Amphibian Contributions to Ecosystem Services

Ecosystems provide essential services for human society, which include provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. Amphibians provide provisioning services by serving as a food source for some human societies, especially in Southeast Asia. They also serve as models in medical research and provide potential for new pharmaceuticals such as analgesics and anti-viral drugs derived from skin secretions. Amphibians contribute to regulating services by reducing mosquito recruitment from ephemeral wetlands, potentially controlling other pest species, and indirectly through predation of insect pollinators. Often neglected, ecosystems also provide cultural services to human societies that increase the quality of human life through recreation, religion, spirituality, and aesthetics. As an abundant and diverse class of vertebrates, amphibians also play prominent roles in the culture of human societies through pathways such as mythology, literature, and art. Most research on the role of amphibians in ecosystems has been on their contribution to supporting services. This is also the area where amphibians are likely to have the largest contribution to ecosystem services. Supporting services have structural (e.g., habitat) and functional (e.g., ecosystem functions and processes) components. Amphibians can affect ecosystem structure through soil burrowing and aquatic bioturbation and ecosystem functions such as decomposition and nutrient cycling through waste excretion and indirectly through predatory changes in the food web. They also can control primary production in aquatic ecosystems through direct consumption and nutrient cycling. Unfortunately, amphibians are experiencing major declines and humans may be losing associated ecosystem services. It is important to understand how declines affect ecosystem services for human societies, but these declines can also serve as natural experiments to understand the role of amphibians in ecosystems

YouTube as a repository : the creative practice of students as producers of Open Educational Resources

In this paper we present an alternative view of Open Educational Resources (OERs). Rather than focusing on open media resources produced by expert practitioners for use by peers and learners, we examine the practice of learners as active agents, producing open media resources using the devices in their pockets: their mobile phones. In this study, students are the producers and operate simultaneously as legitimate members of the YouTube community and producers of educational content for future cohorts. Taking an Action Research approach we investigated how student’s engagement with open media resources related to their creativity. Using Kleiman’s framework of fives conceptual themes which emerged from academics experiences of creativity (constraint, process, product, transformation, fulfillment), we found that these themes revealed the opportunities designed into the assessed task and provided a useful lens with which to view students’ authentic creative experiences. Students’ experience of creativity mapped on to Kleiman’s framework, and was affected by assessment. Dimensions of openness changed across platforms, although the impact of authenticity and publication on creativity was evident, and the production of open media resources that have a dual function as OERs has clear benefits in terms of knowledge sharing and community participation.The transformational impacts for students were evident in the short term but would merit a longitudinal study. A series of conclusions are drawn to inform future practice and research

The mechanism of dumping sieve trays in distillation columns

Imperial Users onl

Europe, America and the “Unity” of International Law

Is international law Europeanized ? If so, what are the implications of such Europeanization for the unity and coherence of international law? This paper claims, first, that the application of international law by domestic courts in Europe does not threaten the unity of international law. There may be good reasons for domestic courts not to give effect to international law, based on democratic legitimacy, internal balance of powers or reciprocity with other nations. Yet, the risk of fragmentation or inconsistent interpretations is not one of them. Second, the definition and pursuit of a European agenda or European approach to international law does not threaten the unity of international law. Europe must shed its reluctance to define, and aggressively pursue, such agenda based on European values and interests. Third, and most importantly, when scratching the surface of today\u27s conventional wisdom of Europe as the defender of international law and America as its antithesis, the attitudes, mental framework and reflexes as well as prevailing concerns are strikingly similar across the Atlantic. Most differences in approach are explained not by inherent, substantive disagreements between Europe and the US, but rather by relative power positions and internal constitutional features

“Why did you create this white elephant?”: Amos's Narrative Voices Cohere Under the Lens of a Metaphor-Oriented Positioning Analysis

This article focuses on Amos’s self-construction as it is identified, described, and interpreted under the lens of a metaphor-oriented positioning analysis presented here. Following a functionalist approach to discourse, discursive psychology, and a discourse-oriented approach to the study of metaphor, the study explores how Amos positions himself in his life story in the specific context of the interview. The analysis shows that the narrator produces various voices that cohere when we take into consideration his age and physical limitations as well as the contingent demands of the ongoing face-to-face interaction. In the discussion, both the findings of the present study as well as the level analysis that is proposed are interpreted and evaluated

Beat Contenders (Micheline, Sanders, Kupferberg)

In his article Beat Contenders (Micheline, Sanders, Kupferberg) A. Robert Lee asks if we are in danger of too fixed a Beat canonization. That is, do the Usual Suspects—Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs, with Corso, Ferlinghetti, Cassady, and Snyder in the frame—assume too presiding a role? There is, for sure, rightly, increased recognition of Beat women writers and attention has been given to the Afro-Beat circuit and, indeed, to a wider multicultural roster to include Latino/a and Asian American authorship. Beat\u27s international reach has won its place, from the United Kingdom and Continental Europe to Japan and Australia. Even so, other voices invite their due. Lee gives context and a brief exploration of three voices, each Beat to the one extent or another although whose styling remains insistently their own: Jack Micheline (self-termed street poet for whose River of Red Wine Kerouac wrote a preface), Ed Sanders (classicist, musician, and author of Tales of Beatnik Glory), and Tuli Kupferberg (poet-musician, anarchist, and co-founder of the rock-satirical group The Fugs)