A morphological and molecular description of a new Teleopsis species (Diptera: Diopsidae) from Thailand

A new species of Teleopsis (Diptera, Diopsidae) from Chiang Mai, Thailand is described and illustrated. Teleopsis thaii Földvári & Carr is shown to be a member of a species group, termed the dalmanni species group, along with three previously described species. Presented here are a morphological description of T. thaii and an allometric comparison of the species with other members of the Teleopsis genus. We also present multi-gene phylogenetic analyses to highlight the possible position of T. thaii within the dalmanni species group

A sharp bound on fixed points of surface symplectomorphisms in each mapping class

Given a closed, oriented surface, possibly with boundary, and a mapping class, we obtain sharp lower bounds on the number of fixed points of a surface symplectomorphism (i.e. area-preserving map) in the given mapping class, both with and without nondegeneracy assumptions on the fixed points. This generalizes the Poincar\'e-Birkhoff fixed point theorem to arbitrary surfaces and mapping classes. These bounds often exceed those for non-area-preserving maps. We obtain these bounds from Floer homology computations with certain twisted coefficients plus a method for obtaining fixed point bounds on entire symplectic mapping classes on monotone symplectic manifolds from such computations. For the case of possibly degenerate fixed points, we use quantum-cup-length-type arguments for certain cohomology operations we define on summands of the Floer homology.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figure

Africa-EU statement on sanitation

A commitment to do more on sanitation through an Africa – EU partnership to help achieve the sanitation MDG target in Africa where 589 million people (60% of the population) lack access to safe sanitation

Sexual Selection: Does Condition Dependence Fail to Resolve the ‘Lek Paradox’?

The ‘lek paradox’ — the hypothesis that females do not gain substantial genetic benefits from mate choice — could be resolved by sexually selected traits being indicative of male condition. A recent paper, however, suggests that this may not be the case in Drosophila bunnanda

Community-partnered procurement : a socially sensitive option

The purpose of this paper is to provide information for promoting increased involvement of low income urban communities in the procurement of neighbourhood (tertiary level) infrastructure. The contexts are several and varied including • upgrading works carried out by urban government • donor funded urban development programmes • programmes initiated by NGOs. The paper aims to introduce the potential benefits to be gained from community partnered procurement(CPP). The content of the paper applies to those frequently occurring, low risk, routine small infrastructure works which characterise neighbourhood urban upgrading programmes and projects. We investigate cases relating to water supply, sanitation, drainage, access, paving, street and security lighting, solid waste removal, and community buildings. It is not applicable to complex, large, high risk and high hazard infrastructure projects. The findings are based on the results of interviews and a review of literature, documents and project files on urban upgrading projects in Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. We are particularly grateful to the many government officials who so generously gave their time to us, and provided access to very detailed information on a wide range of both community-based infrastructure works and conventional procurement contracts

Performance monitoring of micro-contracts for the procurement of urban infrastructure

This document presents the findings from Project R6857 Performance Monitoring of Infrastructure Procurement for Urban Low Income Communities carried out by the authors as part of the Knowledge and Research Programme, Infrastructure and Urban Development Department, Department for International Development (DFID) of the British Government. The purpose of this project is to develop a framework and tools for the appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of micro-contracts for the procurement of local infrastructure in urban low-income communities. In addition to the standard measures of time, cost and quality, the work also attempts to capture some of the crucial wider socio-economic impacts of community-based works. The findings in this booklet will be of use to donor/lending agencies, government officials, and non-government organizations (NGOs) involved in improving services for the urban poor

Operation and maintenance of urban services: Synthesis note

This synthesis note introduces other resource material available on the operation and maintenance (O&M) of urban services. Designed for policy-makers who need to optimize investments in services for the urban poor, and professional staff employed in public utilities in developing countries, it also summarizes the key issues and recent research findings; presents an overview of O&M and the difficult questions which still remain; and examines some of the requirements for success

The Systemic Risk of Consolidation in the Cloud Computing Industry

Title from PDF of title page viewed January 13, 2022Dissertation advisor: James SturgeonVitaIncludes bibliographical references (page 180-194)Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Economics, Henry W. Bloch School of Management. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2021The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of consolidation within the cloud computing industry related to the reliability and availability of computing resources. This dissertation begins by assessing the scale and scope of the cloud computing industry leader, Amazon Web Services. Included in this assessment are a collection of case studies that reveal some of the unique transactions between actors in this industry. The next section uses a bowtie analysis to frame for discussion the key risks related to cloud computing. This framework is used to analyze how the economic risks of compromise and unavailability have changed with a shift from on premise computing to cloud computing. A normative systems analysis examines the policy considerations for addressing the consolidation in the cloud computing industry, and the social fabric matrix is applied to discuss the unique deliveries among processing institutions and between processing institutions and authorizing institutions. On the basis of the normative systems analysis, several policy implications are examined, including the extent to which government spending reinforces consolidation of power and risk within the cloud computing industry.Introduction, Problem Statement and Background -- Literature Review -- Scale and Scope of AWS -- Analyzing the Risk if AWS Failure -- A Normative systems Analysis of AWS -- The Social Fabric Matrix -- Conclusion and Discussion -- Appendix A.State Apportionment Formulas -- Appendix B. The Senior Management Team over Amazon.com, Inc. -- Appendix C. The Senior Management Team over AW