average education. Second, the policy environment matters a great deal. Our results indicate that economic policies that suppress market forces tend to dramatically reduce the impact of human capital on economic growth. Investment in human capital can have little impact on growth unless people can use education in competitive and open markets. The larger and more competitive these markets are, the greater are the prospects for using education and skills.Curriculum&Instruction,Economic Theory&Research,Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Teaching and Learning,Curriculum&Instruction,Economic Theory&Research,Gender and Education
What algorithms could not be
No full textThis dissertation addresses a variety of foundational issues pertaining to the notion of algorithm employed in mathematics and computer science. In these settings, an algorithm is taken to be an effective mathematical procedure for solving a previously stated mathematical problem. Procedures of this sort comprise the notional subject matter of the subfield of computer science known as
algorithmic analysis. In this context, algorithms are referred to via proper names (e.g. Mergesort) of which computational properties are directly predicated (e.g. Mergesort has running time
O(n log(n))). Moreover, many formal results are traditionally stated by explicitly quantifying over algorithms (e.g. there is a polynomial time primality algorithm; there is no linear time comparison sorting algorithm).
These observations motivate the view that algorithms are themselves abstract mathematical objects -- a view I refer to as
algorithmic realism. The status of this view is clearly related to that of Church's Thesis -- i.e. the claim that a function is computable by an algorithm just in case it is partial recursive.
But whereas Church's Thesis is widely accepted on the basis of several well-known mathematical analyses of algorithmic computability, there is presently no consensus on how (or if) we can uniformly identify individual algorithms with mathematical objects.
In the first chapter of this work, I attempt to illustrate the theoretical significance of algorithmic realism. I suggest that this view is not only of foundational significance to computer science, but also worth highlighting due to the role algorithms play in the fixation of mathematical knowledge and their relationship to intensional entities such as propositions and properties. Chapter Two presents a formal framework for reducing computational discourse to mathematical discourse modeled on contemporary discussion of mathematical nominalism. Chapter Three is centered on a case study intended to illustrate the technical exigencies involved with defending algorithmic realism. Chapter Four explores various ways in
which algorithms might be identified with models of computation. And finally, Chapter Five argues that no such identification can uniformly satisfy all statements of algorithmic identity and non-identity affirmed by computational practice. I suggest that the technical crux of algorithmic realism lies in the necessity of reducing recursive specifications of algorithms to iterative models of computation in a manner which preserves algorithmic identity.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical references (p. 360-368)
Movements of wolves at the northern extreme of the species' range, including during four months of darkness.
No full textInformation about wolf (Canis lupus) movements anywhere near the northern extreme of the species' range in the High Arctic (>75°N latitude) are lacking. There, wolves prey primarily on muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) and must survive 4 months of 24 hr/day winter darkness and temperatures reaching -53 C. The extent to which wolves remain active and prey on muskoxen during the dark period are unknown, for the closest area where information is available about winter wolf movements is >2,250 km south. We studied a pack of ≥20 wolves on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada (80°N latitude) from July 2009 through mid-April 2010 by collaring a lead wolf with a Global Positioning System (GPS)/Argos radio collar. The collar recorded the wolf's precise locations at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. daily and transmitted the locations by satellite to our email. Straight-line distances between consecutive 12-hr locations varied between 0 and 76 km. Mean (SE) linear distance between consecutive locations (n = 554) was 11 (0.5) km. Total minimum distance traveled was 5,979 km, and total area covered was 6,640 km(2), the largest wolf range reported. The wolf and presumably his pack once made a 263-km (straight-line distance) foray to the southeast during 19-28 January 2010, returning 29 January to 1 February at an average of 41 km/day straight-line distances between 12-hr locations. This study produced the first detailed movement information about any large mammal in the High Arctic, and the average movements during the dark period did not differ from those afterwards. Wolf movements during the dark period in the highest latitudes match those of the other seasons and generally those of wolves in lower latitudes, and, at least with the gross movements measurable by our methods, the 4-month period without direct sunlight produced little change in movements
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