KINESIOLOGÍA Y ENFERMEDAD PULMONAR OBSTRUCTIVA CRÓNICA

RESUMENLos pacientes con Enfermedad Pulmonar Obstructiva Crónica (EPOC) junto con desarrollar las alteraciones respiratorias propias de la patología desarrollan también alteraciones multisistémicas que repercuten principalmente en la musculatura respiratoria y periférica, reduciendo la capacidad de tolerancia física del paciente a las actividades diarias.Junto al tratamiento médico, la kinesiología representa una importante herramienta terapéutica, ya que se orienta a mantener las capacidades físicas del paciente, tanto en sus condicionantes respiratorias como motoras.El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar la importancia de la kinesiología en este grupo de pacientes, tanto durante su periodo de hospitalización como en el período de rehabilitación después del alta.SUMMARYThe majority of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) develop the classic respiratory alterations, as well as systemic dysfunctions, by which contribute to the deterioration of the respiratory and the skeletal muscles. Consequently, all of this muscle dysfunction reduce the physical capacity in the COPD patients to develop their diary activities.The physical therapy as a complementary treatment of the medical management, is an important therapeutic tool to maintain the physical abilities of the COPD patients as much in the respiratory function as in the motor area.This paper attempts to review the importance of the physical therapy in the COPD patients, such as in the hospitalization time and in the consecutive rehabilitation time

Oil, Power, and Discourse: How Chevron Evaded its Dues to the Indigenous Communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon

Abstract The principal objectives of this thesis were to shed lights on the backside of oil and to question the great power of big corporations. I researched why Chevron refused to acknowledge its legal obligation to remedy the complex problems it has caused in the Ecuadorian Rainforest. The catastrophes the indigenous communities have been facing are about to change as a result of grass root mobilization against Chevron. By the use of observations, discourse analysis of the media, and the use of theories from Michel Foucault, I was able to explain how Chevron has managed to escape from the terrible misconduct that took place in the region of Sucumbíos. As the observations portrayed, I experienced how two representatives from the Ecuadorian Amazon travelled far to confront Chevron CEO, John Watson, and the many supporters the two has. I additionally analyzed the role media has in this case and how its power can be greater than both Chevron and the plaintiffs’. Through the eyes of Foucault I have learned that power exists everywhere and there will always be a greater power controlling someone else’s power. I wanted this thesis to be about information around bad business of big corporations, but also about courage of a minority group. The indigenous communities have shown the world how they went against all odds and fought Chevron Corporation in a court, and won

Nitrogen retention in mature constructed wetlands

Master's thesis in Environmental engineeringConstructed wetlands are created for the purpose of treating anthropogenic discharges, such as agricultural and urban runoff to reduce the potential of undesirable effects in receiving waters. Leikvollbekken is a mature constructed wetland located in north-west of Store Stokkavatnet in Stavanger Municipality. The wetland is a two-pond free water surface system constructed with the aim to reduce excessive nitrogen and phosphorus in the pelvis before reaching Store Stokkavatnet. The main focus of this thesis was to monitor the constructed wetland with respect to nitrogen. Nitrogen removal in the wetland was believed to occur through biological assimilation and dissimilation. The hypothesis was that the degree of retention would depend on flow, resulting in a positive retention over time. With some exceptions, weekly water samples were collected in the period October 2018 to May 2019 in inlet, mid-pond and outlet of the wetland. Flow in and out of the wetland was measured with an interval of 15 minutes during the thesis period by an integrated flow meter at site. Grab samples from Store Stokkavatn and Madlabekken were included in a period to compare concentrations with water in Leikvollbekken. In addition, a storm event was included to investigate the effect of high hydraulic loadings on influent concentrations and concentrations in the wetland. Water samples were analyzed for total nitrogen, nitrate and ammonium. Total and fixed suspended solids, pH, conductivity, alkalinity and color were included to investigate if any significant correlations existed with nitrogen concentrations in the samples taken. The overall results showed higher concentrations in Leikvollbekken compared to Store Stokkavatn and Madlabekken. A positive retention of 9.4 % TN (68.6 kg), 6.1 % NO3- (33.8 kg) and 87.1% NH4+ (7.2 kg) was observed during the period studied. Highest concentrations were observed during the storm event. An interesting observation was the increasing concentrations of TN, NO3- and NH4+ in mid-pond and outlet samples in April and during the storm event, indicating contribution from additional sources than the inlet water. No significant correlation between average flow per sampling and total nitrogen was found. Moreover, no connection was found between nitrogen compounds and the additional parameters except conductivity and color.submittedVersio

The Paradigm Shift and its Influence on English Pronunciation Expectations among Teachers and Students

Målet med denne masteroppgaven har vært å utforske hvordan innholdsforventningene til engelsk uttale skiller seg fra lærere og elever i den norske videregående skole. For å få innsikt i dette temaet ble seks deltakere intervjuet ved hjelp av semistrukturerte intervjuer. Studien som ble utført som en del av denne oppgaven ble gjennomført i en videregående skole, hvor deltakerne var tre lærere og tre elever. Resultatene viser at elever og lærere har ulike forventninger til uttaleinnhold, men også til engelsk uttale generelt. De fleste av deltakerne har et begrenset syn på hva engelsk uttale innebærer, der det mest assosierte nøkkelordet var «aksenter». Dette er i tråd med den tradisjonelle tenkningen til EFL-paradigmet som typisk har stått sterkt i Norge, hvor engelsk undervises som fremmedspråk. Men med det engelske språkets vekst til et lingua franca, pågår det nå et paradigmeskifte i hvordan Norge tenker om engelskfaget- og språket. Dette kommer også til syne i deltakernes forventninger, metoder og holdninger til engelsk uttale og enkelte engelske aksenter som er til stede i norsk videregående skole i dag. Gjennom denne studien for å utforske forventninger til engelsk uttale, har jeg funnet at det pågående paradigmeskiftet er avgjørende for hvordan lærere og elever tenker om engelsk uttale. Lærere ser ut til å bevege seg mot ELF-paradigmet mer enn elevene, som har forventninger og holdninger som ligner mer på EFL-paradigmet. Dette blir tydelig gjennom ulike temaer som tas opp under intervjuene, men et spesielt spørsmål som skilte de to gruppene av deltakere var spørsmålet om å implementere en felles nasjonal aksentmodell. Svarene gitt av lærerne er sterkt i tråd med ELF-paradigmet, mens svarene gitt av elevene var mer i tråd med EFL-paradigmet. Denne masteroppgaven forsøker også å finne en vei videre i hvordan man kan forene både lærere og studenter i deres uttaleforventninger.The aim of this master’s thesis has been to explore how content expectations of English pronunciation differs from teachers and students in the Norwegian upper secondary school. In order to gain insight on this topic, six participants were interviewed following a semi-structured format. The study conducted as part of this thesis was conducted in an upper secondary school, where the participants were three teachers and three students. The results show that students and teachers have different expectations to English pronunciation content, but also about pronunciation in general. Most of the participants have a limited view of what English pronunciation entails, where the most associated keyword was “accents”. This is in line with the traditional thinking of the EFL paradigm that has typically had “gravitas” in Norway, where English is taught as a foreign language. However, with English growing as a lingua franca, a paradigm shift is ongoing in how Norway views English. This is also evident in the participants’ expectations, methods and attitudes towards pronunciation and some English accents that are present in Norwegian upper secondary schools today. Through this study of English pronunciation expectations, I have found that the ongoing paradigm shift is vital in how teachers and students think about English pronunciation. Teachers seem to be moving towards the ELF paradigm more so than the students, who share expectations and attitudes that are similar to the EFL paradigm. This becomes apparent through different topics that are brought up during the interviews, however a particular question that separated the two groups of participants, was the question of implementing a common national accent model. The answers given by the teachers are strongly in line with the ELF paradigm, whereas the answers given by the students were more in line with the EFL paradigm. This master’s thesis also seeks to find a way forward in how to unify both teachers and students in their pronunciation expectations

Pop culturally motivated lexical borrowing: Use of Korean in an English-majority fan forum

I denne oppgaven ser jeg på bruken av popkulturelt motiverte lånord fra koreansk i et engelsk-språklig nettsamfunn for fans av koreansk pop-musikk. Data er hentet fra subredditen /r/kpop og blir analysert kvantitativt og kvalitativt. Frekvensanalyse viser at de mest lånte ordene er slektskapsterminologi, men bruken på koreansk samsvarer ikke med bruken på engelsk. Låningen foregår på tvers av to skriftsystemer så koreansk skrevet med hangeul romaniseres for å tilpasses det latinske skriftsystemet, men følger ingen etablerte romaniseringssystemer. De romaniserte lånordene er integrert i den engelskspråklige rammen og brukes produktivt og kreativt til å produsere språklige nydannelser både som lånord og hybridkonstruksjoner. Bruken av lånord samsvarer kun delvis med bruken på koreansk og denne bruken er i flere tilfeller unik for r/kpop som en markør på gruppetilhørighet. Språklig lek, satire og sarkasme brukes for å distansere brukerne fra andre K-pop fans utenfor r/kpop. Oppgaven er ment som en utforskende studie av et kontemporært fenomen som tidligere ikke har blitt undersøkt i et lingvistisk perspektiv.Lingvistikk mastergradsoppgaveMAHF-LINGLING35

Creative planning? - a comparative study of city center deveopment in Asker, Lillestrøm and Ski

Kompakte byer har gradvis blitt sett på som symbolet for bærekraftig byutvikling. En mer tett bebyggelse, gode infrastrukturer som forbindelser mellom byene og konsentrasjon av flere funksjoner er med på å understreke den bærekraftige byutviklingen. Nasjonale forventninger for regional og kommunal planlegging legger nettopp vekt på knutepunktutvikling og kompakte byer. Den kommunale forvaltningen har ansvar for å gjennomføre disse forventningene og har samtidig i oppgave å sørge for at utviklingen skaper byer med gode kvaliteter. Kommunene må derfor finne kreative løsninger på problemene og utfordringene vi står ovenfor i dagens komplekse og sammensatte samfunn. Oppgaven har sett på tre case, der endringer er i ferd med eller har skjedd. Dette i lys av hvordan en mer kreativ og alternativ planprosess kan være med på å løse problemstillingene som vi står ovenfor i planlegging i Norge. Byene blir nevnt i den regionale planen for Oslo og Akershus som regionbyer og skal være med på utviklingen som blir fremskrevet. Sentralt ligger utvikling av sentrum og kollektivknutepunkt i forbindelse med de Nasjonale forventningene til regional og kommunal planlegging. Formålet med oppgaven var å bidra til økt innsikt i hvordan de tre stasjonsbyene Asker, Lillestrøm og Ski evner å imøtekomme forventingene om en kompakt regionby ved å undersøke måten de tre byene angriper behovet for å utvikle og utvide sitt sentrumsområde. Oppgaven har tatt opp hvordan det planlegges på et lokalt nivå for en sentrumsutvikling og sentrumsutvidelser innenfor de nasjonale forventningene. Dette på bakgrunn av en forventet vekst i regionen som påvirker utviklingen i kommunene Asker, Skedsmo og Ski og forskningsprosjektet Exploring CompactAbility. I det teoretiske perspektivet trekker oppgaven inn en kreativ tilnærming til planlegging. Jean Hillier (2008), Patsy Healey (2004) og Louis Albrechts (2005) er alle kritisk til en ren rasjonell og regulativ planlegging og argumenterer for at planlegging må være strategisk, fleksibel, kreativ og inkluderende. Derfor tok oppgaven for seg om planleggingen i caseobjektene ble gjennomført på en kreativ måte, eller om den lokale oppfølgingen var tradisjonell regulativ. Samtidig ble de nasjonale forventninger trukket inn og analysert i forhold til om de ikke skapte rom for kreativitet og alternative handlinger. Oppgaven er basert på casestudier og dokumentstudier av caseobjektene (Asker, Skedsmo og Ski kommune) som ble analysert opp mot det teoretiske perspektivet. I analysene kom det frem at den lokale forvaltningen av sentrum er både kreativ og regulativ. Det planlegges ut i fra nasjonale forventninger til regional og kommunal planlegging og det legges vekt på mål og strategier fra regional plan for Oslo og Akershus. Samtidig har kommunene et handlingsrom som tilsier at en kreativ planlegging kan gjøres gjeldende i kommunene. Kommunene får dette kreative handlingsrommet gjennom både de nasjonale forventningene og PBL generelt. Det legges også vekt på at lokalt selvstyre skal styrkes, og dette innebærer at en kreativ planlegging faktisk kan få plass i kommunal forvaltning. Arealplanlegging i Norge har etter min mening de nødvendige virkemidlene til å kunne ta gode avgjørelser innenfor sentrumsutvikling og sentrumsutvidelser. Disse virkemidlene kan også være med på å forsterke en ”kreativ planlegging”.Compact cities have gradually been seen as symbol of sustainable urban development. More agglomeration, good infrastructures between the cities and the concentration of several functions help to emphasize the sustainable urban development. National expectations for regional and municipal planning focus precisely on hub development and compact cities. The municipal government has the responsibility to implement these expectations and are also tasked to ensure that the development creates cities with good qualities. Municipalities must therefore find creative solutions to the problems and challenges we face in today's complex and multifaceted societies. The thesis has investigated three cases, where changes are about to happen or has happened. This has been seen in light of how a more creative and alternative planning process can help to solve the problems that we face in planning in Norway. The towns are mentioned in the regional plan for Oslo and Akershus region cities and will be involved in the development that is being projected. The development of center and public transport hub in conjunction with the National expectations of regional and municipal planning are central. The purpose of the study was to contribute to a greater understanding of how the three station towns Asker, Lillestrøm and Ski are capable to meet expectations for a compact region city, by examining the way the three cities attacks the need to develop and expand its downtown area. The thesis has covered how a city center development and center expansions within the national expectations is planned on a local level. This is based on the expected growth in the region affecting the development of municipalities Asker, Skedsmo and Ski and research Exploring Compact Ability. In the theoretical perspective a creative approach to planning is drawn. Jean Hillier (2008), Patsy Healey (2004) and Louis Albrechts (2005) are critical to a pure rational and regulative planning and argue that planning must be strategic, flexible, creative and inclusive. Therefore, the thesis investigated if the planning in the case objects were carried out in a creative way, or if the local follow-up was traditionally regulated. The national expectations were analyzed according to whether they did create room for creativity and alternative actions or not. The thesis is based on case studies and literature review of case objects (Asker, Skedsmo and Ski municipality) that were analyzed against the theoretical perspective. Analyzes revealed that the local administration of the center is both creative and regulatory. It is planned with the basis of national expectations for regional and municipal planning and the emphasis on goals and strategies of the regional plan for Oslo and Akershus. Meanwhile, municipalities maneuver to indicate that a creative planning can be applied in municipalities. Municipalities receive this creative leeway through both national expectations and the Planning and Building Act in general. It is also emphasized that local autonomy should be strengthened, and this implies that a creative planning can actually fit in municipal management. Land use planning in Norway has in my opinion the necessary measures to be able to make good decisions within city center development and center expansions. These tools can also help to reinforce a "creative planning".M-BYRE

Drug adherence in patient group with Parkinson's disease

Background Patients with Parkinson’s disease needs medicines administered frequently to manage their condition and maintain their quality of life. Poor medicine adherence may influence health negatively, and cause an unnecessary medicine wastage. It is therefore important that they are effectively supported to ensure that they adhere to their medicine regime. The aim of the study is to identify barriers to medicine adherence in patients with Parkinson’s disease or Parkinsonism and to identify interventions to improve medicine adherence. Method A postal questionnaire containing 39 statements was sent to 430 patients. The statements were used to identify patient barriers to adherence. A focus group consisting of healthcare professionals discussed interventions to improve medicine adherence. Results 229 (53,3%) patients responded to the questionnaire. The main barriers to adherence are; having enough time with doctor and pharmacist; being requested to attend to follow-up sessions; knowing where to get help if needed; having the ability to solve problems appearing when taking medicines; worry about side-effects; feeling that taking medicines is a burden and knowing enough about their medicines to decide whether to take them. Disease length did not relate to the responded barriers to non-adherence. Motivation- intention and ability to remember- to take medicines are important barriers to non-adherence. Conclusion There are several barriers to medicine adherence in the study population, indicating there is a need for interventions from healthcare professionals to improve adherence and increase the health of this patient group.Masteroppgave i FarmasiFARM399/05HMATF-FAR

Governing the prevention of radicalization and violent extremism at higher educational institutions: A comparison of the official policy documents of Norway and the UK through a wicked problem lens

The increasing attention accorded to radicalization and violent extremism (RVE) has resulted in higher educational institutions finding themselves at the forefront of counterterrorism strategies. In recent years, both Norway and the UK have implemented official policies targeting the prevention of RVE in this sector. However, implementing policies on the prevention of RVE is not problem-free. It is often viewed as a tantamount to a wicked policy problem as there exist high degrees of knowledge gaps, conflicting values and interests, and various stakeholders with differing priorities and tasks. This challenge is also reflected in the two policies. Despite similar aims, their reception varied substantially as the UK policy has been subject to considerable criticism on its potential to endanger educational functions and societal freedoms. This thesis compares and examines the two policies to extract knowledge on their functioning and to explore why they were met with such differing receptions. The policies´ are examined and compared regarding their risk governance strategy and through a theoretical framework building on wicked problems and governance theory. As the effectiveness of prevention concerning its possibilities to reduce RVE is inevitably unknown, the processes and management aspects of the policies illuminate knowledge on their functioning and implications on P/CVE in higher educational institutions. Three key principles for governing wicked problems are thus identified to frame a comparative document analysis. The findings in this research point to similarities and vital differences regarding the risk governance strategies identified within the two countries´ official policy documents. These differences also result in them aligning with insights on governing wicked problems to various degrees. The Norwegian strategy is found to align with research to a high degree, while, the UK policy seems to only reflect research to some degree. Findings also showed that this results in the Norwegian policy offering better pre-requisites for approaching P/CVE at higher educational institutions. The findings also point to the identified differences in the strategies representing a plausible, partial explanation for the criticism targeted towards the UK policy. Consequently, the findings suggest an ought awareness on risk governance strategies as they are not insignificant for how the P/CVE at higher educational institutions unfolds. Simultaneously, more situational research is called for to acquire a broader and a more holistic picture of the policies and their belonging practices

Factors associated with diabetes prevalence and utilisation of diabetes care services in Mauritius

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-176).Diabetes is a growing problem worldwide. It is estimated that at least 171 million people have diabetes worldwide and this figure is projected to more than double by 2030. Mauritius has not been spared from diabetes. Indeed, it has one of the highest diabetes prevalence in the world. It is creating tremendous pressure not only on households but on the health care system

Biogeographical transect studies in the high elevation mountain areas of Myanmar

Summary This study has its focus on elevational biodiversity patterns of ferns and fern allies in three mountain areas of the southeastern periphery of the Himalayan arc in northern Myanmar where the two large floristic realms of Eurasia meet, the Holarctic realm in the north and the Palaeotropic realm in the south. Because complex geographical configuration of mountains leads to high biological and climatic diversity, thus the elevational gradient represents a model system to assess the underlying mechanism of larger scale species richness and diversity patterns. Moreover, diversity pattern represents the regional evolutionary process of species and their ecological sorting, the following hypotheses are underlined to meet the objectives of this study to link species diversity patterns on geographical space and evolutionary time connecting with environmental influences. (1) Species richness pattern in Myanmar differs from other gradient within Himalaya and climate variables are the influencing factors for elevational richness pattern. (2) The absence of phylogenetic diversity pattern is typical for ferns in accordance with lack of spatial barrier with respect to their long distance dispersal rate and reproductive behavior. (3) Complexity of hump shaped pattern gradually turning to linear pattern along latitudinal gradients and the parameters of the climate-richness relationship derived from a subset of those elevational gradients should be able to describe the climate-richness relationship at any point along the latitudinal gradient. Data collection was carried out during three expeditions of together 33 weeks in the field, with support of up to 45 local helpers and team members of the Myanmar partner institutions. For the first time ever worldwide, aiming at a complete inventory of all species of seed-plants, pteridophytes and bryophytes, samples were recorded plot-based in three transects of four plots of 400 m² at every 200 meters in elevation between the foot of the slopes and summit of mountain up to 4200 m. In total, 14,485 seed plant specimens, 3,978 pteridophyte specimens and 160 gross samples of bryophytes were collected; most of them in three sets. Additionally, two transects of nine automatically recording climate stations were established between 400 and 3200 m. This first plot based inventory of ferns of in total 132 vegetation plots revealed 299 species from 72 genera and 24 families from Hponyinrazi and Hponkanrazi and Natma Taung gradient. Out of 299 species, 125 are new to Myanmar, in other words the species were previously only known from neighboring countries. The taxonomic composition is strikingly similar to what is known from the very well-known Neotropical regions (Kluge et al 2006), which may be explained by the ability of long distance dispersal of fern spores and the relatively old age of major fern lineages (Smith 1972). One species is new to science, which was found only five times along the gradient in Northern Myanmar, Selliguea kachinensis Hovenkamp, S. Linds., Fraser-Jenk., sp. nov. Additionally a new combination Selliguea erythrocarpa (Mett. ex Kuhn) Hovenkamp was described, based on the specimens from ou collection. With respect to the new species it is important to mention that the generic placement of this species is rather unclear, because morphological characteristics are close to either Selliguea Bory or Arthromeris (T. Moore) J. Sm. However, an erection of a new genus was avoided due to the general taxonomic uncertainty of this group of polpodial ferns. These data contribute to the upcoming Flora of Myanmar, but also set the basis for further taxonomic research in one of the least known areas worldwide (Chapter --> 3, 4). Another groundbreaking contribution to the diversity knowledge of the mountain forests of northern Myanmar is the unexpected great richness of angiosperm species with maximum morphospecies counts of nearly 400 on plots of the submontane belt. It seems probable, but has to be tested based on determined species sets, that these forests are among the richest worldwide. Testing of above-mentioned main hypotheses was accomplished within three work packages (WP). (WP 1) The assessment of elevational richness showed that angiosperm patterns differ not only from other groups such as ferns and epiphytes but also from the interpolated result of other studies of the central Himalaya. In contrast to plant-list based distribution graphs, the real distribution of angiosperms do not show the widely known hump-shaped diversity, but have a more or less linear decline with increasing elevation. This pattern was mainly driven by trees, shrubs, and palms, whereas especially epiphytes clearly peaked around 1200 m a.s.l., and grasses peaked at the high elevations above treeline. Climatic variables and especially temperature and precipitation play a key role for explaining the species richness patterns of all considered life forms and underpin the climatic dependence of lifeforms. Also for traits there was a clear finding: tree leaf size reduces with elevation, and so did other leaf properties as well. All these patterns can be related to climatic adaptations, especially to frost and drought stress. Not surprisingly, elevational fern species richness showed along both study gradients a hump shaped richness pattern. This pattern was mainly driven by the epiphytic lifeform, their elevational richness trend was more pronounced than for terrestrial species. This is especially due to the higher sensitivity to the steep change of environmental conditions and their exposed position especially in the upper tree layer. Comparing both gradients, the elevational peak of richness was situated at the northern gradient at a considerably lower elevation, and moreover, the absolute species richness was higher at the northern gradient. This last finding is especially counterintuitive on the first glance, as species richness should increase when coming closer to the equator. However, both results can be explained by the climatic setting of the gradient: (1) Along the northern gradient, temperature levels are situated at lower elevations at the southern gradients, thus peak of richness is at about 16°C mean annual temperature at both gradients. (2) The higher temperature was assumed to lower the ambient humidity that the highest species occurred under the environmental condition with moderate temperature and high humidity. Additionally, due to the close vicinity of the southern gradient to the dry zones of Central Myanmar, species richness is generally lower here, showing the strong demand of humidity for maintenance and lifecycle of ferns. These first findings show the strong environmental relationships of species richness of ferns and confirm what is known from other tropical mountains in the Americas and Africa (Chapter --> 2, 3). (WP 2) Phylogenetic diversity pattern present a certain degree of variation in phylogenetic overdispersion and environmental clustering; however the overall pattern does not deviate from the random assemblage. Additional four gradients, i.e. Taiwan and Japan: Kyushu, Nishikoma and Hokkaido were added to the study to have a wide range of climate and geographic variations. Phylogenetic richness among the species presents similar pattern with species richness in general, however they are not identical, for instance the decreasing in phylogenetic richness in a species rich assemblage could be a consequence of the less phylogenetic distances between assigned species. In accordance with their reproductive behavior and long distance dispersal rate, the relationship between phylogenetic diversity and species richness might not be different from the randomness in contrast with the angiosperms. In contrast with angiosperms from the previous studies, the phylogenetic diversity of pteridophytes reflects more to stochastic events as the deterministic processes limit the regional species pool in general, however for ferns, the geographic barrier such as dispersal limitation and, seasonal and temporal barrier for fertilization disregards to a certain extent. Thus the equilibrium of competitive interaction and environmental filtering represent the species-neutral interactions and the pteridophytes dispersal might have been overriden the vicariance rate. However the trait patterns of some gradients such as Natma Taung and Hponyinrazi from Myanmar, and Nishikoma from Japan have uncoupled with the phylogenetic pattern, thus the environmental divergence of those gradients are strong to lead the trait having clustered assemblage. Therefore, adaptations in ferns occur convergently in diverse phylogenetic assemblage (Chapter--> 5). (WP 3) The best species richness model was developed with a set few climatic variables such as temperature and cloud cover. However the climate variables explain more than 60% of the local variation and combinations of small scale local factors could enhance the model prediction power. Putting the local results from Myanmar in a wider context, it is generally accepted that the total richness within each gradient should decline towards high latitudes as reported for most groups of organisms due to the general temperature driven nature of species richness. Second, for the same reason the frequently reported and for Myanmar confirmed hump shape pattern of species richness (mentioned above), the peak of richness should shift towards lower elevations for gradients at increasing latitude. Both trends combined should result in a pattern, where the symmetric hump in tropical regions gradually turned into a linear trend in temperate regions, which means the respective models were reduced in complexity. Relating species richness patterns to macroclimatic conditions along both gradients types, elevation and latitude, respectively, hypothesize main trends, which were tested on eight elevation gradients between 4°S and 43.3°N. The combination of eight full elevational gradients in East Asia from Indonesia at the equator via Taiwan and Myanmar to temperate Japan, all sampled with the same standardized sampling protocol, offer the unique possibility to test this hypothesized interlinked trend. Additionally, by applying general additive models, the best fitting climatic variables could be assessed together with their relative contribution. Moreover, since 'best fitting' does not necessarily mean 'good predicting', we applied the technique of leave-one-out-cross-validation (LOOCV) to find the best combination of climatic variables, which predicted the left out gradients. A reasonable result from these analyses can be extrapolated into the whole region covered by the analyzed gradients (East Asia). As a result we could confirm the simple model of a shift in species richness trends from unimodal to linear towards temperate regions and suggest that over this broad spatial scale temperature is the most decisive factor. Confirming this, the highest predictability following our macroclimatic models was indeed temperature in combination with cloud cover as humidity related variable, together predicting about 60% of species richness variation. It is interesting in this regard that explained variance is rather similar for the model based on generalized linear model result (GLM- model) and best model based on leave one out cross validation result (LOOCV-model) (also somewhat lower for the latter ones), but that absolute numbers of species were more realistically modelled by LOOCV, since GLM predicted up to 380 species per plot, which is by far nonsense. There are two interesting conclusions to be drawn: First, not precipitation as a humidity variable is included in the models, as most frequently used in species richness-climate models, but rather cloud cover. This indeed better reflects the physiological specifications of ferns, since not absolute water input, but balanced humidity is crucial. Second: In contrast to a large bulk of publications, which regularly report higher fits for richness–climate relationships, our best model is only able to predict a little bit more than half of the variation in local fern species richness in East and Southeast Asia. The remaining variation in local fern species richness is most likely due to small scale factors, which are hardly accounted for by macroclimatic factors (Chapter 6). The outcome of this study has contributed to comprehensive national conservation plans; (1) the preparation of the national biodiversity strategy and action plan, (2) the nomination dossier of UNESCO neutral heritage site in northern Myanmar