Ecology and power in the periphery of Maasina : the case of the Hayre in the nineteenth century

This article explores political tensions between successive nineteenth-century rulers of the inland delta of the Niger in central Mali (the Fulbe Diina of Hamdullahi and the Futanke successors of al-Hajj Umar) and the pastoral interests of the Fulbe chiefdoms on their eastern periphery, in a region known as the Hayre. A close study of changing forms of local governance and natural resource management demonstrates that although different strategies were employed by the Fulbe and Futanke states to control the Hayre, the internal dynamics of the region can only partly be explained by the influence of these central powers

How do neural networks see depth in single images?

Deep neural networks have lead to a breakthrough in depth estimation from single images. Recent work often focuses on the accuracy of the depth map, where an evaluation on a publicly available test set such as the KITTI vision benchmark is often the main result of the article. While such an evaluation shows how well neural networks can estimate depth, it does not show how they do this. To the best of our knowledge, no work currently exists that analyzes what these networks have learned. In this work we take the MonoDepth network by Godard et al. and investigate what visual cues it exploits for depth estimation. We find that the network ignores the apparent size of known obstacles in favor of their vertical position in the image. Using the vertical position requires the camera pose to be known; however we find that MonoDepth only partially corrects for changes in camera pitch and roll and that these influence the estimated depth towards obstacles. We further show that MonoDepth's use of the vertical image position allows it to estimate the distance towards arbitrary obstacles, even those not appearing in the training set, but that it requires a strong edge at the ground contact point of the object to do so. In future work we will investigate whether these observations also apply to other neural networks for monocular depth estimation.Comment: Submitte

Energy-Efficient Streaming Using Non-volatile Memory

The disk and the DRAM in a typical mobile system consume a significant fraction (up to 30%) of the total system energy. To save on storage energy, the DRAM should be small and the disk should be spun down for long periods of time. We show that this can be achieved for predominantly streaming workloads by connecting the disk to the DRAM via a large non-volatile memory (NVM). We refer to this as the NVM-based architecture (NVMBA); the conventional architecture with only a DRAM and a disk is referred to as DRAMBA. The NVM in the NVMBA acts as a traffic reshaper from the disk to the DRAM. The total system costs are balanced, since the cost increase due to adding the NVM is compensated by the decrease in DRAM cost. We analyze the energy saving of NVMBA, with NAND flash memory serving as NVM, relative to DRAMBA with respect to (1) the streaming demand, (2) the disk form factor, (3) the best-effort provision, and (4) the stream location on the disk. We present a worst-case analysis of the reliability of the disk drive and the flash memory, and show that a small flash capacity is sufficient to operate the system over a year at negligible cost. Disk lifetime is superior to flash, so that is of no concern

The social cognition of medical knowledge, with special reference to childhood epilepsy

This paper arose out of an engagement in medical communication courses at a Gulf university. It deploys a theoretical framework derived from a (critical) sociocognitive approach to discourse analysis in order to investigate three aspects of medical discourse relating to childhood epilepsy: the cognitive processes that are entailed in relating different types of medical knowledge to their communicative context; the types of medical knowledge that are constituted in the three different text types analysed; and the relationship between these different types of medical knowledge and the discursive features of each text type. The paper argues that there is a cognitive dimension to the human experience of understanding and talking about one specialized from of medical knowledge. It recommends that texts be studied in medical communication courses not just in terms of their discrete formal features but also critically, in terms of the knowledge which they produce, transmit and reproduce

Phase mapping of ultrashort pulses in bimodal photonic structures: A window on local group velocity dispersion

The amplitude and phase evolution of ultrashort pulses in a bimodal waveguide structure has been studied with a time-resolved photon scanning tunneling microscope (PSTM). When waveguide modes overlap in time intriguing phase patterns are observed. Phase singularities, arising from interference between different modes, are normally expected at equidistant intervals determined by the difference in effective index for the two modes. However, in the pulsed experiments the distance between individual singularities is found to change not only within one measurement frame, but even depends strongly on the reference time. To understand this observation it is necessary to take into account that the actual pulses generating the interference signal change shape upon propagation through a dispersive medium. This implies that the spatial distribution of phase singularities contains direct information on local dispersion characteristics. At the same time also the mode profiles, wave vectors, pulse lengths, and group velocities of all excited modes in the waveguide are directly measured. The combination of these parameters with an analytical model for the time-resolved PSTM measurements shows that the unique spatial phase information indeed gives a direct measure for the group velocity dispersion of individual modes. As a result interesting and useful effects, such as pulse compression, pulse spreading, and pulse reshaping become accessible in a local measuremen

Consumer responses to risk-benefit information about food

Communication about the healthiness of consuming different food products has typically involved either health messages about the associated risks or benefits. In reality, consumption decisions often involve consumers “trading-off” the risks and benefits associated with the consumption of a particular food product. If consumers are to make informed choices about food consumption, they may need to simultaneously understand both risk and benefit information associated with consuming different foods. However, it is not known how this potentially conflicting information can best be communicated. Effective risk-benefit communication is also important because, increasingly, risk assessment and regulatory decision-making is focused on risk and benefit associated with a specific food issue, which will also need to be communicated to consumers. This thesis therefore examines consumer responses to information about both risks and benefits associated with food, in order to provide insights into effective ways to communicate this information. For this purpose, three lines of research are explored: (1) consumer perceptions and responses to integrated risk-benefit metrics, (2) potential barriers to effective risk-benefit communication, and (3) consumer responses to communication about risk management practices associated with food hazards. In Chapter 2 consumer preferences regarding several integrated risk-benefit metrics describing the combined impact of risks and benefits associated with food consumption on health are qualitatively explored. Chapter 3 examines consumer perceptions of quality-adjusted-life-years (QALYs) as a tool for describing the combined impact of risks and benefits associated with food consumption, and in Chapter 4 it is examined whether integrated risk-benefit information in terms of QALYs can facilitate informed decision making for consumers, including how this information can best be presented. The research regarding potential barriers to effective risk-benefit communication focuses on optimism regarding risks and benefits associated with food consumption (Chapter 5), and on the role of initial attitudes on the occurrence of negativity effects after the provision of balanced risk-benefit information (Chapter 6). Finally, the impact of information about risk management practices associated with food hazards on consumer perceptions of food risk management quality are examined (Chapter 7). Overall, the results of this thesis provide useful insights for the development of effective risk-benefit communication, including the communication of information about integrated risk-benefit assessments, and for the development of effective ways to communicate about risk management practices associated with food hazards. <br/