Gender differentiated preferences for a community-based conservation initiative

Community-based conservation (CBC) aims to benefit local people as well as to achieve conservation goals, but has been criticised for taking a simplistic view of "community" and failing to recognise differences in the preferences and motivations of community members. We explore this heterogeneity in the context of Kenya's conservancies, focussing on the livelihood preferences of men and women living adjacent to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Using a discrete choice experiment we quantify the preferences of local community members for key components of their livelihoods and conservancy design, differentiating between men and women and existing conservancy members and non-members. While Maasai preference for pastoralism remains strong, non-livestock-based livelihood activities are also highly valued and there was substantial differentiation in preferences between individuals. Involvement with conservancies was generally perceived to be positive, but only if households were able to retain some land for other purposes. Women placed greater value on conservancy membership, but substantially less value on wage income, while existing conservancy members valued both conservancy membership and livestock more highly than did non-members. Our findings suggest that conservancies can make a positive contribution to livelihoods, but care must be taken to ensure that they do not unintentionally disadvantage any groups. We argue that conservation should pay greater attention to individuallevel differences in preferences when designing interventions in order to achieve fairer and more sustainable outcomes for members of local communities

Linking the northern Alps with their foreland: The latest exhumation history resolved by low-temperature thermochronology

The evolution of the Central Alpine deformation front (Subalpine Molasse) and its undeformed foreland is recently debated because of their role for deciphering the late orogenic evolution of the Alps. Its latest exhumation history is poorly understood due to the lack of late Miocene to Pliocene sediments. We constrain the late Miocene to Pliocene history of this transitional zone with apatite fission track and (U-Th)/He data. We used laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry for apatite fission track dating and compare this method with previously published and unpublished external detector method fission track data. Two investigated sections across tectonic slices show that the Subalpine Molasse was tectonically active after the onset of folding of the Jura Mountains. This is much younger than hitherto assumed. Thrusting occurred at 10, 8, 6–5 Ma and potentially thereafter. This is contemporaneous with reported exhumation of the External Crystalline Massifs in the central Alps. The Jura Mountains and the Subalpine Molasse used the same detachments as the External Crystalline Massifs and are therefore kinematically coupled. Estimates on the amount of shortening and thrust displacement corroborate this idea. We argue that the tectonic signal is related to active shortening during the late stage of orogenesis

The DREAM Dataset: Supporting a data-driven study of autism spectrum disorder and robot enhanced therapy

We present a dataset of behavioral data recorded from 61 children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The data was collected during a large-scale evaluation of Robot Enhanced Therapy (RET). The dataset covers over 3000 therapy sessions and more than 300 hours of therapy. Half of the children interacted with the social robot NAO supervised by a therapist. The other half, constituting a control group, interacted directly with a therapist. Both groups followed the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) protocol. Each session was recorded with three RGB cameras and two RGBD (Kinect) cameras, providing detailed information of children’s behavior during therapy. This public release of the dataset comprises body motion, head position and orientation, and eye gaze variables, all specified as 3D data in a joint frame of reference. In addition, metadata including participant age, gender, and autism diagnosis (ADOS) variables are included. We release this data with the hope of supporting further data-driven studies towards improved therapy methods as well as a better understanding of ASD in general.CC BY 4.0DREAM - Development of robot-enhanced therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders

Painting the banal: Dale Hickey and Robert Hunter, 1966-1973

© 2019 David Robert HomewoodA significant development within art of the 1960s and 1970s was the dispersal of the traditional artistic mediums, and their replacement by a disparate array of installation, performance, documentary and theoretical practices that have come to define the landscape of contemporary art. This thesis examines the historical emergence of this contemporary ‘post-medium condition’ through the work of two Melbourne-based artists, Dale Hickey (born 1937) and Robert Hunter (1947–2014), from their hard-edge modernist painting of the mid 1960s, to their engagement with minimalism, post-minimalism and conceptual art at the end of that decade and the beginning of the next. During this period, Hickey and Hunter became key figures within an avant-garde scene increasingly hostile to the traditional forms and institutions of art. Yet in their work, painting, the most traditional form of all, did not disappear under the pressure of its avant-garde critique. Rather, issues related to the medium—including its ongoing viability—remained central to their work. The persistence of painterly concerns was crucial for both artists’ work, as was a preoccupation with ‘the banal’—manifest in Hickey’s depictions of domestic and suburban objects and Hunter’s exploration of the bare materials of painting within a restricted formal vocabulary. A principal argument of this thesis is that the emphasis on the banal in both artists’ works, rather than blurring the distinction between aesthetic activity and ordinary life, was coupled with an ideal of art as a vehicle for contemplation that has its roots in painting. Both artists’ work is shown to align with the mystical conception of art promoted by Bruce Pollard, who founded and operated Pinacotheca, the gallery with which the pair became associated in 1968. Positioned in dialogue with their dealer’s quasi-religious attitude towards aesthetic experience, and amidst the druggy, bohemian ambiance of his gallery, Hickey’s and Hunter’s traffic with illusion, contemplation and aura is understood not as an anomaly within the prevailing materialist and rationalist narratives of the end of modernism, but rather as integral to the local artistic and cultural context in which they worked

Un paléocanyon oligocène dans le parautochtone du Haut Val d'Illez (Valais, Suisse)

L'étude des faciès de l'Ultrahelvétique du Haut Val d'Illiez nous permet d'individualiser différentes unités. Un ensemble inférieur d'olistostromes, composé du Wildflysch Plaine Morte à méga-olistolites de type Tour d'Anzeinde, est en contact stratigraphique avec le Parautochtone (formation du Val d'Illiez). Un niveau à cornieules et calcaires dolomitiques («Nappe de Bex») et un deuxième wildflysch, interprété comme mélange tectonique (wildflysch II), chevauchent l'ensemble inférieur. Un deuxième plan de chevauchement sépare ce niveau de la Nappe d'Arveyes, constituée essentiellement de marries. La Nappe de la Brèche, d'origine interne, chevauche l'Ultrahelvétique par l'intermédiaire d'un mélange tectonique, le wildflysch III, d'origine ultrahelvétique à prépiémontaise. La morphologie ainsi que la nature du contact entre l'Ultrahelvétique inférieur et le Parautochtone permet d'interpréter le Wildflysch Plaine Morte et ses olislolites de type Tour d'Anzeinde comme le remplissage d'un paléocanyon creusé dans la formation du Val d'Illiez et non pas comme une unité chevauchant le Parautochtone. En conséquence, il constitue un terme stratigraphique terminant la série nord-helvétique. Le plan de chevauchement des Préalpes internes se trouve ainsi sous l'ensemble Nappe de Bex/wildflysch II

Identification of area-level influences on regions of high cancer incidence in Queensland, Australia: a classification tree approach

Background: Strategies for cancer reduction and management are targeted at both individual and area levels. Area-level strategies require careful understanding of geographic differences in cancer incidence, in particular the association with factors such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity and accessibility. This study aimed to identify the complex interplay of area-level factors associated with high area-specific incidence of Australian priority cancers using a classification and regression tree (CART) approach. Methods: Area-specific smoothed standardised incidence ratios were estimated for priority-area cancers across 478 statistical local areas in Queensland, Australia (1998-2007, n=186,075). For those cancers with significant spatial variation, CART models were used to identify whether area-level accessibility, socioeconomic status and ethnicity were associated with high area-specific incidence. Results: The accessibility of a person’s residence had the most consistent association with the risk of cancer diagnosis across the specific cancers. Many cancers were likely to have high incidence in more urban areas, although male lung cancer and cervical cancer tended to have high incidence in more remote areas. The impact of socioeconomic status and ethnicity on these associations differed by type of cancer. Conclusions: These results highlight the complex interactions between accessibility, socioeconomic status and ethnicity in determining cancer incidence risk