Parking and the visual perception of space

Using measured data we demonstrate that there is an amazing correspondence among the statistical properties of spacings between parked cars and the distances between birds perching on a power line. We show that this observation is easily explained by the fact that birds and human use the same mechanism of distance estimation. We give a simple mathematical model of this phenomenon and prove its validity using measured data

Chapter 9 - Buildings

This chapter aims to update the knowledge on the building sector since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) from a mitigation perspective. Buildings and activities in buildings are responsible for a significant share of GHG emissions, but they are also the key to mitigation strategies. In 2010, the building sector accounted for approximately 117 Exajoules (EJ) or 32% of global final energy consumption and 19% of energy-related CO2 emissions; and 51% of global electricity consumption. Buildings contribute to a significant amount of F-gas emissions, with large differences in reported figures due to differing accounting conventions, ranging from around an eighth to a third of all such emissions. The chapter argues that beyond a large emission role, mitigation opportunities in this sector are also significant, often very cost-effective, and are in many times associated with significant co-benefits that can exceed the direct benefits by orders of magnitude. The sector has significant mitigation potentials at low or even negative costs. Nevertheless, without strong actions emissions are likely to grow considerably - and they may even double by mid-century - due to several drivers. The chapter points out that certain policies have proven to be very effective and several new ones are emerging. As a result, building energy use trends have been reversed to stagnation or even reduction in some jurisdictions in recent years, despite the increases in affluence and population. The chapter uses a novel conceptual framework, in line with the general analytical framework of the contribution of Working Group III (WGIII) to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), which focuses on identities as an organizing principle

Parental spoken scaffolding and narrative skills in crowd-sourced storytelling samples of young children

A novel crowdsourcing project to gather children’s storytelling based language samples using a mobile app was undertaken across the United Kingdom. Parents’ scaffolding of children’s narratives was observed in many of the samples. This study was designed to examine the relationship of scaffolding and young children’s narrative language ability in a story retell context which is analysed at the macro-structural (total macro-structure score), the micro-structural (mean length of utterances in morphemes) and verbal productivity (total number of utterances) levels. Young children with and without scaffolding were statistically compared. The interaction between the level of scaffolding support, the grammar complexity and the narrative structure was explored. A bidirectional relationship was observed between scaffolding and young children’s narrative language ability. Young children with better performance were observed to receive less scaffolding from parents. Scaffolding was shown to support early narrative development of young children and was more able to benefit those with low-level grammatical complexity skills. It is crucial to encourage parental scaffolding to be well-attuned to the child’s narrative ability

Water Filtration Using Plant Xylem

Effective point-of-use devices for providing safe drinking water are urgently needed to reduce the global burden of waterborne disease. Here we show that plant xylem from the sapwood of coniferous trees – a readily available, inexpensive, biodegradable, and disposable material – can remove bacteria from water by simple pressure-driven filtration. Approximately 3 cm3 of sapwood can filter water at the rate of several liters per day, sufficient to meet the clean drinking water needs of one person. The results demonstrate the potential of plant xylem to address the need for pathogen-free drinking water in developing countries and resource-limited settings

Exploring Aboriginal People\u27s connection to country to strengthen human-nature theoretical perspectives

Purpose Aboriginal people across Australia have diverse practices, beliefs and knowledges based on thousands of generations of managing and protecting their lands (Country). The intimate relationship Aboriginal people have with their Country is explored in this chapter because such knowledge is important for building insight into the relationship between social and ecological systems. Often in research Aboriginal views have been marginalised from discussions focused on their lands to the detriment of ecosystems and human health. This chapter aims to understand if such marginalisation is evident in Western human–nature relationship discourses.Approach This chapter provides a critical literature review which examines whether Aboriginal people’s diverse understanding of their ecosystems have been incorporated into human–nature theories using the biophilia hypothesis as a starting point. Other concepts explored include solastalgia, topophilia and place.Findings Critiques of these terminologies in the context of Aboriginal people’s connection to Country are limited but such incorporation is viewed in the chapter as a possible mechanism for better understanding human’s connection to nature. The review identified that Aboriginal people’s relationship to Country seems to be underrepresented in the human–nature theory literature.Value This chapter emphasises that the integration of Aboriginal perspectives into research, ecological management and policy can provide better insight into the interrelationships between social and ecological systems

Bio-Geo-Graphy: Landscape, Dwelling, and the Political Ecology of Human-Elephant Relations

The relation between the bio and the geo has been amongst geography's most enduring concerns. This paper contributes to ongoing attempts in human geography to politicise the dynamics and distribution of life. Drawing upon postcolonial environmental history, animal ecology, and more-than-human geography, the paper examines how humans and elephants cohabit with and against the grain of cartographic design. Through fieldwork in northeast India, it develops a ‘dwelt political ecology’ that reanimates landscape as a dwelt achievement whilst remaining sensitive to postcolonial histories and subaltern concerns. The paper conceptualises and deploys a methodology of ‘tracking’ through which archival material, elephant ecology, and voices of the marginalised can be integrated and mapped. It concludes by discussing the implications of this work for fostering new conversations between more-than-human geography and subaltern political ecology

BABAR: an R package to simplify the normalisation of common reference design microarray-based transcriptomic datasets

Background: The development of DNA microarrays has facilitated the generation of hundreds of thousands of transcriptomic datasets. The use of a common reference microarray design allows existing transcriptomic data to be readily compared and re-analysed in the light of new data, and the combination of this design with large datasets is ideal for 'systems' level analyses. One issue is that these datasets are typically collected over many years and may be heterogeneous in nature, containing different microarray file formats and gene array layouts, dye-swaps, and showing varying scales of log(2)- ratios of expression between microarrays. Excellent software exists for the normalisation and analysis of microarray data but many data have yet to be analysed as existing methods struggle with heterogeneous datasets; options include normalising microarrays on an individual or experimental group basis. Our solution was to develop the Batch Anti-Banana Algorithm in R (BABAR) algorithm and software package which uses cyclic loess to normalise across the complete dataset. We have already used BABAR to analyse the function of Salmonella genes involved in the process of infection of mammalian cells. Results: The only input required by BABAR is unprocessed GenePix or BlueFuse microarray data files. BABAR provides a combination of 'within' and 'between' microarray normalisation steps and diagnostic boxplots. When applied to a real heterogeneous dataset, BABAR normalised the dataset to produce a comparable scaling between the microarrays, with the microarray data in excellent agreement with RT-PCR analysis. When applied to a real non-heterogeneous dataset and a simulated dataset, BABAR's performance in identifying differentially expressed genes showed some benefits over standard techniques. Conclusions: BABAR is an easy-to-use software tool, simplifying the simultaneous normalisation of heterogeneous two-colour common reference design cDNA microarray-based transcriptomic datasets. We show BABAR transforms real and simulated datasets to allow for the correct interpretation of these data, and is the ideal tool to facilitate the identification of differentially expressed genes or network inference analysis from transcriptomic datasets