Shirking, Standards and the Probability of Detection

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UPDATED GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTIONS OF MICHIGAN HERPETOFAUNA:: A SYNTHESIS OF OLD AND NEW SOURCES

Recently a comprehensive overview of reptiles and amphibians in Michigan was published. Unfortunately, the distributions of the species represented were compiled before widespread accessibility to technological tools providing greater access to museum and historical records as well as citizen science efforts. To update the known ranges of Michigan herpetofauna, published literature, museum collections, and photographic vouchers submitted to an online database were examined and 339 new county and island records were added, updating the maps for 48 of Michigan’s 55 known species of reptiles and amphibians. I also present the first published list of Michigan amphibians that includes two new plethodontid salamanders, the Northern Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus fuscus) and Southern Two-lined Salamander (Eurycea cirrigera). This paper serves as an example of the wealth of information available to scientists that may have previously been unobtainable, and can be used for the distribution of herpetofauna elsewhere

The distance modulus determined from Carmeli's cosmology fits the accelerating universe data of the high-redshift type Ia supernovae without dark matter

The velocity of the Hubble expansion has been added to General Relativity by Moshe Carmeli and this resulted in new equations of motion for the expanding universe. For the first time the observational magnitude-redshift data derived from the high-$z$ supernova teams has been analysed in the framework of the Carmeli theory and the fit to that theory is achieved without the inclusion of any dark matter. Best fits to the data yield an averaged matter density for the universe at the present epoch $\Omega_{m} \approx 0.021$, which falls well within the measured values of the baryonic matter density. And the best estimate of $\Omega_{\Lambda} + \Omega_{m} \approx 1.021$ at the present epoch. The analysis also clearly distinguishes that the Hubble expansion of the universe is speed-limited.Comment: 10 pages, includes 7 figures, revised version, paper accepted in Found. Phys. Letters 200

Aesthetics and didactic intention: the meeting place of beauty and information transmission in the 2006 community theatre production of swamp treasures.

This paper is the outcome of qualitative research undertaken around a community theatre production presented at the Hamilton Fuel Festival 2006. Swamp Treasures was an attempt to articulate in a theatre aesthetic the plight of the wetland regions in the Waikato province. There were 80 participants, a choir, an orchestra, an elaborate set, lighting design and over 30 specifically made theatre masks. I invited a group of eight teenagers to watch the performance and they were then interviewed, answering specific questions. The data were then considered using Kant's theories of beauty, aesthetics and communication as a reference point for the production's development, delivery and effectiveness. As Swamp Treasures was designed as a montage of impressions and points of view, the research has been able to evaluate the artistic efficacy of the differing styles and the aptitude of these techniques to transfer information