Capability in the digital: institutional media management and its dis/contents

This paper explores how social media spaces are occupied, utilized and negotiated by the British Military in relation to the Ministry of Defence’s concerns and conceptualizations of risk. It draws on data from the DUN Project to investigate the content and form of social media about defence through the lens of ‘capability’, a term that captures and describes the meaning behind multiple representations of the military institution. But ‘capability’ is also a term that we hijack and extend here, not only in relation to the dominant presence of ‘capability’ as a representational trope and the extent to which it is revealing of a particular management of social media spaces, but also in relation to what our research reveals for the wider digital media landscape and ‘capable’ digital methods. What emerges from our analysis is the existence of powerful, successful and critically long-standing media and reputation management strategies occurring within the techno-economic online structures where the exercising of ‘control’ over the individual – as opposed to the technology – is highly effective. These findings raise critical questions regarding the extent to which ‘control’ and management of social media – both within and beyond the defence sector – may be determined as much by cultural, social, institutional and political influence and infrastructure as the technological economies. At a key moment in social media analysis, then, when attention is turning to the affordances, criticisms and possibilities of data, our research is a pertinent reminder that we should not forget the active management of content that is being similarly, if not equally, effective

Some observations on the lung capacity of young people living in New Mexico

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/unm_bulletin/1035/thumbnail.jp

Interaction between a fast rotating sunspot and ephemeral regions as the origin of the major solar event on 2006 December 13

The major solar event on 2006 December 13 is characterized by the approximately simultaneous occurrence of a heap of hot ejecta, a great two-ribbon flare and an extended Earth-directed coronal mass ejection. We examine the magnetic field and sunspot evolution in active region NOAA AR 10930, the source region of the event, while it transited the solar disk centre from Dec. 10 to Dec. 13. We find that the obvious changes in the active region associated with the event are the development of magnetic shear, the appearance of ephemeral regions and fast rotation of a smaller sunspot. Around the area of the magnetic neutral line of the active region, interaction between the fast rotating sunspot and the ephemeral regions triggers continual brightening and finally the major flare. It is indicative that only after the sunspot rotates up to 200$^{\circ}$ does the major event take place. The sunspot rotates at least 240$^{\circ}$ about its centre, the largest sunspot rotation angle which has been reported.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, ApJ Letters inpres

An Effective Hybrid Approach Based on Machine Learning Techniques for Auto-Translation: Japanese to English

In recent years machine learning techniques have been able to perform tasks previously thought impossible or impractical such as image classification and natural language translation, as such this allows for the automation of tasks previously thought only possible by humans. This research work aims to test a naïve post processing grammar correction method using a Long Short Term Memory neural network to rearrange translated sentences from Subject Object Verb to Subject Verb Object. Here machine learning based techniques are used to successfully translate works in an automated fashion rather than manually and post processing translations to increase sentiment and grammar accuracy. The implementation of the proposed methodology uses a bounding box object detection model, optical character recognition model and a natural language processing model to fully translate manga without human intervention. The grammar correction experimentation tries to fix a common problem when machines translate between two natural languages that use different ordering, in this case from Japanese Subject Object Verb to English Subject Verb Object. For this experimentation 2 sequence to sequence Long Short Term Memory neural networks were developed, a character level and a word level model using word embedding to reorder English sentences from Subject Object Verb to Subject Verb Object. The results showed that the methodology works in practice and can automate the translation process successfully

EUV Sunspot Plumes Observed with SOHO

Bright EUV sunspot plumes have been observed in five out of nine sunspot regions with the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer -- CDS on SOHO. In the other four regions the brightest line emissions may appear inside the sunspot but are mainly concentrated in small regions outside the sunspot areas. These results are in contrast to those obtained during the Solar Maximum Mission, but are compatible with the Skylab mission results. The present observations show that sunspot plumes are formed in the upper part of the transition region, occur both in magnetic unipolar-- and bipolar regions, and may extend from the umbra into the penumbra.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, to be published in ApJ Letter

Students’ concern about indebtedness: A rank based social norms account

This paper describes a new model of students' concern about indebtedness within a rank-based social norms framework. Study 1 found that students hold highly variable beliefs about how much other students will owe at the end of their degree. Students' concern about their own anticipated debt – and their intention of taking on a part-time job during term time – was best predicted not by the size of the anticipated debt, but by how they, often incorrectly, believed their debt ranked amongst that of others. Study 2 manipulated hypothetical debt amounts experimentally and found that the same anticipated debt was rated as 2.5 times more concerning when it ranked as the second highest being considered than when it was the fifth highest. Study 3 demonstrated that the model applies to evaluation of different types of debt (income contingent loans versus general debt)

Heterogeneity in ecosystem service values: Linking public perceptions and environmental policies

One way of linking research and environmental policies is to increase public participation and identify ecosystem services valued by society, but the reasons influencing ecosystem values can vary. Our study investigates the reasons influencing ecosystem service values at the third largest freshwater lake in China, Lake Tai (Taihu). We interviewed 257 rural and 257 urban respondents in four cities and their respective rural regions surrounding the lake. Respondents were more willing to pay to protect a provisioning ecosystem service than a cultural ecosystem service, and those emotionally attached to the lake may value it more highly. There is also spatial heterogeneity in respondents’ ecosystem values. Rural communities ranked directly used ecosystem services higher than urban communities. The city that respondents lived in also significantly affected the amount they were willing to pay for ecosystem services. Identifying potential reasons behind ecosystem service values can provide insights into linking public perception and policy making, helping to form environmental policies that reflect societal values.</jats:p

A review of techniques for monitoring the success of peatland restoration

An important element of all peatland restorationprojects is a programme of monitoring to checkresults and progress. Several peat projectworkshops identified a demand for technicalguidance on monitoring techniques. So NaturalEngland commissioned this study to: -Review the range of peatland restorationmonitoring techniques available. -Identify those that were consistent, informativeand easily applicable for peatland restorationprojects at a range of scales and budgets.Tables to identify appropriate monitoringtechniques for specific projects are published inthe Technical Information Note TIN097 -Guidelines for monitoring peatland restoration.Further information on these techniques isprovided in this report.The findings of this study have been used to: -Inform the JNCC project to design a researchprogramme on UK Peatland Green House Gasand Carbon Flux. -Develop thinking on monitoring peatlands inthe IUCN UK Peatland Programme. -Inform hydrological monitoring programmes forthe Dartmoor and Exmoor Mires Project.These findings are being disseminated to: -Encourage the use of balanced and consistentapproaches to peatland restoration monitoring. -Develop consistency in monitoring approachesso as to enable possible future collation ofpeatland monitoring data as a single databaseresource.A single database resource of peatlandrestoration would enable more robust analysesof monitoring data to support the developmentand implementation of future support andmanagement techniques for peatlandrestoration

Guidelines for monitoring the success of peatland restoration

The aim of this guidance is to provide information to enable peatland restoration projects to develop appropriate monitoring programmes. Degraded peatlands are restored for a wide range of reasons. Restoration objectives can include protecting and enhancing biodiversity, improving water quality, reducing flood risk and protecting cultural heritage or carbon stores. Restoration projects need monitoring programmes to show whether these objectives are being met and to help them to adapt practices to respond to environmental changes

Properties of sunspots in cycle 23: I. Dependence of brightness on sunspot size and cycle phase

In this paper we investigate the dependence of umbral core brightness, as well as the mean umbral and penumbral brightness on the phase of the solar cycle and on the size of the sunspot. Albregtsen & Maltby (1978) reported an increase in umbral core brightness from the early to the late phase of solar cycle from the analysis of 13 sunspots which cover solar cycles 20 and 21. Here we revisit this topic by analysing continuum images of more than 160 sunspots observed by the MDI instrument on board the SOHO spacecraft for the period between 1998 March to 2004 March, i.e. a sizable part of solar cycle 23. The advantage of this data set is its homogeneity, with no seeing fluctuations. A careful stray light correction, which is validated using the Mercury transit of 7th May, 2003, is carried out before the umbral and penumbral intensities are determined. The influence of the Zeeman splitting of the nearby NiI spectral line on the measured 'continuum' intensity is also taken into account. We did not observe any significant variation in umbral core, mean umbral and mean penumbral intensities with solar cycle, which is in contrast to earlier findings for the umbral core intensity. We do find a strong and clear dependence of the umbral brightness on sunspot size, however. The penumbral brightness also displays a weak dependence. The brightness-radius relationship has numerous implications, some of which, such as those for the energy transport in umbrae, are pointed out.Comment: 16 pages, 21 postscript figures, accepted for publication in A&