Special opportunities for conserving cultural and biological diversity: The co-occurrence of Indigenous languages and UNESCO Natural World Heritage Sites

Recent research indicates that speakers of Indigenous languages often live in or near United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Natural World Heritage Sites (WHSs). Because language is a key index of cultural diversity, examining global patterns of co-occurrence between languages and these sites provides a means of identifying opportunities to conserve both culture and nature, especially where languages, WHSs, or both are recognized as endangered. This paper summarizes instances when Indigenous languages share at least part of their geographic extent with Natural WHSs. We consider how this co-occurrence introduces the potential to co­ordinate conservation of nature and sociocultural systems at these localities, particularly with respect to the recently issued UNESCO policy on engaging Indigenous people and the forthcoming International Year of Indigenous Languages. The paper concludes by discussing how the presence of Indigenous people at UNESCO Natural WHSs introduces important opportunities for co-management that enable resident Indigenous people to help conserve their language and culture along with the natural settings where they occur. We discuss briefly the example of Australia as a nation exploring opportunities for employing and strengthening such coordinated conservation efforts

Crises and Growth: A Re-Evaluation

We address the question of whether growth and welfare can be higher in crisis prone economies. First, we show that there is a robust empirical link between per-capita GDP growth and negative skewness of credit growth across countries with active financial markets. That is, countries that have experienced occasional crises have grown on average faster than countries with smooth credit conditions. We then present a two-sector endogenous growth model in which financial crises can occur, and analyze the relationship between financial fragility and growth. The underlying credit market imperfections generate borrowing constraints, bottlenecks and low growth. We show that under certain conditions endogenous real exchange rate risk arises and firms find it optimal to take on credit risk in the form of currency mismatch. Along such a risky path average growth is higher, but self-fulfilling crises occur occasionally. Furthermore, we establish conditions under which the adoption of credit risk is welfare improving and brings the allocation nearer to the Pareto optimal level. The design of the model is motivated by several features of recent crises: credit risk in the form of foreign currency denominated debt; costly crises that generate firesales and widespread bankruptcies; and asymmetric sectorial responses, where the nontradables sector falls more than the tradables sector in the wake of crises.

How Is That Going to Work?: Part II – Acqusitions Challenges and Opportunities in a Shared ILS

Building on a presentation given at the 2013 Charleston Conference, this article continues the discussion about acquisitions policies, workflows, and consortial collaboration in a next‐generation shared ILS. The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a consortium of 37 public and private academic institutions in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. In January 2013, the Alliance began a two‐year process of migrating all 37 institutions (in 4 cohorts, with a new cohort going live every 6 months) to Ex Libris’s Alma and Primo in order to realize efficiencies and increase collaboration within the consortium. The authors, who represent institutions in the first and third cohorts, offer perspectives on new consortial structures stemming from changing workflows, policy issues to consider from a consortial viewpoint, challenges and opportunities for the new system, partnering with vendors, and ongoing considerations for large‐scale cooperative collection development and assessment

The Role of Multi-Sensory Learning in Elementary Classrooms on Student Development

I chose to do this research surrounding multi-sensory learning in the classroom due to my personal experiences within elementary schools, both as a student and as a teacher. Growing up, I remember I always learned the material best when it was presented on different platforms, such as with hands-on manipulatives or singing songs rather than reading out of a textbook and doing independent worksheets. Despite learning in this way, most of the classes I had taken up until graduation was all textbook-oriented, which I felt hindered my ability to strongly grasp the content which I was being taught. The goal of my research was to learn about the role of multi-sensory learning in the developmental domains of elementary-age students. My learning preference and recent research I had conducted for other classes on development inspired me to conduct this research. Due to my desire to have an inclusive classroom, I feel as though the knowledge gained from this project has provided me with different methods and practices which has prepared me to teach a diverse group of individuals. I had hoped to learn more about this teaching style to understand the benefits of this diverse teaching style, as well as get a strong foundation that I can use in my own classroom

Phase Synchronization Operator for On-Chip Brain Functional Connectivity Computation

This paper presents an integer-based digital processor for the calculation of phase synchronization between two neural signals. It is based on the measurement of time periods between two consecutive minima. The simplicity of the approach allows for the use of elementary digital blocks, such as registers, counters, and adders. The processor, fabricated in a 0.18- μ m CMOS process, only occupies 0.05 mm 2 and consumes 15 nW from a 0.5 V supply voltage at a signal input rate of 1024 S/s. These low-area and low-power features make the proposed processor a valuable computing element in closed-loop neural prosthesis for the treatment of neural disorders, such as epilepsy, or for assessing the patterns of correlated activity in neural assemblies through the evaluation of functional connectivity maps.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2016-80923-POffice of Naval Research (USA) N00014-19-1-215