Renewal Systems, Sharp-Eyed Snakes, And Shifts Of Finite Type

Johnson and Madden look at collections of bi-infinite strings of symbols that occur in several different areas of mathematics and ask whether these collections are the same in some sense. A dynamical systems property called entropy can be used to show that the shifts of finite type are not all conjugate to uniquely decipherable renewal systems

Is Every Irreducible Shift of Finite Type Flow Equivalent to a Renewal System?

Is every irreducible shift of finite type flow equivalent to a renewal system? For the first time, this variation of a classic problem formulated by Adler is investigated, and several partial results are obtained in an attempt to find the range of the Bowen--Franks invariant over the set of renewal systems of finite type. In particular, it is shown that the Bowen--Franks group is cyclic for every member of a class of renewal systems known to attain all entropies realised by shifts of finite type, and several classes of renewal systems with non--trivial values of the invariant are constructed.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. For the conference proceedings of Operator Algebra and Dynamics, NordForsk Network Closing Conference, 15-20 May 2012, Gj\'aargar{\eth}ur, Faroe Island

On Flow Equivalence of Sofic Shifts

The flow equivalence of sofic shifts is examined using results about the structure of the corresponding covers. A canonical cover generalising the left Fischer cover to arbitrary sofic shifts is introduced and used to prove that the left Krieger cover and the past set cover of a sofic shift can be divided into natural layers. These results are used to find the range of a flow invariant and to investigate the ideal structure of the universal C^*-algebras associated to sofic shifts. The right Fischer covers of sofic beta-shifts are constructed, and it is proved that the covering maps are always 2 to 1. This is used to construct the corresponding fiber product covers and to classify these up to flow equivalence. Additionally, the flow equivalence of renewal systems is studied, and several partial results are obtained in an attempt to find the range of the Bowen-Franks invariant over the set of renewal systems of finite type. In particular, it is shown that the Bowen-Franks group is cyclic for every member of a class of renewal systems known to attain all entropies realised by shifts of finite type.Comment: 143 pages, 36 figures, PhD thesi

‘You Are the Old Entrapped Dreams of the Coyote’s Brains Oozing Liquid Through the Broken Eye Socket’: Ecomonstrous poetics and weird bioregionalism in the fiction of R. A. Lafferty (with a comparative reading of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian)

The fiction of R. A. Lafferty (1914-2002) is at once deeply ecological and deeply strange. Its incessant narrative inclusion of the nonhuman beings, places, and forces of Lafferty’s Oklahoman and otherwise (south)western bioregion evinces an imagination profoundly porous to the local specificities and abundance of one’s more-than-human context. In this way it is deeply ecological. Lafferty’s fiction is also known (among his small devoted readership, which includes such luminaries as Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison) as one of the most uniquely off-kilter, wildly imaginative, and arcanely erudite bodies of work in U.S. literature. In this way it is deeply strange. While it is often acknowledged that Lafferty transcends the genre of science fiction (the industry in which most of his early work was published) and that his work is sui generis, little has been done to place him as either a U.S. author generally or an author of regional place more specifically. This thesis attempts to initiate the placement of Lafferty as a bioregional writer of the Great Plains and Southwest, whilst placing equal emphasis on Lafferty’s literary mode as not so much science-fictional as weird, or monstrous (in what we will call a horror-comic or monstro-ludic key). The fusion of these concerns leads this thesis to declare Lafferty a purveyor of American Weird Bioregionalism. Toward this end, we herein assemble insights from regional western U.S. narrative traditions (the frontier tall tale and Native American storytelling) together with recent ecocritical and ecophilosophical discourses (New Materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology) to reconfigure contemporary Monsters Studies toward a more-than-human construal of monsters and the monstrous that reads Lafferty’s weird bioregional fiction through the lens of what this thesis terms an Ecomonstrous Poetics. A chapter devoted to an ecomonstrous reading of Cormac McCarthy’s southwestern novel Blood Meridian provides a canonical comparison to Lafferty with surprising overlap. A final chapter on Lafferty’s implicit ecotheology rounds out the thesis and opens it up to further research

Knowledge and conservation in the Cyclops Mountains, Papua Province, Indonesia

The concept of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) is not new in anthropology, but in recent years has gained increasing prominence within conservation. While anthropologists have extensively researched cross-cultural engagements, the same level of scrutiny has not been applied in conservation. This is potentially problematic as the global conservation community places increasing reliance on ILK and its holders. This interdisciplinary research explores how conservation might be better aligned with ILK through a case study of the Cyclops Mountains with resident indigenous groups. I use a mixture of qualitative, quantitative and participatory data collection and analysis methods spanning the natural and social sciences. I begin by positioning this research within the history of conservation, property rights and regimes, ‘conservation’ in small scale societies, and debates about ILK and its practical use in conservation. I then review and synthesise ILK related to conservation in South-East Asia and Melanesia finding that ILK research is distributed unevenly and based on diverse motivations. Further, when ILK research is motivated by conservation, three clear themes emerge: natural resource management institutions, wildlife and habitat monitoring, and sustainable use of individual resources. Subsequently, I draw together a discursive social, historical and political analysis of conservation and the transformation of ILK in the Cyclops Mountains finding that conservation policies based on ILK are inevitably intertwined with global and national issues. I then provide two case studies of ways in which conservation might pragmatically engage with ILK. I investigate the ethnozoology of the Cyclops Mountains by describing how locally salient species differ from species prioritised by conservation, how folk taxonomies are similar throughout the indigenous groups of the area, and how the heterogeneity of cultural domain expertise is influenced by local experience and indigenous language intactness. Finally, I explore how ILK can inform baseline monitoring of threatened species in the Cyclops Mountains. I close by discussing the practical difficulties of cross-cultural engagements between conservation biology and ILK, raising several concerns related to the scale and content of these engagements and the risks of placing a greater reliance on ILK for conservation and people

Patterns of tooth replacement in osteichthyans: variations on a theme

Nonmammalian tooth-bearing vertebrates usually replace their teeth throughout life. Much about how a replacement pattern is generated has been learned from zebrafish. However, to understand general mechanisms of tooth replacement, advantage can be taken from studying other, “nonmodel” species. We have mapped the patterns of tooth replacement in widely divergent aquatic osteichthyans using 2D charts, in which one axis is time, the other linear spacing along the tooth row. New teeth that are generated simultaneously are considered part of the same odontogenic wave. Using this approach, it appears that a similar, general pattern underlies very distinctive dentitions in distantly related species. A simple shift in spacing of odontogenic waves, or in distance between subsequent tooth positions along a row (or both), can produce dramatically different dentitions between life stages within a species, or between closely related species. Examples will be presented from salmonids, cyprinids, and cichlids. Our observations suggest that lines linking subsequent positions may have more biological significance than replacement waves (usually linking alternate positions), often used to explain the generation of patterns. The presence of a general pattern raises questions about common control mechanisms. There is now increasing evidence, at least for the zebrafish, to support a role for stem cells in continuous tooth renewal and control of replacement patterns

The Ghoul Box: An Affective Ecopoetics of The Anthropocene

The Ghoul Box is a collection of poetry which explores the complex entanglements and affects of the Anthropocene – a proposed geological age defined by the impact of human activity on the global climate and the biosphere. The collection strives to convey a sense of anxiety related to our increasingly fraught relationship with the environment and a pervasive sense of crisis, while exploring the sources of this anxiety. My reflective essay discusses the development of my collection from my initial interest in shifting concepts of nature and ecology towards a more experimental exploration of energy, complexity, chaos, assemblage, and self-organization. I interrogate ideas of environmental melancholia, negative capability, and affective ecopoetic techniques. My research of nature poetry, environmental poetry, and ecopoetry informed the development of my collection, and I examine this impact at length. The Anthropocene is a relatively recent concept but one with increasing influence. My poetry collection addresses the notion of complex interconnections across time and space, between the local and the universal, the personal and the social, through the frame of the Anthropocene. It offers a new perspective on our modern age – one which mingles memory and myth with technological mediation and immediate experience to form a novel image of our contemporary environmental and existential crisis

Chasing Mythical Beasts

Classical Antiquity is strongly present in youth culture globally. It accompanies children during their initiation into adulthood and thereby deepens their knowledge of the cultural code based on the Greek and Roman heritage. It enables intergenerational communication, with the reception of the Classics being able to serve as a marker of transformations underway in societies the world over. The team of contributors from Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand focuses on the reception of mythical creatures as the key to these transformations, including the changes in human mentality. The volume gathers the results of a stage of the programme ‘Our Mythical Childhood’, supported by an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Alumni Award for Innovative Networking Initiatives and an ERC Consolidator Grant. Thanks to the multidisciplinary character of its research (Classics, Modern Philologies, Animal Studies) and to the universal importance of the theme of childhood, the volume offers stimulating reading for scholars, students, and educators, as well as for a wider audience