The Mobile Generation: Global Transformations at the Cellular Level

Every year we see a new dimension of the ongoing Digital Revolution, which is enabling an abundance of information to move faster, cheaper, in more intelligible forms, in more directions, and across borders of every kind. The exciting new dimension on which the Aspen Institute focused its 2006 Roundtable on Information Technology was mobility, which is making the Digital Revolution ubiquitous. As of this writing, there are over two billion wireless subscribers worldwide and that number is growing rapidly. People are constantly innovating in the use of mobile technologies to allow them to be more interconnected. Almost a half century ago, Ralph Lee Smith conjured up "The Wired Nation," foretelling a world of interactive communication to and from the home that seems commonplace in developed countries today. Now we have a "Wireless World" of communications potentially connecting two billion people to each other with interactive personal communications devices. Widespead adoption of wireless handsets, the increasing use of wireless internet, and the new, on-the-go content that characterizes the new generation of users are changing behaviors in social, political and economic spheres. The devices are easy to use, pervasive and personal. The affordable cell phone has the potential to break down the barriers of poverty and accessibility previously posed by other communications devices. An entire generation that is dependant on ubiquitous mobile technologies is changing the way it works, plays and thinks. Businesses, governments, educational institutions, religious and other organizations in turn are adapting to reach out to this mobile generation via wireless technologies -- from SMS-enabled vending machines in Finland to tech-savvy priests in India willing to conduct prayers transmitted via cell phones. Cellular devices are providing developing economies with opportunities unlike any others previously available. By opening the lines of communication, previously disenfranchised groups can have access to information relating to markets, economic opportunities, jobs, and weather to name just a few. When poor village farmers from Bangladesh can auction their crops on a craigslist-type service over the mobile phone, or government officials gain instantaneous information on contagious diseases via text message, the miracles of mobile connectivity move us from luxury to necessity. And we are only in the early stages of what the mobile electronic communications will mean for mankind. We are now "The Mobile Generation." Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology. To explore the implications of these phenomena, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program convened 27 leaders from business, academia, government and the non-profit sector to engage in three days of dialogue on related topics. Some are experts in information and communications technologies, others are leaders in the broader society affected by these innovations. Together, they examined the profound changes ahead as a result of the convergence of wireless technologies and the Internet. In the following report of the Roundtable meeting held August 1-4, 2006, J. D. Lasica, author of Darknet and co-founder of Ourmedia.org, deftly sets up, contextualizes, and captures the dialogue on the impact of the new mobility on economic models for businesses and governments, social services, economic development, and personal identity

Pit Features: A View From Grand Island, Michigan

Serving a multitude of functions from subterrestrial cavities of storage, basins for cooking, to vessels that securely hold pounds of rice allowing the grains to be danced upon to thresh, pit features are one of North Americas most common archaeological feature. These constructions are dug to fit a diversity of needs based on the people who manufacture them. By understanding the distinct function(s) a pit or group of pit features played at a site-level, the needs of the people who inhabited that landscape are better understood. The nature of a pit feature is to store something or process a food resource that is of value, by virtue of the objects pits once contained, those materials are predominantly reclaimed from the pit when it was in use. This lack of associated material remains found in the archaeological record make it difficult to understand the activates associated with these features. Recorded pit features of the lower peninsula of Michigan have contained varying floral remains, charred wood, burned soils, fire-cracked rocks, and limited amounts of ceramics and lithics. A considerable amount of regional ethnohistoric accounts demonstrates the importance of pit features in the subsistence and settlement patterns of native Upper Great Lakes groups. Despite these accounts, and high frequencies in which these features manifest throughout the region, there have been no formal archaeological investigations into pit feature use in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. To address this regional gap in research, archaeological investigation of selected pit features at the Muskrat Point site (03-910) was conducted under the direction of the Grand Island Archaeological Project in the summer of 2017. Field survey identified 24 surface depressions, likely to be pit features along the southern end of Grand Island eastern lobe. Fifteen of these are located in the area of the Muskrat Point site, four of these surface depressions were excavated, each confirmed to be pit features. A performance-based approach is used to consider pit stratigraphy, macrobotanical remains, radiocarbon dating, and other contextual evidence in order to investigate pit feature function at this coastal Lake Superior site. This research acts as an initial step towards understanding the rolls pit features played in Native American lifeways of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Content Replication and Placement Schemes for Wireless Mesh Networks

Recently, Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have attracted much of interest from both academia and industry, due to their potential to provide an alternative broadband wireless Internet connectivity. However, due to different reasons such as multi-hop forwarding and the dynamic wireless link characteristics, the performance of current WMNs is rather low when clients are soliciting Web contents. Due to the evolution of advanced mobile computing devices; it is anticipated that the demand for bandwidth-onerous popular content (especially multimedia content) in WMNs will dramatically increase in the coming future. Content replication is a popular approach for outsourcing content on behalf of the origin content provider. This area has been well explored in the context of the wired Internet, but has received comparatively less attention from the research community when it comes to WMNs. There are a number of replica placement algorithms that are specifically designed for the Internet. But they do not consider the special features of wireless networks such as insufficient bandwidth, low server capacity, contention to access the wireless medium, etc. This thesis studies the technical challenges encountered when transforming the traditional model of multi-hop WMNs from an access network into a content network. We advance the thesis that support from packet relaying mesh routers to act as replica servers for popular content such as media streaming, results in significant performance improvement. Such support from infrastructure mesh routers benefits from knowledge of the underlying network topology (i.e., information about the physical connections between network nodes is available at mesh routers). The utilization of cross-layer information from lower layers opens the door to developing efficient replication schemes that account for the specific features of WMNs (e.g., contention between the nodes to access the wireless medium and traffic interference). Moreover, this can benefit from the underutilized resources (e.g., storage and bandwidth) at mesh routers. This utilization enables those infrastructure nodes to participate in content distribution and play the role of replica servers. In this thesis, our main contribution is the design of two lightweight, distributed, and scalable object replication schemes for WMNs. The first scheme follows a hierarchical approach, while the second scheme follows a flat one. The challenge is to replicate content as close as possible to the requesting clients and thus, reduce the access latency per object, while minimizing the number of replicas. The two schemes aim to address the questions of where and how many replicas should be placed in the WMN. In our schemes, we consider the underlying topology joint with link-quality metrics to improve the quality of experience. We show using simulation tests that the schemes significantly enhance the performance of a WMN in terms of reducing the access cost, bandwidth consumption and computation/communication cost

Sélection fine de l'habitat chez le renard arctique à l'Île Bylot

RÉSUMÉ: Les impacts des prédateurs dans les écosystèmes sont fortement déterminés par leur distribution spatiotemporelle fine. L'étude de la sélection d'habitat permet de mieux comprendre les facteurs déterminant cette distribution. Toutefois, bien que l'influence des proies et des habitats aient été grandement étudiée, d'autres facteurs restent moins approfondis, comme l'influence de la territorialité et de l'utilisation d'une tanière de reproduction. De plus, la sélection d'habitat est un processus dynamique à diverses échelles temporelles, mais cet aspect n'est pas toujours considéré. Nous avons examiné l'effet de plusieurs variables environnementales et de variables liées aux interactions intraspécifiques sur la sélection d'habitat du renard arctique (Vulpes lagopus). Nous avons aussi évalué comment les renards modulent leur sélection d'habitat selon leur état comportemental et selon des variations de disponibilité des proies et de soins parentaux. Les facteurs considérés jouaient simultanément des rôles centraux pour la sélection d'habitat du renard arctique, et leur importance relative variait selon l'état comportemental et selon la progression de l'été. Les renards évitaient toujours la bordure de leur territoire. Les individus reproducteurs sélectionnaient la proximité à la tanière seulement durant la première période d'étude, qui correspond au moment où les soins parentaux sont les plus fréquents. Les zones de forte densité de nids d'oies étaient sélectionnées quand les renards étaient actifs mais étaient évitées au repos. Ces zones étaient moins sélectionnées après l'éclosion des œufs d'oies. Les réponses aux habitats de la toundra variaient au cours de l'été, mais les relations étaient plus difficiles à interpréter. Nos résultats suggèrent qu'en plus des proies et des habitats, les contraintes associées aux interactions intraspécifiques peuvent être d'importants prédicteurs de la sélection d'habitat des prédateurs. De plus, notre approche intégrant les états comportementaux et les variations temporelles de disponibilité des proies et de soins parentaux a permis d'approfondir les mécanismes associés à la sélection d'habitat. Nos résultats ouvrent de nouvelles avenues dans l'exploration des impacts spatiotemporels des prédateurs sur les proies dans la toundra, et ce, à une échelle fine rarement étudiée à ce jour. -- Mot(s) clé(s) en français : ancre spatiale, état comportemental, interactions prédateur-proie, mouvement, risque de prédation, sélection des ressources, territorialité, toundra arctique, Vulpes lagopus. -- ABSTRACT: The impacts of predators in their ecosystems are largely related to their fine-scale spatiotemporal distribution, and studying the habitat selection of predators allows to understand key drivers of their distribution. However, even if some drivers have been much studied, like prey distribution and habitat, other drivers like territoriality and the use of a breeding den have received far less attention. Moreover, habitat selection is a dynamic process at various temporal scales, and this aspect still needs to receive attention. We examined how several environmental variables and several variables associated to intraspecific interactions affected arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) habitat selection. We also evaluated how fox modulate habitat selection according to their behavioural state and to temporal variations in prey availability and parental care investment. All considered predictors played central roles in fox habitat selection, and their relative importance varied depending on the behavioural state and temporal variations. Foxes always avoided territory edges. Reproductive individuals selected den proximity only during the first study period which corresponded to a high level of parental care. Higher goose nest density was selected when foxes were active but avoided when resting, and were less selected after egg hatching. Selection for tundra habitats also varied through the summer, but effects were harder to interpret. Our results suggest that intraspecific interaction constraints can be key spatial predictors of predator habitat selection simultaneously with prey distribution and habitat. Furthermore, our approach integrating behavioural states and temporal variations helps a mechanistic understanding of habitat selection. Our results open new avenues for exploring the spatiotemporal impacts of predators on tundra prey at fine spatial scales rarely examined. -- Mot(s) clé(s) en anglais : arctic tundra, behavioural state, spatial anchor, movement, predation risk, resource selection, predator-prey interactions, territoriality, Vulpes lagopus

Lithic and Raw Material Variability in the Mesolithic of the Western Isles: Contextualising “The Hybrid Industries of the Western Seaboard”

This thesis assesses the lithic technology of the recently established Mesolithic of the Western Isles of Scotland, and how this technology fits into the occupation of these new sites. Moreover, it addresses whether the Western Isles sites are representative of the Scottish Mesolithic and how they fit within the Mesolithic of the north-east Atlantic façade. Extensive investigations into the Mesolithic of western Scotland and the Inner Hebrides have revealed widespread coastal occupation, however, large areas are still devoid of such evidence. Until recently the Western Isles were one such instance, despite long-held assertions of anthropogenic vegetation disturbance inferred from pollen diagrams. The lithic assemblages analysed in this thesis represent the first definitive evidence for Mesolithic occupation in this region. These are contextualised within the current understanding of the Mesolithic in Scotland and its closest Atlantic neighbours – Ireland and Norway. The assemblages demonstrate that locally available quartz was expediently worked to produce informal flake-based technology. Small quantities of flint were heavily curated and may have been imported from distant sources. This fits within a broad trend of an increased uptake in local raw materials and subsequent technological adjustment that occurs around the 7th millennium cal. BC, across the Atlantic seaboard. The import of exotic raw materials also indicates connections with other islands. The exceptional organic preservation at these sites provides a rare insight into hunter-gatherer economy in western Scotland. The Mesolithic inhabitants of the Western Isles appear logistically organised, exploiting a broad-spectrum economy. This is supported by the generalised and expedient lithic technology. The lack of microliths suggests insular technological developments in the later Mesolithic toolkit of the outer isles. This raises questions regarding our current understanding of the microlith as a symbol of Mesolithic technology and the validity of using microliths as definitive evidence for Mesolithic occupation. Consequently, this may aid future recognition of new Mesolithic sites where previously they may have been dismissed as undiagnostic scatters

An Investigation of patterns of mammalian scavenging in relation to vertebrate skeletal remains in a Northwestern European context: forensic applications.

Mammalian scavenging, disarticulating, scattering and removal of human remains can alter and obscure both soft tissue and skeletal remains which are essential to making interpretations and identifications during forensic investigations. The effects of scavenging vary between regions, environments, scavenger species, and crime scene scenarios due to a variety of factors. Nonetheless, there is a gap in the knowledge of scavenger species found within Northwestern Europe. The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and Eurasian badger (Meles meles) are the largest wild mammalian scavenger species inhabiting peri-urban and rural environments within Northwestern Europe. These mammalian scavengers have dentitions and bite forces capable of heavily modifying and widely transporting human remains yet there are currently no species-typical and region-specific studies of these scavengers and their impacts on forensic investigations and physical searches for human remains. Forensic scientists, investigators and police search officers have been forced to rely on anecdotal evidence and scavenging studies focused on scavengers not found in this region. Scavenging studies have previously concentrated on scavenger species found in North America and Africa, such as coyote (Canis latrans), wolf (Canis lupus), hyena (Crocuta crocuta), lion (Panthera leo) and leopard (Panthera pardus), which have differing species-typical scavenging behaviour and patterns in comparison to foxes and badgers. Likewise, knowledge of the characteristics of the effects on bone surfaces of fox and badger scavenging is lacking, more so for the latter scavenger. The overall aim of this thesis is to aid forensic investigations by filling the gaps in the knowledge and identification of red fox and Eurasian badger species-typical scavenging behaviour and patterns. Avian scavenging can also modify soft tissue and skeletal remains. The buzzard (Buteo buteo) and carrion crow (Corvus corone) are the most common avian scavengers within this region. The scavenging behaviours of these avians modified soft tissue and affected mammalian scavengers’ scavenging behavours. A survey of police search officers within the U. K. indicated that the scavenging of surface deposited human remains within this region is common and that scavenging affects the recovery rates of remains. Despite the impact of scavenging on the recovery of scavenged remains, there is a lack of knowledge and literature available to forensic scientists, investigators, and police search officers to aid in the identification of scavenger species and scavenger species-typical scavenging behaviour and patterns. Thus these forensic professionals have been relying primarily on anecdotal evidence to identify scavengers or have not made efforts to identify scavengers. Experiments, conducted in southern England, using deposited deer (Cervus nippon; Capreolus capreolus) and the observation of captive scavengers found that within a woodland environment common scavengers include wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), carrion crow, buzzard, Eurasian badger, and red fox. Scavenging activities by all scavenger species observed at remains were affected in various ways by seasonality, trophic resources, territoriality, insect activity, carcass size and condition, and decomposition. Of those scavengers, the red fox was the most frequent scavenger of surface deposited remains. The species-typical scavenging behaviour and pattern, as well as bite mark dimensions, of the red fox proved to differ to that of badgers and other canids, such as domestic dogs (Canis familiaris), coyotes and wolves. The benefits of the knowledge of scavenger species-typical scavenging behaviour and pattern to forensic investigations and physical searches were assessed by applying the results gained from the experiments within this research to current forensic investigations and search exercises performed with police search officers. The application of information on species-typical scavenging behaviour and patterns was found to improve police search officers’ search and recovery efforts of scavenged remains

Fourth NASA Goddard Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies

This report contains copies of all those technical papers received in time for publication just prior to the Fourth Goddard Conference on Mass Storage and Technologies, held March 28-30, 1995, at the University of Maryland, University College Conference Center, in College Park, Maryland. This series of conferences continues to serve as a unique medium for the exchange of information on topics relating to the ingestion and management of substantial amounts of data and the attendant problems involved. This year's discussion topics include new storage technology, stability of recorded media, performance studies, storage system solutions, the National Information infrastructure (Infobahn), the future for storage technology, and lessons learned from various projects. There also will be an update on the IEEE Mass Storage System Reference Model Version 5, on which the final vote was taken in July 1994

Effets des mouvements, des comportements alimentaires et de la témérité d'un prédateur territorial sur une communauté de proies

RÉSUMÉ : La prédation joue un rôle central dans les processus écologiques. En plus d'affecter la croissance des populations de proies par mortalité directe, les mouvements des prédateurs génèrent un paysage du risque de prédation qui influence la composition et la structure des communautés. Plus spécifiquement, les proies répondent à leur perception du risque en modifiant leurs comportements, et ces changements phénotypiques peuvent ultimement influencer leur aptitude phénotypique et la dynamique de leurs populations. Les mécanismes qui génèrent les effets du risque de prédation sur les populations de proies sont cependant peu compris. En plus de leurs déplacements dans l'habitat, des caractéristiques propres aux prédateurs peuvent également influencer la répartition spatiale du risque de prédation. Notamment, la territorialité chez une espèce prédatrice pourrait influencer les patrons de chasse des individus prédateurs dans leur domaine vital, lorsqu'ils tentent d'éviter d'interagir avec leurs conspécifiques. Également, les individus prédateurs peuvent montrer des différences interindividuelles constantes dans certains traits comportementaux, comme la témérité. Puisque la témérité d'un prédateur peut influencer sa capacité à acquérir des proies, celle-ci pourrait influencer le paysage du risque de prédation. Ainsi, la compréhension des conséquences de la prédation sur une communauté animale nécessite l'étude des comportements des prédateurs, puisque ces derniers influencent directement la répartition du risque de prédation. L'objectif principal de cette thèse de doctorat est d'évaluer comment l'activité des prédateurs influence le risque de prédation et les comportements des proies, et d'explorer comment la territorialité et la personnalité des prédateurs influencent la répartition du risque de prédation. J'ai étudié les comportements du renard arctique, un prédateur actif qui chasse en se déplaçant et qui agit comme prédateur principal pour la majorité des proies à l'île Bylot au Nunavut (Canada). Au Chapitre 1, grâce au suivi GPS des mouvements des renards arctiques, j'ai développé un paysage de l'activité des prédateurs et montré son effet sur le paysage du risque de prédation. Je montre ensuite comment la variation spatiale dans l'intensité d'utilisation de l'espace de ce carnivore influence les comportements anti-prédateurs et la répartition de multiples espèces de proies. Ces résultats montrent les mécanismes qui régissent les effets du risque de prédation sur les populations de proies, et permettent de mieux comprendre comment le risque de prédation structure les communautés animales. Au Chapitre 2, j'ai développé une classification des comportements des renards à partir de données d'accélérométrie, permettant de déterminer où et quand les renards adoptent des comportements associés à la prédation. Il demeure difficile d'identifier les évènements de prédation de prédateurs actifs se nourrissant de petites proies à partir de données télémétriques. La classification des données d'accélérométrie est donc une avancée méthodologique offrant un grand potentiel scientifique, en permettant ultimement de caractériser plus précisément la répartition du risque de prédation qui résulte de l'activité des prédateurs. Au Chapitre 3, j'ai montré que les interactions entre renards utilisant des domaines vitaux voisins influencent les comportements de prédation des renards non territoriaux, dont les domaines vitaux chevauchent ceux de leurs voisins territoriaux. Je montre ainsi comment les renards utilisent différentes tactiques comportementales pour sécuriser des ressources, soit la territorialité ou l'ajustement des comportements de prédation à la probabilité de rencontrer un voisin. La présence d'individus non territoriaux pourrait également influencer la répartition du risque de prédation en créant des zones ou la densité de prédateurs est plus élevée que la moyenne. Au Chapitre 4, j'ai évalué la présence de différences interindividuelles dans la témérité des renards arctiques et identifié une variable écologique qui pourra t favoriser le maintien de ces différences. J'ai trouvé que l'abondance de la proie principale des renards, les lemmings, influence la relation entre leur témérité et leur succès reproducteur, puisque lorsque les proies principales sont rares, seulement les renards les plus téméraires se reproduisent. Au contraire, quand les proies sont abondantes, tous les renards ont un grand nombre de jeunes. La force de la sélection qui agit sur la témérité pourrait donc dépendre de l'abondance des proies principales. En plus d'apporter des connaissances nouvelles sur les comportements des prédateurs, cette thèse montre que le risque de prédation est un important déterminant de la répartition et des comportements des proies d'une communauté, et met en lumière certains mécanismes qui régissent les effets de la prédation sur la biodiversité locale. -- Mot(s) clé(s) en français : accélérométrie, écologie spatiale, interactions prédateurs-proies, mouvements, paysage de la peur, personnalité, renard arctique (Vulpes lagopus), risque de prédation, succès reproducteur, territorialité. -- ABSTRACT : Predation plays a central role in ecological processes. The growth of prey populations and the composition and structure of communities are affected by direct killing of prey, and by the predation risk landscape that results from the movements of predators. More specifically, prey respond to their perception of risk by adjusting their behaviours, and such phenotypic responses can ultimately influence individual fitness and the dynamic of populations. Mechanisms leading to predation risk effects on prey populations however remain poorly understood. In addition to the movements of predators in their habitat, individual characteristics of predators also influence the distribution of predation risk. For example, territoriality in a predator species could influence the hunting behaviours of individuals in their home range, while they try to avoid interacting with conspecifics. Additionally, predators may show consistent among-individual differences in behavioural traits such as boldness. As predator boldness may influence prey acquisition rate, it could also influence the predation risk landscape. As such, the study of predator behaviours, which directly influence the distribution of predation risk, is a necessary step to better understand the consequences of predation on animal communities. The main objective of this thesis was to evaluate how the activity of predators influences predation risk and prey behaviours, and to explore how the territoriality and personality of predators influence the distribution of predation risk. I studied the behaviours of the Arctic fox, an active hunting predator that searches prey while moving, and that acts as the main predator of most of the prey on Bylot Island in Nunavut (Canada). In Chapter 1, I used GPS tracking of Arctic fox movements to develop a predator activity landscape and I showed that it was related to the predation risk landscape. I also showed how variation in the intensity of space use of this carnivore influenced anti-predator behaviours and distribution of multiple prey species. These results show mechanisms leading to predation risk effects in prey populations and allow to better understand how predation risk structures animal communities. In Chapter 2, I developed a behavioural classification of Arctic fox behaviours using accelerometry data, which allowed to determine where and when foxes used behaviours associated to predation. It remains difficult to identify the killing events of active hunting predators that feed on small prey using telemetry data. This classification of accelerometry data is thus a methodological advance that has great scientific potential, by allowing a more precise characterisation of the predation risk landscape that results from predator activities. In Chapter 3, I showed how interactions among foxes using neighbouring home ranges influenced the foraging behaviours of non-territorial foxes, whom home ranges overlap those of their territorial neighbours. I suggest that foxes may use different behavioural tactics to secure resources, either through territoriality or behavioural adjustments of foraging behaviours to the probability of encountering a neighbour. The presence of non-territorial individuals could also influence predation risk distribution by creating zones where predator density is higher than average. In Chapter 4, I evaluated the presence of among-individual differences in the boldness of Arctic foxes and identified an ecological variable that could favor the maintenance of such differences. I found that the abondance of fox main prey, lemmings, influenced the relation between fox boldness and reproductive success. Only foxes behaving boldly reproduced when main prey were scarce. On the contrary, when prey were abundant, all foxes had a large number of young. The force of selection acting on boldness could thus depend on the abondance of main prey items. In addition to bringing knew knowledge on predator behaviours, this thesis shows that predation risk in an important determinant of prey distribution and behaviours in vertebrate community, and highlights mechanisms that govern the effects of predation on local biodiversity. -- Mot(s) clé(s) en anglais : accelerometry, Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), landscape of fear, movements, personality, predation risk, predator-prey interactions, reproductive success, spatial ecology, territoriality