23,350 research outputs found

    The place where curses are manufactured : four poets of the Vietnam War

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    The Vietnam War was unique among American wars. To pinpoint its uniqueness, it was necessary to look for a non-American voice that would enable me to articulate its distinctiveness and explore the American character as observed by an Asian. Takeshi Kaiko proved to be most helpful. From his novel, Into a Black Sun, I was able to establish a working pair of 'bookends' from which to approach the poetry of Walter McDonald, Bruce Weigl, Basil T. Paquet and Steve Mason. Chapter One is devoted to those seemingly mismatched 'bookends,' Walt Whitman and General William C. Westmoreland, and their respective anthropocentric and technocentric visions of progress and the peculiarly American concept of the "open road" as they manifest themselves in Vietnam. In Chapter, Two, I analyze the war poems of Walter McDonald. As a pilot, writing primarily about flying, his poetry manifests General Westmoreland's technocentric vision of the 'road' as determined by and manifest through technology. Chapter Three focuses on the poems of Bruce Weigl. The poems analyzed portray the literal and metaphorical descent from the technocentric, 'numbed' distance of aerial warfare to the world of ground warfare, and the initiation of a 'fucking new guy,' who discovers the contours of the self's interior through a set of experiences that lead from from aerial insertion into the jungle to the degradation of burning human feces. Chapter Four, devoted to the thirteen poems of Basil T. Paquet, focuses on the continuation of the descent begun in Chapter Two. In his capacity as a medic, Paquet's entire body of poems details his quotidian tasks which entail tending the maimed, the mortally wounded and the dead. The final chapter deals with Steve Mason's JohnnY's Song, and his depiction of the plight of Vietnam veterans back in "The World" who are still trapped inside the interior landscape of their individual "ghettoes" of the soul created by their war-time experiences

    The value of local food partnerships: Covid and beyond

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    The Covid-19 pandemic, and – more recently – soaring food prices have focused attention on how local areas meet the challenges of a fractured food system. This report examines the impacts andachievements of Local Food Partnerships (LFPs) and how LFPs embed and amplify their work to deliver both local and national food priorities. LFPs have been uniquely placed to provide systems leadership and practical solutions through the strategic direction and support of the UK-wide Sustainable Food Places (SFP) programme, established a decade prior to the pandemic. LFPs have been able to pivot to respond with agility to an extended period of national crisis and have moved forward to offer a coherent framework for the transition of local food system. The four dimensions of ‘effectiveness’,‘efficiency’, ‘engagement’, and ‘equity’ highlight the value of LFPs to fill the leadership gap on local food issues

    Traffic Generation using Containerization for Machine Learning

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    Evidence-informed teaching in England

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    Anchoring policies, alignment tensions: reconciling New Zealand's climate change act and emissions trading scheme

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    Climate Change Acts (CCAs) seek to anchor national climate policy by establishing long‐term targets and lines of accountability that guide the development of other climate policy instruments. However, counter‐pressures to modify CCAs can occur where tensions exist with the provisions of already‐established policies that enjoy substantial political and stakeholder support. Such tensions can be especially pronounced where CCAs necessitate major changes to emissions trading schemes (ETSs) that have formed the mainstay of efforts to reduce national emissions. This article employs a novel anchoring policy framework to examine the dynamics of aligning ETSs with CCAs. We investigate debates on reforms to the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme following the introduction of the Zero Carbon Act in 2019 to examine how alignment pressures between anchoring and subordinate policies are negotiated. The analysis reveals several tactics used to increase the acceptability of reforms to the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme and protect the Zero Carbon Act’s integrity. The article concludes by arguing that a greater understanding of alignment pressures between anchoring and subordinate policies is essential in enabling both CCAs and ETSs to contribute to achieving decarbonisation goals.Research Council Norway, Grant No. 235618.Research Council Norway, FME Include, Grant No. 29570

    Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to compare foraging sea turtle density and distribution of sea turtles in two contrasting habitats in the Chagos Archipelago

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    Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) facilitate observation of elusive species or remote locations, and are increasingly used to survey marine habitats. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a conservation tool used to protect marine species, and regular population assessments can establish if MPAs are effectively facilitating the recovery of endangered species. Sea turtles in the Western Indian Ocean have been historically exploited through trade and by-catch causing a reduction in numbers. Here, UAVs were utilised to assess the population density and distribution of green (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) turtles between ocean and lagoon environments in the Chagos Archipelago. Analysis protocols were developed to process UAV imagery, including carapace-measurement techniques, and certainty-classing turtle observations (Definite, Probable or Possible). Along 20 km of coastline, 5.13 km2 was surveyed across 11 days between July 2019 – February 2021 resulting in a high-certainty estimate of 381 turtles and a low-certainty estimate of 660. Species and life-stage identification implicate Chagos as developmental habitat for immature hawksbill turtles: 78.47% (n = 299/381) of identified definite turtles were immature, of which 66.55% (n = 199/299) were hawksbill. Diego Garcia Ocean Site 1, West sites and Turtle Cove were significant turtle hotspots (high-certainty results: 257.19 individuals/km2, 146.15 individuals/km2, and 135.08 individuals/km2, respectively), while Marina sites were least-dense (0 - 4.87 individuals/km2). Results for low-certainty data were comparable: 325.27 individuals/km2 in Diego Garcia Site 1, followed by 309.27 and 292.67 individuals/km2 in Turtle Cove. Population density decreased significantly with increasing distance from the shore, and decreased with increasing distance from Turtle Cove. Green turtles were smaller (50.33 ± 17.65 cm straight-carapace length, SCL) than hawksbill turtles (53.16 ± 11.17 cm SCL). This study highlights the Chagos Archipelago as developmental habitat for immature turtles, and demonstrates the applicability of UAVs for in-situ population monitoring to infer conservation status of marine megafauna

    Security of Scottish electricity supply: gauging the perceptions of industry stakeholders

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    Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions together with the increase in electricity generated from renewable energy are dramatically changing the electricity supply landscape. This document reports and reviews the opinions of industry experts and stakeholders regarding security of electricity supply in Scotland, collected in May 2021 via an online survey and subsequent discussions in a roundtable event in July 2021.https://www.climatexchange.org.uk/media/5118/cxc-security-of-scottish-electricity-supply-gauging-the-perceptions-of-industry-stakeholders-september-2021.pd

    Financing Low-Carbon Transport Transition in the Philippines: Mapping Financing Sources, Gaps and Directionality of Innovation

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    Successfully achieving a low-carbon transition in the transport sector requires an understanding of the lending logics of the financial institutions in order to identify the financing directionality and gaps. However, in the transportation literature, there is a lack of attention on the relationship between financing sources and the direction of innovation. The present study seeks to address this by mapping the flow of finance from financial institutions to transport projects. Our dataset consists of 9 transport projects included in the Philippines’ Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). We consider different types of projects (rail development, bus rapid transit implementation, jeepney modernization) and various financial actors (multi-lateral banks, private and government banks). Through an analysis of loan portfolio composition and interview data, we uncover the underlying logics of each financial institution in lending to transport projects. Our findings suggest that the lending logics of many financial institutions is primarily driven by portfolio and borrower credit-worthiness considerations, and less by motivations concerning sustainability transition. As a result, with respect to the average, some transport projects are over-financed (e.g. rail development), while others – which have a high potential to accelerate decarbonization – are under-financed (e.g. jeepney modernization). All these have profound implications for the directionality of low-carbon transition. Deeper engagement of transition research with finance is a nascent field, and the current research contributes to the literature not only by presenting a comprehensive mapping of several financing sources and projects, but also of proposing three credit enhancement mechanisms to mobilize capital for under-financed projects
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