125 research outputs found
We must combine conservation of nature with benefits to society. Interview by Gaby Allheilig with Andreas Heinimann on IPBES' Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
No full textOn 6 May 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) presented its report on the state of biodiversity and ecosystem services worldwide. The first such assessment since 2005, it concludes that biodiversity and ecosystem loss has reached the point where it threatens human well-being. The researchers involved recommend several urgent measures to political decision-makers. Andreas Heinimann of CDE was the one Swiss scientist who worked as a lead author on a chapter of the report
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Neural Control of Steering in Walking Drosophila
No full textSteering is a fundamental component of orienting behavior. It can be guided by external sensory cues, internal drives, and goal directions stored in working memory. Steering behavior provides an opportunity to study how the brain toggles between these different drives with different goals. It also provides an opportunity to study how the brain combines steering guidance information from multiple sensory modalities with steering guidance information in working memory. How sensory cues and internal cognitive drives are integrated to guide motor commands is a major open problem. In this study we made significant progress toward solving this problem by identifying two types of descending neurons (a1 and a2) that influence steering during walking in Drosophila. Whereas a1 acts in a sustained manner with low gain, and a2 acts transiently with high gain. We showed that a2 responds to spatial guidance cues with different valences from multiple stimulus modalities. These neurons encode the direction of the cue evoked turn, not the side of the body where the cue was delivered. Moreover, we showed that a2 is functionally downstream from the heading direction map in the central complex, and it can participate in steering behavior driven by central complex dynamics. Finally, we suggest future strategies for examining the mechanism of integration between central complex-related inputs and sensory-related inputs onto steering descending neurons.Medical SciencesMedical Science
Educators' challenge to achieve peace
No full textEste artículo es el fruto de las reflexiones personales de la autora, desarrolladas en el módulo de fundamentos pedagógicos de la maestría en educación en la Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga. El trabajo parte de analizar las tensiones que vive actualmente nuestra sociedad, para determinar los retos que enfrenta la educación en un contexto integral, siendo el eje de desarrollo de la sociedad. Se realizaron apreciaciones sobre las relaciones existentes entre epistemología y el conocimiento, la importancia de la psicología en el aprendizaje y la necesidad de educar a la sociedad para el logro de la paz.This article is the fruit of the personal reflections of the author, developed in the module of pedagogical foundations of the master's degree in education at the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga. The work starts from analyzing the tensions that our society is currently experiencing, to determine the challenges that education faces in an integral context, being the axis of development of society. Appreciations were made about the existing relationships between epistemology and knowledge, the importance of psychology in learning and the need to educate society for the achievement of peace
Polonais d’origine juive volontaires de la guerre civile en Espagne (1936-1939)
No full textG. E. Sichon article is, first of all, an historical analysis, as the title suggests, of Polish Jews who participate in the International Brigades during the Spanish War. But this is also a major eye-witness account, since the author met most of the important protagonists. The article is illustrated with several of his own photographs, which he has generously given to the BDIC Collection.L’article de Gaby Ersler Sichon est d’abord une analyse historique sur les Polonais d’origine juive dans les Brigades internationales durant la guerre d’Espagne. Mais c’est aussi celle d’un témoin oculaire d’événements dont il a connu personnellement les protagonistes. L’article est illustré de photographies qu’il a prises, provenant d’un corpus généreusement déposé à la BDIC.Sichon G.e. Polonais d’origine juive volontaires de la guerre civile en Espagne (1936-1939). In: Matériaux pour l'histoire de notre temps, n°73, 2004. pp. 44-48
Contribution à l'étude écologique des fleuves côtiers du Liban : 2. Cours moyen et inférieur du Nahr Ibrahim
No full textA contribution to the ecology of some lebanese littoral streams : 2. The mid and lower course of the Nahr Ibrahim — After his study of the Nahr-el-Kalb (Khalaf and Lahoud, 1983), the author investigated the physico-chemical conditions and the zoocenoses of another Lebanese littoral stream, the Nahr Ibrahim. This stream is 27 km long, and on its course 3 dams with 3 electric plants and a huge quarry are to be found. Moreover a plan for the equipement of the valley is being prepared.
It appears that the dams do not modify the thermal conditions in the stream, but that the quarry delivers large amounts of suspended matter.
The turbidity of the water and the biotic index of Verneaux and Tuffery reveal the effects of the quarry much more clearly than the diversity index of the fauna.Après celle du Nahr-el-Kalb (Khalaf et Lahoud, 1983), l'auteur entreprend l'étude physico-chimique et zoocénotique du Nahr Ibrahim, fleuve côtier libanais de 27 km. L'importance de cette étude découle du fait que, d'une part le cours d'eau est interrompu par trois barrages qui alimentent trois centrales électriques, ce qui pourrait modifier la qualité physico-chimique de l'eau, d'autre part une énorme carrière se dresse sur son trajet et déverse d'importantes quantités de sédiments fins qui modifient la structure biocénique du fleuve. En plus, cette étude est intéressante dans la mesure où un aménagement de la vallée du Nahr Ibrahim est en projet.
Les valeurs de la turbidité et de l'indice biotique de Verneaux et Tuffery rendent bien mieux compte des effets de la carrière que l'indice de diversité de la faune.Khalaf Gaby. Contribution à l'étude écologique des fleuves côtiers du Liban : 2. Cours moyen et inférieur du Nahr Ibrahim. In: Bulletin mensuel de la Société linnéenne de Lyon, 53ᵉ année, n°1, janvier 1984. pp. 9-20
Beyond Poisson: Increased Spike-Time Regularity across Primate Parietal Cortex
No full textSummaryCortical areas differ in their patterns of connectivity, cellular composition, and functional architecture. Spike trains, on the other hand, are commonly assumed to follow similarly irregular dynamics across neocortex. We examined spike-time statistics in four parietal areas using a method that accounts for nonstationarities in firing rate. We found that, whereas neurons in visual areas fire irregularly, many cells in association and motor-like parietal regions show increasingly regular spike trains by comparison. Regularity was evident both in the shape of interspike interval distributions and in spike-count variability across trials. Thus, Poisson-like randomness is not a universal feature of neocortex. Rather, many parietal cells have reduced trial-to-trial variability in spike counts that could provide for more reliable firing-rate signals. These results suggest that spiking dynamics may play different roles in different cortical areas and should not be assumed to arise from fundamentally irreducible noise sources
Multiples Discursos De La Diferencia En Tres Autoras Bolivianas De Fines Del Siglo XX: Gaby Vallejos, Ericka Bruzonic y Giovanna Rivero Santa Cruz
No full textabstract: In the last years of the twentieth century, while the narrative of women in other Latin American countries has received critical attention, Bolivian women's narrative has been widely ignored. The fact that the voice of Bolivian women in Latin American feminist discourse is rarely discussed in Latin American criticism is enough to justify the present study. This work focuses on three prominent Bolivian writers: Gaby Vallejos, Giovanna Rivero Santa Cruz, and Erika Bruzonic. The short stories of these three authors are characterized by accentuating certain telluric features revealed in the background of their feminine/feminist narratives. At the same time, based on the American and European feminist literary critique, this work analyzes the feminine/feminist themes mounted in the narrative of these authors. Gaby Vallejos, with a cinematic style, chronicles the life and customs of the "valluno" context, building a mosaic of different voices in dialogue. Her topics revolve around binaries: life-death, and pain and pleasure, voicing condemnation for a patriarchal society. Ericka Bruzonic deals with women and identity, memory and the breaking of lineage as an imposing structure. Her themes are built around the cosmopolitism of "paceña" urban life, and her voice transgresses the binomials established by a patriarchal society. Finally Giovanna Rivero Santa Cruz takes the life and customs of the Santa Cruz and the Guarani culture and her plots weave these elements reaching for myths and taboos, involving the reader into her stories. In this manner, her narrative makes an incursion into the conscious and unconscious realm of the readers questioning their wealth of moral and social values, their notions of heterosexuality, and sexual taboos. The three writers, with different narrative styles yet dialogical, narrate various experiences of women from different regions, social classes, ages, education, and sexual orientations. Our authors give high value to the word and the body embedded in the culture, thereby affirming their woman's voice as Bolivians and their literary presence in the context of Latin American literature.Dissertation/ThesisM.A. Spanish 201
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