5,798 research outputs found
Personal BioBlitz: A New Way to Encourage Biodiversity Discovery and Knowledge in K-99 Education and Outreach
No full textBroad and detailed knowledge about common species in everyday life has decreased among the public. Even biology researchers may be largely unaware of our everyday biodiversity. To counter such 'species blindness' and create long-term excitement and learning about the biodiversity we see every day, we arranged 76-day BioBlitzes at Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA) in 2014 and 2015 where participants identified and listed all species they discovered. The result was 7270/11748 observations from 30/78 participants and 7/13 countries, including 3458/3057 unique taxa, 91%/99.9% identified to species and 80%/54% listed only by one person (2014/2015). Observations of organismal groups did not strongly correspond to number of estimated species worldwide, but appeared to be related to perceived charisma, body size, and organism mobility. Participants reported increased ability to 'see' species and to identify new groups, learning new tools of species identification and strongly increasing their biodiversity knowledge and eagerness to learn more.Peer reviewe
The cult of St Nicholas in medieval Italy
No full textSt Nicholas was one of the most popular saints in medieval Italy. His cult attracted the attention
of popes, kings and emperors, and his shrine at Bari became an important international pilgrimage
destination. This thesis asks how the cult of St Nicholas came to be so widespread and popular in
Italy, and why the saint attracted the attention of diverse groups and individuals.
This thesis is structured around four chapters. The first demonstrates that through a
process of Latinisation the cult of St Nicholas became integrated within Italian literary traditions
and within a new spiritual era. Chapter Two reveals that this Latinisation also occurred within the
saint’s iconography. Chapters Three and Four are case studies of the cult in Puglia and Venice,
locations which claimed possession of the saint’s relics. These case studies show that the general
developments that the cult of St Nicholas underwent in Italy, identified in Chapters One and Two,
did not apply universally. Instead, the presence of the saint’s relics resulted in a different profile
of the saint in Bari and Venice. Through the process of Latinisation, the cult of St Nicholas
became updated and remained relevant for its new Italian audience; Chapters Three and Four
show alternative ways that the cult of St Nicholas gained widespread popularity.
This thesis presents for the first time an iconographical study of St Nicholas in Italian art,
which develops existing research of the saint’s Byzantine iconography. Chapter Four presents a
profile of the cult of St Nicholas in Venice in the Middle Ages, which is a significant oversight in
the literature. The thesis uses a variety of visual and textual sources, in particular fresco and
altarpiece representations, archival documents from Venice and Rome (including the Apostolic
Visitations), and under-exploited contemporary and antiquarian Venetian sources
Readers’ attitudes to self-archiving in the UK
No full textThe online self-archiving by authors of their scholarly articles has been proposed as an alternative to author-pays open access publication, but has the potential to undermine journal publisher income if the ready availability of self-archived articles leads to a drop in subscriptions. This study investigated the awareness of self-archiving and use of self-archived articles in a survey of a mainly academic population including both authors and non-authors, and looks at their attitudes to self-archived papers and whether they view them as an authoritative alternative to subscription access. In total, 70% of respondents had heard of self-archiving, though only 15% knew a lot about it, and 71% had used self-archived papers. These proportions are higher than in previous studies, suggesting that awareness has grown. Most self-archived papers used came from websites rather than repositories, particularly among those whose awareness of self-archiving was low. Use of self-archived articles was greater amongst those who had published more papers and also depended strongly on subject field – use and awareness were both particularly low in the field of medicine. People who were more aware of self-archiving were less likely to view the publisher’s official version as the only authoritative version and more likely not to care about the online location of articles. Moreover, authors who had self-archived tended to archive the publisher’s official version regardless of whether they were permitted to. These results suggest that the awareness of self-archiving is currently mostly limited to academic authors and is unlikely to grow beyond this in the short term. However, in the long term, the combination of high rates of self-archiving of the publisher’s official version, coupled with the devaluation of the journal as the authoritative source of material together with increased convenience of access to self-archived material, could result in fewer people accessing articles through subscription-based methods
Essays on coordination and financial markets
No full textThis dissertation is concerned with microeconomic models of equilibrium pricing in financial markets of varying organizational scope. The first two chapters are based on game-theoretic models characterized by a coordination problem. I begin at the industry level in Chapter 2 where I solve the chicken-or-the-egg problem of platform pricing. I show that the elasticity of demand is greater for the more valued side and hence a monopolist will charge that side a lower price. These results have implications on how exchanges admit traders and apply to more general two-sided markets. My findings are supported by experimental tests. Chapter 3 examines regulatory efficacy in manipulating a currency market with a peg. I solve for equilibrium speculator conduct and central bank intervention policy where the speculator population is discrete. Sudden equilibrium price collapses are related explicitly to fundamentals. The main findings are again supported by experimental tests. In the final chapter, I study a market where strategic behavior is set aside and market participants are instead assumed to be perfect delta hedgers who immediately exploit arbitrage opportunities. I numerically estimate the equilibrium price of an exotic option in such a market.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Nicholas B. Galuni
Inverse magnetic catalysis in bottom-up holographic QCD
No full textWe explore the effect of magnetic field on chiral condensation in QCD via a simple bottom-up holographic model which inputs QCD dynamics through the running of the anomalous dimension of the quark bilinear. Bottom-up holography is a form of effective field theory and we use it to explore the dependence on the coefficients of the two lowest order terms linking the magnetic field and the quark condensate. In the massless theory, we identify a region of parameter space where magnetic catalysis occurs at zero temperature but inverse magnetic catalysis at temperatures of order the thermal phase transition. The model shows similar nonmonotonic behavior in the condensate with B at intermediate T as the lattice data. This behavior is due to the separation of the transition at which a thermal width develops for the mesons and the chiral transition in the holographic framework. The introduction of quark mass raises the scale of B where inverse catalysis takes over from catalysis until the inverse catalysis lies outside the regime of validity of the effective description leaving just catalysis
FIGURE 2. Graphyllium caracolinense. A–B. Ascomata. C in A new genus and three new species of hysteriaceous ascomycetes from the semiarid region of Brazil
No full textFIGURE 2. Graphyllium caracolinense. A–B. Ascomata. C. Longitunial section of ascomata. D–E. Asci with ascospores. F–H. Ascospores. Scale bars: A–C = 0.5 mm, D–H = 10 µm.Published as part of Almeida, Davi Augusto Carneiro De, Gusmão, Luís Fernando Pascholati & Miller, Andrew Nicholas, 2014, A new genus and three new species of hysteriaceous ascomycetes from the semiarid region of Brazil, pp. 298-308 in Phytotaxa 176 (1) on page 302, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.176.1.28, http://zenodo.org/record/514448
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1762 1876
No full textTitle in upper margin: Philadelphia 100 years ago. Facsimile. Oriented with north toward the upper left. Pictorial map. The original "Published according to Act of Parliament Novr. 1st 1762 and sold by the Editor's Matthew Clarkson and M. Biddle in Philadelphia." Includes index to points of interest and insets "A" and "B."Grayscale;1:6,10
FIGURE 3. Hysterodifractum partisporum. A–B. Ascomata. C–D. Ascus with ascospores. E. Asci with ascospores and pseudoparaphyses. F in A new genus and three new species of hysteriaceous ascomycetes from the semiarid region of Brazil
No full textFIGURE 3. Hysterodifractum partisporum. A–B. Ascomata. C–D. Ascus with ascospores. E. Asci with ascospores and pseudoparaphyses. F. Apex of the ascus with ascospores. G–I. Ascospores. Scale bars: A–B = 0.5 mm, C–D = 10 µm, E = 20 µm, F–I = 2 µm.Published as part of Almeida, Davi Augusto Carneiro De, Gusmão, Luís Fernando Pascholati & Miller, Andrew Nicholas, 2014, A new genus and three new species of hysteriaceous ascomycetes from the semiarid region of Brazil, pp. 298-308 in Phytotaxa 176 (1) on page 303, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.176.1.28, http://zenodo.org/record/514448
FIGURE 1. Anteaglonium brasiliense. A–B. Ascomata. C–D. Asci with ascospores and pseudoparaphyses. E. Ascus with ascospores. F–H in A new genus and three new species of hysteriaceous ascomycetes from the semiarid region of Brazil
No full textFIGURE 1. Anteaglonium brasiliense. A–B. Ascomata. C–D. Asci with ascospores and pseudoparaphyses. E. Ascus with ascospores. F–H. Ascospores. Scale bars: A–B = 0.5 mm, C–E = 10 µm, F–H = 5 µm.Published as part of Almeida, Davi Augusto Carneiro De, Gusmão, Luís Fernando Pascholati & Miller, Andrew Nicholas, 2014, A new genus and three new species of hysteriaceous ascomycetes from the semiarid region of Brazil, pp. 298-308 in Phytotaxa 176 (1) on page 301, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.176.1.28, http://zenodo.org/record/514448
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