6,441 research outputs found
Mindscapes: Laura Riding's poetry and poetics /
Full text linkTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão.Esta tese propõe uma leitura revisionista da poesia contemporânea através do exame do caso de um dos mais esquecidos escritores norte-americanos do século XX: Laura (Riding) Jackson (1901-1991). O objetivo é demonstrar que Riding não apenas possuía uma poética definida e singular, mas que ela permanece uma das instâncias mais extremas e paradoxais do modernismo anglo-americano, a ponto de Riding abandonar a escrita da poesia em 1938. Recorrendo a conceitos de "formação do cânone" bem como às noções de "discurso" e "função do autor", em Foucault, investigo a construção do cânone da poesia moderna anglo-americana, recuperando o contexto e as circunstâncias da ocultação de Riding. Enquanto cubro os "discursos" poéticos em circulação na primeira metade do século XX-o "imagismo" de Pound, a "dissociação da sensibilidade", "impersonalidade" e "tradição" de Eliot, a "unidade orgância" e "ambigüidade" da Nova Crítica-ofereço um panorama crítico de modernismos alternativos sendo articulados à época. Minha intenção é demonstrar que os poemas de Riding são expressões vigorosas de um escritor para quem "a mente pensando se torna a força ativa do poema", para usar a apta formulação de Charles Bernstein. Entre minhas descobertas sobre as várias e complexas razões que levaram à não-canonização de Riding estão a hegemonia da Nova Crítica, o exílio voluntário de Riding da cena literária (onde são feitas ou desfeitas as reputações), sua recusa em ser antologiada, bem como em ser explicada em termos críticos que não os dela. Todos esses fatores, mais a "dificuldade" de sua poesia, contribuíram para fazer de Riding "a maior poeta esquecida da poesia norte-americana", como escreveu Kenneth Rexroth. Ajudado pelos insights de dois importantes críticos de poesia norte-americana, Charles Bernstein e Marjorie Perloff, defendo que a "poesia da mente" de Riding-onde o que está em jogo é que o que pensamos ser a nossa realidade-representa uma mudança radical no paradigma da poética modernista: de uma poesia centrada na imagem para uma poesia centrada na linguagem. Focalizando a experiência consciente e o tempo duracional do pensamento presente em seus poemas, concluo que as "pensagens" de Riding têm o objetivo preciso de constatar um fato universal: enquanto seres humanos e pensantes, estamos numa condição permanente chamada linguagem
Heritage tourism: a case study of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Heritage Site at Pepin, Wisconsin
Full text linkPlan BMany things must be taken into consideration when developing a heritage tourism site. It can be a wonderful opportunity for the community involved to benefit economically and historically. Heritage tourism can keep alive the heritage and traditions of the communities past. When it is discovered that a heritage site exists, the first step is to consult with the community. A site will not succeed without the acceptance and assistance from the community involved. Once the interest is known, the development process can proceed. After determining that there is a heritage tourism site possibility in their area, a commumity must do research to determine the feasibility of the site, what will make it a success, and how to obtain that success. This study will examine a community with a heritage tourism site that has been successful in developing and maintaining it's site. By conducting this study, other communities seeking information for developing their site will have an example and tool to work with. The site chosen for this study is the Laura Ingalls Wilder site in Pepin, Wisconsin. The town is rich with it's heritage associated with Laura Ingalls Wilder. The development and success for this town will be documented through this study. Laura Ingails Wilder is a perfect choice for examining heritage tourism. The author of many American Pioneer books, she has become famous all over the world. In turn all places that she or her family members lived are or are becoming heritage tourism sites. There are older ones that have been in progress for some years, such as the one in Pepin, and there are ones that are being discovered through the popularity of new books written about Laura's family. These communities would benefi greatly from the information this study will produce. Without the bene-fit of this knowledge communities who are unaccustomed to tourism or the way the other Laura Ingalls Wilder sites operate, may make terrible errors in development, tarnishing the site. This may also reflect badly on the other Laura Ingalls Wilder sites. It is important for new Wilder sites to examine all information and know exactly what they are doing when developing the site. If all the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites can benefit from each other's knowledge and experience it will greatly increase the market for all sites. The more detailed and expansive the sites are about their knowledge and sites to see, the more people are going to want to travel to as many sites as possible, learning all they can about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family. These sites not only attract Laura Ingalls Wilder fans but all people that are interested in the American Pioneer period of the United States history. This study will provide the knowledge for communities who are developing heritage tourism sites, especially those focusing on Laura Ingalls Wilder. This is a very important study for tourism and especially heritage tourism. When a heritage site is discovered communities run into the barrier of not having the experience and knowledge to develop the site properly. This study will analyze tourism in Pepin, Wisconsin to determine it's successfulness due to the fact that it is a Laura Ingalls Wilder heritage tourism site, and Wfit was developed in a way to provide tourists with a view of Laura Ingalls Wilder's past and the past of many Pioneer Americans. By studying this subject it will allow for many people to benefit. Tourist who are seeking the pleasure of the knowledge of the past, and communities who want to preserve their past and profit from tourism
Book Review: In search of safety: Chemicals and cancer risk, by John D. Graham, Laura C. Green, and Marc J. Roberts
No full textJohn D. Graham, Laura C. Green, and Marc J. Roberts examine the scientific policy conflicts in regulating potentially carcinogenic chemicals. Using detailed case studies of formaldehyde and benzene, they probe the scientific data regarding carcinogenicity and the dose-response relationship, and then describe the history of regulatory action. Both chemicals have precipitated major battles among scientists, have involved at least two regulatory agencies, and have spawned important litigation.</p
Teasing apart fine- and coarse-scale effects of environmental heterogeneity on tree species richness in Europe
Full text linkThe environmental heterogeneity–biodiversity relationship is generally hypothesised to be positive, with greater heterogeneity leading to greater biodiversity. However, the generality of positive environmental heterogeneity–species richness relationships is often debated, with some studies finding non-significant or even negative relationships. Negative relationships have primarily been found at fine spatial scales. Both negative and positive relationships have a basis in ecological theory. Environmental heterogeneity at coarse scales opens up niche space to allow more species to coexist; whereas high local heterogeneity, for instance in topography, may lead to increased local extinction due to micro-fragmentation, or dominance of species suited to heterogeneous conditions. However, it is difficult to attribute how much of the variance is explained at different scales within the same modelling framework.Here, we use a new data-aggregation method which enables us to include both fine- and coarse-scale environmental heterogeneity within the same analysis. Using this method, we were able to tease apart the fine- and coarse-grain effects of topographic heterogeneity on European tree species richness. At the coarse scale (0.5 degrees), we found a positive effect of range in elevation on tree species richness. However, when measuring range in elevation using a fine-scale moving window of radius 500 m, we found a negative relationship with tree species richness. This supports existing research that has shown negative relationships between environmental heterogeneity and species richness at finer spatial grains. Because we were able to include a measure of both local and landscape-scale topographic heterogeneity in the same model, for the first time we could fully capture the effects of both scales on coarse-grain species richness while accounting for the effect of the other scale
Ignoring the spatial structure of the sea cucumber <i>Isostichopus fuscus</i> distribution when granting quotas can be costly
No full textThere is an increasing demand for fisheries resources worldwide. For example, the Asian markets have traditionally consumed sea cucumber as a delicacy and their buoyant economies have promoted demand for it in recent years. The brown sea cucumber Isostichopus fuscus is the most valuable species from the Eastern Pacific and it has been almost depleted due to overfishing. In this work, we analyzed data of sea cucumber abundance collected monthly (October 2014–December 2016) along the west coast of the Gulf of California (29.95 oN – 28.05 oN) in 1,107 swath (25 × 2 m) quadrats performed at 118 sites with the goal of determining if current fishing quotas are sustainable. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical modelling approach with integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) to this data to account for spatial structure in the data when calculating densities. The observed density ranged from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 0.58 ind/m2, with an average of 0.03 ind/m2 in suitable habitat, defined as the habitat less than 30 m deep and with hard substrate. There are large spatial variations in abundance, but the overall mean suitable habitat is 15.7% (min = 7.8%, max = 28.8%) of the total fishing area. Current quotas are usually higher than 5% of the lower bounds of population density estimates. We propose, among other management measures, that quotas should be granted taking into account the spatial structure of sea cucumber densities as well as the proportion of suitable area within each estate. Given the high levels of illegal fishing within the Gulf of California, it is imperative that quotas are based on the lower bounds of spatially explicit density estimates – along with increased surveillance and enforcement – if the long-term commercial sustainability of the fishery is to be maintained
Using citizen science data for conservation planning: methods for quality control and downscaling for use in stochastic patch occupancy modelling
Full text linkThe Incidence Function Model (IFM) has been put forward as a tool for assessing conservation plans. A key benefit of the IFM is low data requirements: widely available species occurrence data and information about land cover. Citizen science is a promising source of such data; however, to use these data in the IFM there are typically two problems. First, the spatial resolution is too coarse, but existing approaches to downscaling species data tend not to extend to patch level (as required by the IFM). Second, widely available citizen science data typically report species' presences only. We devise ten different downscaling methods based on theoretical ecological relationships (the species–area relationship and the distance decay of similarity), and test them against each other. The better performing downscaling methods were based on patch area, rather than distance from other occupied patches. These methods allow data at a coarse resolution to be used in the IFM for comparing conservation management and development plans. Further field testing is required to establish the degree to which results of these new methods can be treated as definitive spatially-explicit predictions. To address the issue of false absences, we present a method to estimate the probability that all species have been listed (and thus that a species' absence from the list represents a true absence), using the species-accumulation curve. This measure of confidence in absence helps both to objectively identify a habitat network for fitting the IFM, and to target areas for further species recording
Scale-dependency in drivers of outdoor recreation in England
No full text1. Managing landscapes for multiple, sometimes conflicting, objectives requires an understanding of the trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services (ES). These trade-offs and synergies are often the result of drivers acting at different scales. Therefore, in order to understand trade-offs and synergies it is important that we understand the scale dependency in drivers of ES.2. Here, we examine scale dependencies in the drivers of outdoor recreation in England to better understand trade-offs between different aspects of this ES. We focus on outdoor recreation because it is culturally and economically important; it is the result of a range of social and biophysical attributes which vary at different scales; and proxies that are independent of these drivers exist. 3. First, we tested the hypothesis that a social media based proxy (photographs from Flickr) represents ‘destination’ recreation (e.g. day trips and overnight visits). We did so by comparing to a survey based proxy, which is known to represent ‘day-to-day’ recreation (e.g. dog walking, visiting local parks). Second, we examined the scale dependencies in the social and biophysical drivers of both types of outdoor recreation. 4. Flickr data were best explained by variables capturing supply of recreation; whereas the survey data were best explained by variables capturing demand for recreation. This confirms our hypothesis that Flickr data measure ‘destination’ recreation given that the survey data measure ‘day-to-day’ recreation. In both cases, the importance of demand variables increased with increasing spatial resolution. 5. Understanding what a proxy measures provides us with information about how to use it. We conclude that Flickr data may be useful to plan at broad scales, but that to plan for equitable day-to-day recreation, specially designed survey data may be more appropriate. Estimating the scale dependencies in drivers of outdoor recreation gets us a step closer to a mechanistic understanding of the social-ecological system. <br/
Future geographic patterns of novel and disappearing assemblages across three dimensions of diversity
Full text linkAim: Under climate change, it is likely that as species reshuffle based on their environmental tolerances, novel assemblages will form and some current assemblages will disappear. It is important for future monitoring and conservation that we understand where these novel and disappearing assemblages occur and how they differ among dimensions (taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional) of diversity. Here we investigate the geographical and environmental patterns of novel and disappearing assemblages; whether these patterns hold across dimensions of diversity; and how these assemblages are characterized in trait space. Location: Ecuador. Methods: We used ensemble species distribution modelling to estimate the distributions of 151 hummingbird species into the projected climate for 2070. Using standard beta diversity measures, we identified novel and disappearing taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional assemblages. Results: We found that novel and disappearing hummingbird assemblages are likely under climate change, particularly in extreme environments and with novel assemblages replacing disappearing assemblages. Although the patterns of novel and disappearing assemblages were similar among dimensions of diversity, we found that there were fewest novel and disappearing functional assemblages. The future assemblages were characterized by an increase in functional space, which is counter to typical predictions of trait homogenization under climate change. Main conclusions: Novel and disappearing assemblages are likely to pose management challenges for future conservation. Here we present an approach to identify such assemblages. By considering the geographic and environmental context of novel and disappearing assemblages for different dimensions of diversity, we can start to identify the mechanisms behind these patterns.</p
The incidence function model as a tool for landscape ecological impact assessments
Full text linkLandscape-scale approaches to assessing the impact of land-use change on species' persistence are necessary because species depend on processes acting at varying scales, yet existing approaches to ecological impact assessment tend only to be site-based. A further major criticism of current ecological impact assessments is that they tend to be qualitative. Here we develop methods that apply the Incidence Function Model (IFM) in real urban planning contexts, by generating repeatable and comparable quantitative measures of ecological impacts. To demonstrate the methods for a case study (Nottingham, UK), we estimated landscape-scale measures of species' persistence that indicate metapopulation viability. We based these on Nottingham’s landscape when urban developments were recently proposed, then adjust the land cover to include the proposed developments, and also for two projected landscapes where 10% and 20% of the original natural or semi-natural land cover is lost. We find that the IFM shows promise as a tool for quantitative landscape-scale ecological impact assessment, depending on the size of the impact. We detected minimal differences in the species' viability measures between the original and post-development landscapes. This suggests that for small (around 2%) cumulative losses of natural/ semi-natural space, current site-based approaches are sufficient. However, when the cumulative effect of continued development was modelled by increasing the losses of natural/semi-natural land cover to 10–20% of existing cover, the impact on many of the species studied was more substantial. This indicates that a landscape-scale approach is necessary for larger, prolonged and cumulative habitat losses
Incorporating fine-scale environmental heterogeneity into broad-extent models
Full text link1. A key aim of ecology is to understand the drivers of ecological patterns, so that we can accurately predict the effects of global environmental change. However, in many cases predictors are measured at a finer resolution than the ecological response. We therefore require data aggregation methods that avoid loss of information on fine-grain heterogeneity. 2. We present a data-aggregation method that, unlike current approaches, reduces the loss of information on fine-grain spatial structure in environmental heterogeneity for use with coarse-grain ecological datasets. Our method contains three steps: 1) define analysis scales (predictor grain, response grain, scale-of-effect); 2) use a moving window to calculate a measure of variability in environment (predictor grain) at the process-relevant scale (scale-of-effect); and 3) aggregate the moving window calculations to the coarsest resolution (response grain). We show the theoretical basis for our method using simulated landscapes, and the practical utility with a case study. Our method is available as the grainchanger R package. 3. The simulations show that information about spatial structure is captured that would have been lost using a direct aggregation approach; and that our method is particularly useful in landscapes with spatial autocorrelation in the environmental predictor variable (e.g. fragmented landscapes), and when the scale-of-effect is small relative to the response grain. We use our data aggregation method to find the appropriate scale-of-effect of land-cover diversity on Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius) abundance in the UK. We then model the interactive effect of land-cover heterogeneity and temperature on G. glandarius abundance. Our method enables us quantify this interaction despite the different scales at which these factors influence G. glandarius abundance. 4. Our data aggregation method allows us to integrate variables that act at varying scales into one model with limited loss of information, which has wide applicability for spatial analyses beyond the specific ecological context considered here. Key ecological applications include being able to estimate the interactive effect of drivers that vary at different scales (such as climate and land cover), and to systematically examine the scale-dependence of the effects of environmental heterogeneity in combination with the effects of climate change on biodiversity.<br/
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