What’s past is prologue: history, current status and future prospects of library development in Bhutan

Purpose This paper aims to outline the history of libraries in Bhutan, to describe the current state of library development and to recommend priority areas for library enhancement. Design/methodology/approach The authors have worked extensively as library professionals in Bhutan and share factual details derived from their personal experience. They review the published literature, particularly the fieldwork of two scholars who studied Bhutan’s libraries and library workers. The authors use their own experience to interpret those findings and make suggestions for future development. Findings The paper briefly traces the evolution of print culture and the history of libraries, exploring monastic, school, college, public and national libraries. The paper examines government policies regarding education and libraries and discusses the acknowledgment of the value of libraries and the lack of actual support. Originality/value There is limited study of the history of reading culture or libraries in Bhutan. The authors document their first-hand experiences and efforts to implement systems for library resource sharing and professional development. The authors hope that this record will serve to illuminate past effort, to describe the unique information environment in Bhutan and to guide future decision-making. The authors recommend many future avenues for study, including reading habits, information-seeking behavior and attitudes toward libraries and librarians

The economics of Theocracy

This paper models theocracy as a regime where the clergy in power retains knowledge of the cost of political production but which is potentially incompetent or corrupt. This is contrasted with a secular regime where government is contracted out to a secular ruler, and hence the church loses the possibility to observe costs and creates for itself a hidden-information agency problem. The church is free to choose between regimes – a make-or-buy choice – and we look for the range of environmental parameters that are most conducive to the superiority of theocracy and therefore to its occurrence and persistence, despite its disabilities. Numerical solution of the model indicates that the optimal environment for a theocracy is likely to be one in which the “bad” (high-cost) state is disastrously bad but the probability of its occurrence is not very high. A broad review of the historical evidence yields some suggestive support to the predictions of the model. Finally, the model is shown to be applicable to the make-or-buy-government choices of other groups, such as organized labor and the military

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

An A Mdo Tibetan Woman’s Life and Religious Practice

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Partial altitudinal migration of the Near Threatened satyr tragopan Tragopan satyra in the Bhutan Himalayas : implications for conservation in mountainous environments

Relative to long-distance migrants, altitudinal migrants have been understudied, perhaps because of a perception that their migrations are less complex and therefore easier to protect. Nonetheless, altitudinal migrants may be at risk as they are subject to ongoing anthropogenic pressure from land use and climate change. We used global positioning system/accelerometer telemetry to track the partial altitudinal migration of the satyr tragopan Tragopan satyra in central Bhutan. The birds displayed a surprising diversity of migratory strategies: some individuals did not migrate, others crossed multiple mountains to their winter ranges, others descended particular mountains, and others ascended higher up into the mountains in winter. In all cases migration between summer breeding and winter non-breeding grounds was accomplished largely by walking, not by flying. Females migrated in a south-easterly direction whereas males migrated in random directions. During winter, migrants occupied south-east facing slopes whereas residents remained on south-west facing slopes. Migratory and resident tragopans utilized a range of forest types, with migratory individuals preferring cool broadleaved forests during winter. These complex patterns of migration suggest that conservation measures should extend across multiple mountains, protect the full range of forest types and encompass multiple landscape configurations to protect aspect diversity. Given the diversity of migratory strategies employed by this single species it seems clear that more research on altitudinal migrants is needed to understand what must be done to ensure their future in an era of widespread land-use and climate change.publishe

Indirect remote sensing of a cryptic forest understorey invasive species

Remote sensing has successfully been applied to map the distribution of canopy dominating invasive species. Many invaders however, do not dominate the canopy, and remote sensing has so far not been applied to map such species. In this study, an indirect method was used to map the seed production of Chromolaena odorata , one of the world's 100 worst invasive species. The study was executed in lowland Shorea robusta forest in Nepal, where Chromolaena invaded the understorey of a degraded forest. A Landsat ETM+ image processed through a neural network predicted 89 and 81% of forest canopy density and light intensity reaching the understorey, respectively. We inverted these models to predict Chromolaena seed productivity. Light intensity determined 93% of the variation in log10 seed production per plant. Chromolaena failed to produce seed below a light intensity of 6.5 mJ m- 2 day-1. Further analysis revealed that Chromolaena was absent above this light intensity in case of a high biomass of other shrub and herb species, a situation occurring in the absence of grazing. We therefore suggest that other species control Chromolaena through competitive exclusion in the absence of grazing, whereas grazing breaks the dominance of these other species thus creating the conditions for Chromolaena attain canopy dominance. The presence of grazing was related to distance from the forest edge, a variable that together with light intensity allowed us to map 64% of variation in Chromolaena cover. Predicted Chromolaena cover and seed production per plant were combined into a map displaying the total seed production per unit area. Such map displaying seed producing sites could be used to significantly reduce the costs of controlling Chromolaena infestation by providing information on the spatial segregation of source and sink populations, which will support efficient habitat ranking to restore invaded areas and protect non-invaded ecosystems. This may prove particularly valuable when implementing control measures under circumstances of limited capital and manpower