An Issue of Monumental Proportions: The Necessary Changes to Be Made Before International Cultural Heritage Laws Will Protect Immoveable Cultural Property

Cultural heritage has been targeted during military conflicts throughout history. Currently, the conflict in Syria is resulting in the destruction of ancient immoveable cultural heritage property. This destruction is particularly devastating because Syria has served as a melting pot of Eastern and Western cultures throughout history. This note examines the history of international laws aimed at the protection of cultural heritage property. After applying those laws to the current Syrian conflict, this note offers multiple suggestions to improve the protection of immoveable cultural heritage property. The improvements advanced by this note include necessary changes to the current regime of international treaties and the creation of a military force dedicated to protecting immoveable cultural heritage property

An Issue of Monumental Proportions: The Necessary Changes to Be Made Before International Cultural Heritage Laws Will Protect Immoveable Cultural Property

Cultural heritage has been targeted during military conflicts throughout history. Currently, the conflict in Syria is resulting in the destruction of ancient immoveable cultural heritage property. This destruction is particularly devastating because Syria has served as a melting pot of Eastern and Western cultures throughout history. This note examines the history of international laws aimed at the protection of cultural heritage property. After applying those laws to the current Syrian conflict, this note offers multiple suggestions to improve the protection of immoveable cultural heritage property. The improvements advanced by this note include necessary changes to the current regime of international treaties and the creation of a military force dedicated to protecting immoveable cultural heritage property

ED/BD eligibility related to gender and community size in West Virginia|ED/BD Eligibility Related to Gender and Community Size in West Virginia

Over-representation of males in special education is an area of concern. Research studies have confirmed West Virginia as one of the states having the highest male-to-female ratios for Emotionally Disturbed/Behavior Disorder (ED/BD) students. The current study compares the most and least populated areas in West Virginia with regard to ED/BD eligibility. Male/female student ratios of ED/BD were examined utilizing chi-square analysis. This study used the September 2009 regulations under West Virginia Policy 2419, and those regulations were in place when these data were collected. Results indicated that a statistically significant difference exists between the total number of ED/BD students made eligible into special education when comparing West Virginia’s most and least populated counties, with respect to total student enrollment. It was found that a significant difference did not exist when comparing the male-to-female ratios in West Virginia’s most and least populated counties

Averting Robot Eyes

Home robots will cause privacy harms. At the same time, they can provide beneficial services—as long as consumers trust them. This Essay evaluates potential technological solutions that could help home robots keep their promises, avert their eyes, and otherwise mitigate privacy harms. Our goals are to inform regulators of robot-related privacy harms and the available technological tools for mitigating them, and to spur technologists to employ existing tools and develop new ones by articulating principles for avoiding privacy harms. We posit that home robots will raise privacy problems of three basic types: (1) data privacy problems; (2) boundary management problems; and (3) social/relational problems. Technological design can ward off, if not fully prevent, a number of these harms. We propose five principles for home robots and privacy design: data minimization, purpose specifications, use limitations, honest anthropomorphism, and dynamic feedback and participation. We review current research into privacy-sensitive robotics, evaluating what technological solutions are feasible and where the harder problems lie. We close by contemplating legal frameworks that might encourage the implementation of such design, while also recognizing the potential costs of regulation at these early stages of the technology

Optimal Placement of Off-Stream Water Sources for Ephemeral Stream Recovery

Uneven and/or inefficient livestock distribution is often a product of an inadequate number and distribution of watering points.Placement of off-stream water practices (OSWP) in pastures is a key consideration in rangeland management plans and is criticalto achieving riparian recovery by improving grazing evenness, while improving livestock performance. Effective OSWPplacement also minimizes the impacts of livestock use radiating from OSWP, known as the ‘‘piosphere.’’ The objective of thisstudy was to provide land managers with recommendations for the optimum placement of OSWP. Specifically, we aimed toprovide minimum offset distances of OSWP to streams and assess the effective range of OSWP using Normalized DifferenceVegetation Index (NDVI) values, an indicator of live standing crop. NDVI values were determined from a time-series of SatellitePour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) 20-m images of western South Dakota mixed-grass prairie. The NDVI values inephemeral stream channels (in-channel) and uplands were extracted from pre- and post-OSWP images taken in 1989 and 2010,respectively. NDVI values were normalized to a reference imagine and subsequently by ecological site to produce nNDVI. Ourresults demonstrate a significant (P,0.05) increase in the nNDVI values of in-channel vegetation within 1 250 m of OSWPfollowing their implementation. The area of piospheres (n¼9) increased with pasture size (R2¼0.49,P¼0.05) and increasedwith average distance to OSWP in a pasture (R2¼0.43,P¼0.07). Piospheric reduction in nNDVI was observed within 200 m ofOSWP, occasionally overlapping in-channel areas. The findings of this study suggest placement of OSWP 200 to 1 250 m fromstreams to achieve optimal results. These results can be used to increase grazing efficiency by effectively placing OSWP andinsure that piospheres do not overlap ecologically important in-channel areas

Quantifying the Biogeochemical Impact of Land Plant Expansion in the Mid Devonian and Implications in Marine Anoxic Events

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)The evolution of land plant root systems occurred stepwise throughout the Devonian, with the first evidence of complex root systems appearing in the mid-Givetian. This biological innovation provided an enhanced pathway for the transfer of terrestrial phosphorus (P) to the marine system via weathering and erosion. This enhancement is consistent with paleosol records and has led to hypotheses about the causes of marine eutrophication and mass extinctions during the Devonian. To gain insight into the transport of P between terrestrial and marine domains, presented here are geochemical records from a survey of Middle and Late Devonian lacustrine and near lacustrine sequences that span some of these key marine extinction intervals. Root innovation is hypothesized to have enhanced P delivery and results from multiple Devonian sequences from Euramerica show evidence of a net loss of P from terrestrial sources coincident with the appearance of early progymnosperms. Evidence from multiple Middle to Late Devonian sites (from Greenland and northern Scotland/Orkney), reveal a near-identical net loss of P. Nitrogen and Carbon isotopes from a subset of these lakes confirm elevated input of terrestrial plant material concurrent with P perturbations. Terrestrial P input appears to be episodic in nature, suggesting land plant expansion was driven by an external catalyst in the study region. All sites analyzed are temporally proximal to significant marine extinctions, including precise correlation with the Kačák extinction event and the two pulses associated with the Frasnian-Famennian (F/F) mass extinction. The episodic expansion of terrestrial plants appears to be tied to variations in regional and global climate, and in the case of the F/F extinction, also to atmospheric changes associated with large scale volcanism. Using P data presented here as an input into an Earth system model of the coupled C-N-P-O2-S biogeochemical cycles shows that globally scaled riverine phosphorus export during the Frasnian-Famennian mass extinction generates widespread marine anoxia consistent with the geologic record. While timing precludes land plants as an initiating mechanism in the F/F extinction, these results suggest they are implicated in every marine extinction event in the Mid to Late Devonian