Chemical Signaling and Resource Use by African Elephants (Loxodonta Africana)

In polygynous, sexually dimorphic species like the African elephant, Loxodonta africana, resource distribution influences female dispersion, while the location of females shapes male dispersion. Human constriction of viable habitat has affected elephant movements and impact. Elephants travel in matriarchal family groups, as single males or bachelor groups often looking for receptive females, and in mixed associations. Waterholes serve to meet the physical needs of elephants and as areas for information exchange, especially for males in search of females. When widely spaced, waterholes may be impacted heavily by elephants. I examined elephant use of a permanent waterhole to determine 1) the factors associated with elephant presence by group type, 2) behavioral differences between pre- and post-puberty male and female elephants, and 3) the impact of elephants on the woody vegetation at a privately owned protected area, Ndarakwai Ranch, Tanzania. Diurnal scans for elephants were conducted hourly from October 2004- April 2006. Focal animal observations were made from June- October 2005. Elephant damage to woody vegetation was assessed from September 2005- June 2006. In the long-wet season, elephant sightings were not correlated with the temperature. In the long-dry season, sightings of family and mixed groups were correlated with temperature, but male sightings were associated with female presence. Post-puberty male elephants first came to the waterhole after other groups and investigated their surroundings more than other elephants. Almost all woody vegetation surrounding the waterhole was impacted by elephants to varying degrees. The benefits resulting from permanent water sources must be weighed against the impact that elephants have on the habitat

Photographs, Memories, Monuments and Movements: Black and White Istanbul in the Work of Orhan Pamuk and Ara Güler

Combining images and words when relating to a city has a long history; in Istanbul’s case, it has its roots in the Orientalist tradition and in the great journeys to the “East.” For the Istanbul of the twenty-first century, the most renowned combination of photography and literature is Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Memories and the City (2003), a portrait of the writer as a young artist accompanied with black-and-white photographs of Istanbul. Pamuk’s use of the photographs of Ara Güler draws from the tradition of travel writing and autobiography, documenting both the lost city and, conversely, endowing the melancholy of the narrative with a reality effect that is difficult to trace in writing. This paper discusses Pamuk’s use of photography in the memoir to address how his work supplies a heterogeneous archive of memories which both preserves and transforms the entangled pasts and presents of the city

Backward running or absence of running from Creutz ratios

We extract the running coupling based on Creutz ratios in SU(2) lattice gauge theory with two Dirac fermions in the adjoint representation. Depending on how the extrapolation to zero fermion mass is performed, either backward running or an absence of running is observed at strong bare coupling. This behavior is consistent with other findings which indicate that this theory has an infrared fixed point.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; v2 fifth mass point added, three extrapolations now performed, conclusions softene

Static quark-antiquark potential and Dirac eigenvector correlators

We represent the Polyakov loop correlator as a spectral sum of correlators of eigenvectors of the lattice Dirac operator. This spectral representation is studied numerically using quenched SU(3) configurations below and above the deconfinement temperature. We analyze whether the individual Dirac eigenvector correlators differ in the confined and deconfined phases. The decay properties of the normalized Dirac eigenvector correlators turn out to be essentially identical in the two phases, but the amplitudes change. This change of the amplitudes shifts the relative contributions of the individual Dirac eigenvector correlators and is the driving mechanism for the transition from the confining static potential into the deconfining one

Towards a Typology of Green IS Strategies: Insights from Case Study Research

In this paper we develop a typology of Green IS strategies and address two research questions: 1) What different types of Green IS strategies can be identified in a real-life context? 2) How do firms with distinct Green IS strategies conceive the role of Green IS within their organization? We begin with the a priori definition of Green IS strategy and conduct an exploratory case study that examines multinational companies from different industries. Across these cases, four distinct Green IS strategies are identified as a result of a within-case analysis and the emerging patterns are more closely defined using a cross-case analysis. Insights are compared with extant literature and findings are consolidated in five propositions that outline characteristics of Green IS strategies. These propositions guide the conceptualization of a typology of Green IS strategies which illustrates four generic strategies: Green IS for Efficiency, for Innovation, for Transformation, and for Credibility

Carbon Footprint of IT-Services – A comparative Study of energy consumption for Offline and Online Storage Usage

This paper focusses on the Carbon Footprint of IT-Services (CFIS) by presenting a comparative study of energy consumption for Offline and Online Storage. We therefore conducted a case study with an IT-Service provider as well as experimental simulation of customer’s ICT hardware. Based on literature review, we initially present related work and describe underlying concepts e.g. Carbon Footprint of Products, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as well as ICT energy and performance measurement. The paper proposes a methodological framework for CFIS based on the phases of LCA. Geared towards the framework we present a comparison of ICT-related energy consumptions for Offline and Online Storage as well as allocation and calculation approaches. Finally, presented carbon footprint results are discussed in terms of limitations and further research directions. The CFIS is an inevitable step to advance Green IS/IT research, since it quantifies dependencies between IT-Services, ICT energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions

Green IT at Bundesverwaltungsamt

Das Bundesverwaltungsamt (BVA) ist der zentrale Dienstleister des Bundes. Das BVA, mit Hauptsitz in Köln, wurde 1960 gegründet, um andere Behörden von Tätigkeiten zu entlasten, die nicht zu deren Kernaufgaben gehören. Heute nimmt das BVA mit rund 2.400 Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern über 100 verschiedene Aufgaben für fast alle Bundesministerien und deren Geschäftsbereiche, das Bundeskanzleramt sowie zahlreiche weitere Behörden und Institutionen wahr. Online-Version im Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin (www.univerlag.tu-berlin.de) erschienen