The ethno-wiki project: ethnographic museums in Wikimedia commons

The ethno-wiki project is an initiative to use Wikimedia as a tool to save vulnerable heritage collections of non-western cultures and revive the research on ethnographic artefacts. The project may be able to create a network of small ethnographic collections in different parts of the world, which despite having no money to spend on object databases, still want to become a part of the digital community in order to be less unknown; a network which might also include source communities of ethnographic artefacts in European collections. The idea behind the project is that information should be given in the language(s) of the country of the museum or collection, in English and –if possible- in the language of the ethnographic group that made the objects. The aim to translate information into the native language will enable the descendants of the makers of ethnographical objects to comment on the given information. In this way, people will be able to add that information that they find is important. As their way of looking at things is different than that of western researches and/or admirers of ethnographic artefacts, a discussion will take place between these two groups. What Westerners call an “ethnographical object” is often “an ancestor” in indigenous terms. This exchange of knowledge certainly will contribute to strength of this wikimedia project and will give way to new research. Also this wikimedia project allows for the creation of ‘virtual museums’ within Wikimedia enabling objects disseminated in numerous museums in different continents to be brought togheter. The initiative plans to include objects of ethnographic museums in Wikimedia Commons aiming at the reduction of irreversible loss of cultural diversity. The systematic integration of objects, in particular 'hidden' objects in the reserves of scattered museums, facilitates scientific research on the ethnographic past and the material expression of cultural traditions

Preserving and adapting functions to limited fresh water supply

For agriculture/horticulture and nature, adaptation to decreasing fresh water availability is crucial in the growing seasons. Rainfall becomes concentrated in fewer, but heavier showers, the inlet of good quality water from main water courses will be under pressure, while evapotranspirative demand grows. Particularly for coastal provinces, this causes an increasing influence of brackish/saline ground water that upwells or directly enters the water courses. This influences which plants can be grown, at which infrastructural and other costs, whether agri/horticultural production remains sustainable, how nature develops at „abandoned‟ agricultural areas, and how nature areas and their protection, restoration, and management costs change. A central issue is how agro/ecosystems react to changing salinity

A Power Efficient Audio Amplifier Combining Switching and Linear Techniques

Integrated Class D audio amplifiers are very power efficient, but require an external filter which prevents further integration. Also due to this filter, large feedback factors are hard to realise, so that the load influences the distortion- and transfer characteristics. The amplifier presented in this paper consists of a switching part that contains a much simpler filter, and a linear part that ensures a low distortion and flat frequency response. A 30W version was realised. The switching part of the amplifier was integrated in a BCD process. Together with a linear part and with a loudspeaker as load, it has a flat frequency response +/- 0.3dB, a dissipation that is up to 5 times lower than a traditional class AB audio amplifier, and a distortion of <0.02% over power and frequency range

Stochastic soil water dynamics of phreatophyte vegetation with dimorphic root systems

As the direct uptake of deep groundwater by vegetation may be essential in semiarid regions, we incorporated this process in stochastic root zone water balance models. The direct water uptake by vegetation via deep tap roots is simulated using one additional empirical parameter. This is considered for the case of feedback with root zone saturation and without such feedback. The model that accounts for feedback between shallow root zone saturation and groundwater uptake by deep roots takes up less water if the shallow root zone is wet. The behavior of the models demonstrates that for certain combinations of climate and groundwater depths this feedback becomes important in determining differences in total evapotranspiration (ET). This feedback mechanism also captures hydraulic redistribution processes. The range of relative contributions of groundwater to ET predicted by the models was similar to values derived in isotope studie

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

Communication

Section on "Communication" from Encyclopedia of Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfar

Motion encoding in language and space

This book brings together researchers in linguistics, computer science, psychology and cognitive science to investigate how motion is encoded in language. The book is divided into two parts. Part I considers the parameters at play in motion encoding (including directed motion) by presenting new research on Estonian, English, Norwegian, Bulgarian, Italian, German, Russian, Persian, and Tamil. Part II investigates the way in which different levels of spatial resolution or granularity play a role in the encoding of motion in language

A comparative study of two methods of synthetic phonics instruction for learning how to read: Jolly Phonics and THRASS

The National Strategy for Primary Schools in England (2006) advocates synthetic phonics as a means for teaching children to read. No studies exist to date comparing the effectiveness of different commercially available synthetic phonics methods. This case study compared two schools at which Jolly Phonics (JP) was taught with one school at which THRASS (Teaching Handwriting, Reading and Spelling Skills) was taught at Reception level (4 to 5 years) over a one-year period. Reading ability for words and non-words as well as short-term memory ability for words and phonemes improved in all schools. However, reading ability improved more in one JP school compared to the THRASS school, with no differences between the other JP school and the THRASS school. This paper considers how particular variables may mask instruction method effects, and advocates taking such factors into account for a more comprehensive future evaluation of synthetic phonics methods

Discretization of Linear Problems in Banach Spaces: Residual Minimization, Nonlinear Petrov-Galerkin, and Monotone Mixed Methods

This work presents a comprehensive discretization theory for abstract linear operator equations in Banach spaces. The fundamental starting point of the theory is the idea of residual minimization in dual norms, and its inexact version using discrete dual norms. It is shown that this development, in the case of strictly-convex reflexive Banach spaces with strictly-convex dual, gives rise to a class of nonlinear Petrov-Galerkin methods and, equivalently, abstract mixed methods with monotone nonlinearity. Crucial in the formulation of these methods is the (nonlinear) bijective duality map. Under the Fortin condition, we prove discrete stability of the abstract inexact method, and subsequently carry out a complete error analysis. As part of our analysis, we prove new bounds for best-approximation projectors, which involve constants depending on the geometry of the underlying Banach space. The theory generalizes and extends the classical Petrov-Galerkin method as well as existing residual-minimization approaches, such as the discontinuous Petrov-Galerkin method.Comment: 43 pages, 2 figure

Measurement network design including traveltime determinations to minimize model prediction uncertainty

Traveltime determinations have found increasing application in the characterization of groundwater systems. No algorithms are available, however, to optimally design sampling strategies including this information type. We propose a first-order methodology to include groundwater age or tracer arrival time determinations in measurement network design and apply the methodology in an illustrative example in which the network design is directed at contaminant breakthrough uncertainty minimization. We calculate linearized covariances between potential measurements and the goal variables of which we want to reduce the uncertainty: the groundwater age at the control plane and the breakthrough locations of the contaminant. We assume the traveltime to be lognormally distributed and therefore logtransform the age determinations in compliance with the adopted Bayesian framework. Accordingly, we derive expressions for the linearized covariances between the transformed age determinations and the parameters and states. In our synthetic numerical example, the derived expressions are shown to provide good first-order predictions of the variance of the natural logarithm of groundwater age if the variance of the natural logarithm of the conductivity is less than 3.0. The calculated covariances can be used to predict the posterior breakthrough variance belonging to a candidate network before samples are taken. A Genetic Algorithm is used to efficiently search, among all candidate networks, for a near-optimal one. We show that, in our numerical example, an age estimation network outperforms (in terms of breakthrough uncertainty reduction) equally sized head measurement networks and conductivity measurement networks even if the age estimations are highly uncertain