La Nouvelle-Calédonie : Atouts et enjeux maritimes d'un pays "doué"

The publication draws up a balance sheet about the natural marine assets of New Caledonia by distinguishing the coast and the intertidal zones, the coral reefs and lagoons, the open sea or "deep blue". A set of assets relative to the living and mineral natural resources, to the characteristics of the shallow and deep marine biodiversity, to the potential marine energy resources are discussed. This publication, edited in a Consumer directed free magazine, draws up a set of perspectives relative to a blue economy to be built in a country still very centred on its ground resources, essentially the nickel mining industry.

IG II(2) 1613+1614 – Accounts of the naval commissioners

Squeezes

Gerard Kahn: Janusz Korczak und die jüdische Erziehung. Janusz Korczaks Pädagogik auf dem Hintergrund seiner jüdischen Herkunft. Deutscher Studien Verlag 2. Aufl. 1993 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Gerard Kahn: Janusz Korczak und die jüdische Erziehung. Janusz Korczaks Pädagogik auf dem Hintergrund seiner jüdischen Herkunft. Deutscher Studien Verlag 2. Aufl. 1993, 164 S.

Vida y obra de Don Juan Suárez de Peralta : cronista y protoalbéytar de América : el hombre de las dos España (1541-1613)

Don Juan Suárez de Peralta nació en la ciudad de México-Tenochtitlán en 1541, habiendo sido sus padres Don Juan Suárez Marcayda y Doña Magdalena de Peralta; el padre también conocido como Juan Suárez de Ávila, o como Juan Suárez “El Viejo”, hizo la campaña militar de la conquista del Imperio Azteca como compañero de armas de Don Hernán Cortés. Suárez de Peralta escribió tres grandes obras: “Tractado de Alveiteria” hacia 1575, “Tractado de Cavallería de la Gineta y Brida” en 1580 y “Tractado del Descubrimiento de las Indias y su Conquista” en 1589. Estos tres tratados hacen de Suárez de Peralta, una inevitable y riquísima fuente de información para todo historiador investigando las vetas de la Historia Virreinal Novohispana y de la Historia de España del siglo XVI. Su obra sobre medicina equina y zootecnia de los caballos, es un magnífico y estupendo trabajo que se levanta como el primer libro de su tipo escrito en América. Suárez de Peralta asociado con su hermano mayor, Don Luis, establece un criadero de caballos de raza fina en Tacubaya, en el poniente de la antigua ciudad de México, y es ahí en donde aprende el arte científico de la médica equina, de la reproducción y de la zootecnia caballar y sus habilidades como jinete y gran caballista. En 1579, Don Juan debido a una serie de circunstancias decide exiliarse a España arribando al puerto de Sanlúcar de Barrameda, como huésped en el Palacio de su pariente el VII Conde-Duque de Medina Sidonia, para después habitar en Trujillo y en Sevilla en donde escribe y publica sus otras dos grandes obras. Se muda a Madrid en donde contrae nupcias con una aristócrata dama de la alta nobleza castellana, Doña Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza, perteneciente a la poderosa Casa del Infantado. Con ella procrea un hijo, llamado Don Lorenzo Suárez de Peralta, quien viaja a la Nueva España para tomar posesión de los bienes de su padre, su abuelo y de su tío Luís. Don Juan, nuestro albéitar, quien “alladese enfermo de calenturas”, fallece el 8 de enero de 1613 y es enterrado en la Iglesia del Spiritu Sanctus de los Clérigos Menores en el Madrid de los Austrias. Su manuscrito “Libro de Alveitería”, permaneció olvidado y sin publicar durante más de tres cientos años en la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, hasta que finalmente ve la luz en la ciudad de México, en ocasión del Centenario de la fundación de la Escuela Nacional de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia y del IV Centenario de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México, ahora, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) en 195

Inscape, the inshape of the trinity: a genetic analysis of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ "God’s Grandeur" and "The Windhover"

Les théories poétiques de l’inscape et du sprung rhythm établies par le poète britannique Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) ont dérouté les critiques des années durant. La plupart d’entre eux se sont appuyés sur les poèmes publiés en quête d’indices quant à la signification de ses théories. Cette thèse approfondit l’analyse mise de l’avant en révélant que la genèse de la théorie de l’inscape provient des notes de Hopkins — alors étudiant de premier cycle — sur le philosophe présocratique Parménide, et est influencée par les commentaires sur l’oeuvre De la nature du philosophe. Un examen des lettres de Hopkins à ses collègues poètes Robert Bridges et Richard Watson Dixon révèle que le sprung rhythm découle de l’inscape, sa théorie de base. La technique du sprung rhythm consiste donc en l’application de l’inscape au schéma métrique de la poésie. Cette étude établit d’abord une définition opérationnelle de chacune de ces théories pour ensuite les appliquer aux manuscrits afin de déterminer dans quelle mesure Hopkins y adhérait et les exploitait lors de la rédaction de deux de ses poèmes canoniques, God’s Grandeur et The Windhover. L’étude s’inscrit ainsi dans le champ de la critique génétique, une approche mise au point en France, particulièrement à l’Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes (ITEM). Ce sont donc sur des oeuvres littéraires françaises ou sur des textes en prose qu’ont porté la majorité des analyses à ce sujet. Suppressions, ajouts, substitutions et constantes entre différentes versions témoignent de ce qu’étaient les priorités de Hopkins dans sa quête pour atteindre l’effet désiré. Par conséquent, cette thèse s’efforce de dévoiler la signification des théories poétiques de Hopkins en établissant leur genèse et leur application respectives dans deux de ses poèmes selon une perspective de critique génétique. Elle contribue également à enrichir la critique génétique en l’appliquant à des oeuvres littéraires écrites en anglais et sous forme de poésie plutôt que de prose. Enfin, son objectif ultime est de raviver l’intérêt pour le poète Hopkins en tant que sujet viable d’étude, et de favoriser l’appréciation de ses prouesses tant comme théoricien poétique que comme poète.

Students' collective knowledge construction in the virtual learning environment ""ToLigado - your school interactive newspaper""

Introduction. The ToLigado Project - Your School Interactive Newspaper is an interactive virtual learning environment conceived, developed, implemented and supported by researchers at the School of the Future Research Laboratory of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Method. This virtual learning environment aims to motivate trans-disciplinary research among public school students and teachers in 2,931 schools equipped with Internet-access computer rooms. Within this virtual community, students produce collective multimedia research documents that are immediately published in the portal. The project also aims to increase students' autonomy for research, collaborative work and Web authorship. Main sections of the portal are presented and described. Results. Partial results of the first two years' implementation are presented and indicate a strong motivation among students to produce knowledge despite the fragile hardware and software infrastructure at the time. Discussion. In this new environment, students should be seen as 'knowledge architects' and teachers as facilitators, or 'curiosity managers'. The ToLigado portal may constitute a repository for future studies regarding student attitudes in virtual learning environments, students' behaviour as 'authors', Web authorship involving collective knowledge production, teachers' behaviour as facilitators, and virtual learning environments as digital repositories of students' knowledge construction and social capital in virtual learning communities.

Ticks produce highly selective chemokine binding proteins with antiinflammatory activity

Bloodsucking parasites such as ticks have evolved a wide variety of immunomodulatory proteins that are secreted in their saliva, allowing them to feed for long periods of time without being detected by the host immune system. One possible strategy used by ticks to evade the host immune response is to produce proteins that selectively bind and neutralize the chemokines that normally recruit cells of the innate immune system that protect the host from parasites. We have identified distinct cDNAs encoding novel chemokine binding proteins (CHPBs), which we have termed Evasins, using an expression cloning approach. These CHBPs have unusually stringent chemokine selectivity, differentiating them from broader spectrum viral CHBPs. Evasin-1 binds to CCL3, CCL4, and CCL18; Evasin-3 binds to CXCL8 and CXCL1; and Evasin-4 binds to CCL5 and CCL11. We report the characterization of Evasin-1 and -3, which are unrelated in primary sequence and tertiary structure, and reveal novel folds. Administration of recombinant Evasin-1 and - 3 in animal models of disease demonstrates that they have potent antiinflammatory properties. These novel CHBPs designed by nature are even smaller than the recently described single-domain antibodies (Hollinger, P., and P. J. Hudson. 2005. Nat. Biotechnol. 23: 1126-1136), and may be therapeutically useful as novel antiinflammatory agents in the future.

Characterizing chaotic melodies in automatic music composition

In this paper, we initially present an algorithm for automatic composition of melodies using chaotic dynamical systems. Afterward, we characterize chaotic music in a comprehensive way as comprising three perspectives: musical discrimination, dynamical influence on musical features, and musical perception. With respect to the first perspective, the coherence between generated chaotic melodies (continuous as well as discrete chaotic melodies) and a set of classical reference melodies is characterized by statistical descriptors and melodic measures. The significant differences among the three types of melodies are determined by discriminant analysis. Regarding the second perspective, the influence of dynamical features of chaotic attractors, e.g., Lyapunov exponent, Hurst coefficient, and correlation dimension, on melodic features is determined by canonical correlation analysis. The last perspective is related to perception of originality, complexity, and degree of melodiousness (Euler's gradus suavitatis) of chaotic and classical melodies by nonparametric statistical tests. (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3487516]

Robust relations between CCN and the vertical evolution of cloud drop size distribution in deep convective clouds

In-situ measurements in convective clouds (up to the freezing level) over the Amazon basin show that smoke from deforestation fires prevents clouds from precipitating until they acquire a vertical development of at least 4 km, compared to only 1-2 km in clean clouds. The average cloud depth required for the onset of warm rain increased by similar to 350 m for each additional 100 cloud condensation nuclei per cm(3) at a super-saturation of 0.5% (CCN0.5%). In polluted clouds, the diameter of modal liquid water content grows much slower with cloud depth (at least by a factor of similar to 2), due to the large number of droplets that compete for available water and to the suppressed coalescence processes. Contrary to what other studies have suggested, we did not observe this effect to reach saturation at 3000 or more accumulation mode particles per cm(3). The CCN0.5% concentration was found to be a very good predictor for the cloud depth required for the onset of warm precipitation and other microphysical factors, leaving only a secondary role for the updraft velocities in determining the cloud drop size distributions. The effective radius of the cloud droplets (r(e)) was found to be a quite robust parameter for a given environment and cloud depth, showing only a small effect of partial droplet evaporation from the cloud's mixing with its drier environment. This supports one of the basic assumptions of satellite analysis of cloud microphysical processes: the ability to look at different cloud top heights in the same region and regard their r(e) as if they had been measured inside one well developed cloud. The dependence of r(e) on the adiabatic fraction decreased higher in the clouds, especially for cleaner conditions, and disappeared at r(e)>=similar to 10 mu m. We propose that droplet coalescence, which is at its peak when warm rain is formed in the cloud at r(e)=similar to 10 mu m, continues to be significant during the cloud's mixing with the entrained air, cancelling out the decrease in r(e) due to evaporation.

Large-scale ecological restoration of high-diversity tropical forests in SE Brazil

The complex interactions among endangered ecosystems, landowners` interests, and different models of land tenure and use, constitute an important series of challenges for those seeking to maintain and restore biodiversity and augment the flow of ecosystem services. Over the past 10 years, we have developed a data-based approach to address these challenges and to achieve medium and large-scale ecological restoration of riparian areas on private lands in the state of Sao Paulo, southeastern Brazil. Given varying motivations for ecological restoration, the location of riparian areas within landholdings, environmental zoning of different riparian areas, and best-practice restoration methods were developed for each situation. A total of 32 ongoing projects, covering 527,982 ha, were evaluated in large sugarcane farms and small mixed farms, and six different restoration techniques have been developed to help upscale the effort. Small mixed farms had higher portions of land requiring protection as riparian areas (13.3%), and lower forest cover of riparian areas (18.3%), than large sugarcane farms (10.0% and 36.9%, respectively for riparian areas and forest cover values). In both types of farms, forest fragments required some degree of restoration. Historical anthropogenic degradation has compromised forest ecosystem structure and functioning, despite their high-diversity of native tree and shrub species. Notably, land use patterns in riparian areas differed markedly. Large sugarcane farms had higher portions of riparian areas occupied by highly mechanized agriculture, abandoned fields, and anthropogenic wet fields created by siltation in water courses. In contrast, in small mixed crop farms, low or non-mechanized agriculture and pasturelands were predominant. Despite these differences, plantations of native tree species covering the entire area was by far the main restoration method needed both by large sugarcane farms (76.0%) and small mixed farms (92.4%), in view of the low resilience of target sites, reduced forest cover, and high fragmentation, all of which limit the potential for autogenic restoration. We propose that plantations should be carried out with a high-diversity of native species in order to create biologically viable restored forests, and to assist long-term biodiversity persistence at the landscape scale. Finally, we propose strategies to integrate the political, socio-economic and methodological aspects needed to upscale restoration efforts in tropical forest regions throughout Latin America and elsewhere. (C) 2010 Elsevier BA/. All rights reserved.

Electrospray MS-based characterization of beta-carbolines - mutagenic constituents of thermally processed meat

The beta-carbolines 1-methyl-9H-pyrido [3,4-b]indole and 9H-pyrido[3,4b]indole have been implicated as having causative roles in a number of human diseases, such as Parkinson`s disease and cancer. As they can be formed during the heating of protein-rich food, a number of analytical methodologies have been proposed for their detection and quantification in foodstuff For this purpose, LC-MS and LC-MS/MS have emerged as the most specific analytical methods, and the quantification is based on the occurrence of unusual ions, such as [M+H-(H(center dot))](+) and [M + H-2H](+). In this study, we have investigated the formation of these ions by accurate-mass electrospray MS/MS and demonstrated that these ions are formed from gas-phase ion-molecule reactions between water vapor present in the collision cell and the protonated molecule of 1-methyl-9H-pyrido [3,4-b]indole and 9H-pyrido[3,4b]indole. Although this reaction has been previously described for heterocyclic amine ions, it has been overlooked in the most of recent LC-MS and LC-MS/MS studies, and no complete data of the fragmentation are reported. Our results demonstrate that additional attention should be given with respect to eliminating water vapor residues in the mass spectrometer when analysis of beta-carbolines is performed, as this residue may affect the reliability in the results of quantification.

Making Fedora easier to implement with Fez: A free open source content model and workflow management front-end to Fedora

The University of Queensland, Australia has developed Fez, a world-leading user-interface and management system for Fedora-based institutional repositories, which bridges the gap between a repository and users. Christiaan Kortekaas, Andrew Bennett and Keith Webster will review this open source software that gives institutions the power to create a comprehensive repository solution without the hassle..

View from Sunshine Beach House, Sunshine Coast

View to ocean from upper level viewing deck.