Visual art inspired by the collective feeding behavior of sand-bubbler crabs

Sand--bubblers are crabs of the genera Dotilla and Scopimera which are known to produce remarkable patterns and structures at tropical beaches. From these pattern-making abilities, we may draw inspiration for digital visual art. A simple mathematical model is proposed and an algorithm is designed that may create such sand-bubbler patterns artificially. In addition, design parameters to modify the patterns are identified and analyzed by computational aesthetic measures. Finally, an extension of the algorithm is discussed that may enable controlling and guiding generative evolution of the art-making process

Biodiversity beyond species census: assessing organisms' traits and functional attributes using computer vision

César Herrera studied the functions of intertidal crabs in estuarine mudflats in Townsville. He developed a novel workflow and software that use computer vision to monitor crab movement and behaviour. His analytical framework is more effective than traditional sampling techniques, and it will help ecologists to gather more and better ecological information on crabs

Reading the City, Walking the Book: Mapping Sydney's Fictional Topographies.

This thesis locates itself on the double ground of Sydney’s fictional and material topographies. My purpose is to read and write the city’s spatio-temporal dimensions through four novels: Christina Stead’s Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934), M. Barnard Eldershaw’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1947), Patrick White’s The Vivisector (1970) and David Ireland’s City of Women (1981). Deploying a hybrid methodology informed by critical and creative approaches to the city in literature and modernity, the thesis investigates the manifold ways in which the novels draw on Sydney’s topographies to shape and structure their narratives spatially, not only in an abstract and symbolic sense but through the materiality of urban places. Each novel I argue, offers new perspectives on the relationships between text, place and writer. My approach and methodologies draw on J. Hillis Miller’s work on literary topographies, particularly novelistic creations of figurative maps. This textual approach is complemented by Walter Benjamin’s conceptualisation of the modern city as a landscape to be read critically with a ‘topographical consciousness’ which I interpret as a set of modes for reading the city as text and the text as city. Intertwined with these literary and material approaches is an ‘on the ground’ methodology for ‘walking the book’. Influenced by Benjamin’s ‘art of straying’, the Surrealists and the Situationists, I reconceptualise the dérive or urban drift as a critical and creative practice for literally and figuratively walking fictional and material Sydney. Through reading the city and walking the book I conclude, familiar urban spaces are imaginatively and critically opened up as past, present and future, the fictional and the material, collide and re-assemble into new configurations: alternative cartographies

Handbook of Marine Model Organisms in Experimental Biology

"The importance of molecular approaches for comparative biology and the rapid development of new molecular tools is unprecedented. The extraordinary molecular progress belies the need for understanding the development and basic biology of whole organisms. Vigorous international efforts to train the next-generation of experimental biologists must combine both levels – next generation molecular approaches and traditional organismal biology. This book provides cutting-edge chapters regarding the growing list of marine model organisms. Access to and practical advice on these model organisms have become aconditio sine qua non for a modern education of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs working on marine model systems. Model organisms are not only tools they are also bridges between fields – from behavior, development and physiology to functional genomics. Key Features Offers deep insights into cutting-edge model system science Provides in-depth overviews of all prominent marine model organisms Illustrates challenging experimental approaches to model system research Serves as a reference book also for next-generation functional genomics applications Fills an urgent need for students Related Titles Jarret, R. L. & K. McCluskey, eds. The Biological Resources of Model Organisms (ISBN 978-1-1382-9461-5) Kim, S.-K. Healthcare Using Marine Organisms (ISBN 978-1-1382-9538-4) Mudher, A. & T. Newman, eds. Drosophila: A Toolbox for the Study of Neurodegenerative Disease (ISBN 978-0-4154-1185-1) Green, S. L. The Laboratory Xenopus sp. (ISBN 978-1-4200-9109-0)

Maritime expressions:a corpus based exploration of maritime metaphors

This study uses a purpose-built corpus to explore the linguistic legacy of Britain’s maritime history found in the form of hundreds of specialised ‘Maritime Expressions’ (MEs), such as TAKEN ABACK, ANCHOR and ALOOF, that permeate modern English. Selecting just those expressions commencing with ’A’, it analyses 61 MEs in detail and describes the processes by which these technical expressions, from a highly specialised occupational discourse community, have made their way into modern English. The Maritime Text Corpus (MTC) comprises 8.8 million words, encompassing a range of text types and registers, selected to provide a cross-section of ‘maritime’ writing. It is analysed using WordSmith analytical software (Scott, 2010), with the 100 million-word British National Corpus (BNC) as a reference corpus. Using the MTC, a list of keywords of specific salience within the maritime discourse has been compiled and, using frequency data, concordances and collocations, these MEs are described in detail and their use and form in the MTC and the BNC is compared. The study examines the transformation from ME to figurative use in the general discourse, in terms of form and metaphoricity. MEs are classified according to their metaphorical strength and their transference from maritime usage into new registers and domains such as those of business, politics, sports and reportage etc. A revised model of metaphoricity is developed and a new category of figurative expression, the ‘resonator’, is proposed. Additionally, developing the work of Lakov and Johnson, Kovesces and others on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), a number of Maritime Conceptual Metaphors are identified and their cultural significance is discussed