Pre-glacial to glacial sediment thickness grids for the Southern Pacific Margin of West Antarctica, NetCDF files

Circum-Antarctic sediment thickness grids provide constraints for basin evolution and paleotopographic reconstructions, which are important for paleo-ice sheet formation histories. By compiling old and new seismic data, we identify sequences representing pre-glacial, transitional and full glacial deposition processes along the Pacific margin of West Antarctica. The pre-glacial sediment grid depicts 1.3 to 4.0 km thick depocenters, relatively evenly distributed along the margin. The depocenters change markedly in the transitional phase at, or after, the Eocene/Oligocene boundary, when the first major ice sheets reached the shelf. Full glacial sequences, starting in the middle Miocene, indicate new depocenter formation North of the Amundsen Sea Embayment and localized eastward shifts in the Bellingshausen Sea and Antarctic Peninsula basins. Using present-day drainage paths and source areas on the continent, our calculations indicate an estimated observed total sedimentary volume of ~10 x 10**6 km**3 was eroded from West Antarctica since the separation of New Zealand in the Late Cretaceous. Of this 4.9 x 10**6 km**3 predates the onset of glaciation and need to be considered for a paleotopography reconstruction of 34 Ma. Whereas 5.1 x 10**6 km**3 postdate the onset of glaciation, of which 2.5 x 10**6 km**3 were deposited in post mid-Miocene full glacial conditions.

Global distributions of diazotrophs nitrogen fixation rates - Depth integrated values computed from a collection of source datasets - Contribution to the MAREDAT World Ocean Atlas of Plankton Functional Types

The MAREDAT atlas covers 11 types of plankton, ranging in size from bacteria to jellyfish. Together, these plankton groups determine the health and productivity of the global ocean and play a vital role in the global carbon cycle. Working within a uniform and consistent spatial and depth grid (map) of the global ocean, the researchers compiled thousands and tens of thousands of data points to identify regions of plankton abundance and scarcity as well as areas of data abundance and scarcity. At many of the grid points, the MAREDAT team accomplished the difficult conversion from abundance (numbers of organisms) to biomass (carbon mass of organisms). The MAREDAT atlas provides an unprecedented global data set for ecological and biochemical analysis and modeling as well as a clear mandate for compiling additional existing data and for focusing future data gathering efforts on key groups in key areas of the ocean. The present data set presents depth integrated values of diazotrophs nitrogen fixation rates, computed from a collection of source data sets.

Global distributions of diazotrophs abundance, biomass and nitrogen fixation rates - Gridded data product (NetCDF) - Contribution to the MAREDAT World Ocean Atlas of Plankton Functional Types

The MAREDAT atlas covers 11 types of plankton, ranging in size from bacteria to jellyfish. Together, these plankton groups determine the health and productivity of the global ocean and play a vital role in the global carbon cycle. Working within a uniform and consistent spatial and depth grid (map) of the global ocean, the researchers compiled thousands and tens of thousands of data points to identify regions of plankton abundance and scarcity as well as areas of data abundance and scarcity. At many of the grid points, the MAREDAT team accomplished the difficult conversion from abundance (numbers of organisms) to biomass (carbon mass of organisms). The MAREDAT atlas provides an unprecedented global data set for ecological and biochemical analysis and modeling as well as a clear mandate for compiling additional existing data and for focusing future data gathering efforts on key groups in key areas of the ocean. This is a gridded data product about diazotrophic organisms . There are 6 variables. Each variable is gridded on a dimension of 360 (longitude) * 180 (latitude) * 33 (depth) * 12 (month). The first group of 3 variables are: (1) number of biomass observations, (2) biomass, and (3) special nifH-gene-based biomass. The second group of 3 variables is same as the first group except that it only grids non-zero data. We have constructed a database on diazotrophic organisms in the global pelagic upper ocean by compiling more than 11,000 direct field measurements including 3 sub-databases: (1) nitrogen fixation rates, (2) cyanobacterial diazotroph abundances from cell counts and (3) cyanobacterial diazotroph abundances from qPCR assays targeting nifH genes. Biomass conversion factors are estimated based on cell sizes to convert abundance data to diazotrophic biomass. Data are assigned to 3 groups including Trichodesmium, unicellular diazotrophic cyanobacteria (group A, B and C when applicable) and heterocystous cyanobacteria (Richelia and Calothrix). Total nitrogen fixation rates and diazotrophic biomass are calculated by summing the values from all the groups. Some of nitrogen fixation rates are whole seawater measurements and are used as total nitrogen fixation rates. Both volumetric and depth-integrated values were reported. Depth-integrated values are also calculated for those vertical profiles with values at 3 or more depths.

Hans Blumenberg and Feminism

The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg [1920-1996] was interested in feminist issues during the last two decades of his life as shown their dedication and effort in compiling selected cuts in the media related to the topic of women and their development of multiple short essays inspired by the latter and countless curious anecdotes. Hans Blumenberg and feminism seeks to inform the reader about the existence of a blumenberguian thought line of research totally unexplored so far. It can only be revealed through the study of the philosopher ‘Nachlaβ’ found in the Deutsches literaturarchiv Marbach (Stuttgart) which I personally had a chance to dig through the award of a research grant from the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Dienst Austage).

Career guide / University of Iowa Pomerantz Career Center.

A general guide and sourcebook of resources on looking for professional positions, including setting up interviews, polishing interview skills, compiling resumes and other job-search skills.

GPRM: a high performance programming framework for manycore processors

Processors with large numbers of cores are becoming commonplace. In order to utilise the available resources in such systems, the programming paradigm has to move towards increased parallelism. However, increased parallelism does not necessarily lead to better performance. Parallel programming models have to provide not only flexible ways of defining parallel tasks, but also efficient methods to manage the created tasks. Moreover, in a general-purpose system, applications residing in the system compete for the shared resources. Thread and task scheduling in such a multiprogrammed multithreaded environment is a significant challenge. In this thesis, we introduce a new task-based parallel reduction model, called the Glasgow Parallel Reduction Machine (GPRM). Our main objective is to provide high performance while maintaining ease of programming. GPRM supports native parallelism; it provides a modular way of expressing parallel tasks and the communication patterns between them. Compiling a GPRM program results in an Intermediate Representation (IR) containing useful information about tasks, their dependencies, as well as the initial mapping information. This compile-time information helps reduce the overhead of runtime task scheduling and is key to high performance. Generally speaking, the granularity and the number of tasks are major factors in achieving high performance. These factors are even more important in the case of GPRM, as it is highly dependent on tasks, rather than threads. We use three basic benchmarks to provide a detailed comparison of GPRM with Intel OpenMP, Cilk Plus, and Threading Building Blocks (TBB) on the Intel Xeon Phi, and with GNU OpenMP on the Tilera TILEPro64. GPRM shows superior performance in almost all cases, only by controlling the number of tasks. GPRM also provides a low-overhead mechanism, called “Global Sharing”, which improves performance in multiprogramming situations. We use OpenMP, as the most popular model for shared-memory parallel programming as the main GPRM competitor for solving three well-known problems on both platforms: LU factorisation of Sparse Matrices, Image Convolution, and Linked List Processing. We focus on proposing solutions that best fit into the GPRM’s model of execution. GPRM outperforms OpenMP in all cases on the TILEPro64. On the Xeon Phi, our solution for the LU Factorisation results in notable performance improvement for sparse matrices with large numbers of small blocks. We investigate the overhead of GPRM’s task creation and distribution for very short computations using the Image Convolution benchmark. We show that this overhead can be mitigated by combining smaller tasks into larger ones. As a result, GPRM can outperform OpenMP for convolving large 2D matrices on the Xeon Phi. Finally, we demonstrate that our parallel worksharing construct provides an efficient solution for Linked List processing and performs better than OpenMP implementations on the Xeon Phi. The results are very promising, as they verify that our parallel programming framework for manycore processors is flexible and scalable, and can provide high performance without sacrificing productivity.

Is sustainable development a motor or a constraint for the professionalization of the pearl oyster industry in tahiti?

This article reports the results of a survey of the pearl oyster industry in French Polynesia territory. Its purpose is to examine the perceptions of the priorities for the development of this industry towards sustainable development. These perceptions were apprehended by a survey of pearl oyster farmers and other stakeholders of the sector (management authorities, scientists). After describing the methodological protocol of these investigations, it comes to confront the priorities chosen by professionals (i.e. pearl farmers) concerning sustainable development, with the perceptions of others stakeholders in the sector. Secondly it comes to build a typology of the priorities of pearl farmers concerning sustainable development. This analysis enables the assessment of the degree of convergence within the sector, which is the base material for defining a shared action plan at the territory scale. This is the first study compiling data of surveys of various professionals and stakeholders of the pearl farming industry in such a large area in French Polynesia.

An interaction and network perspective of horizontal relationships in the portuguese pharmaceutical industry

Doutoramento em Gestão

Historia de la dirección escénica en España: Miguel Narros

The year 2013 saw the passing of Miguel Narros, one of the most outstanding men of theatre of recent decades, and a creator to whom we remain in debt today. His extensive legacy deserves a special place in our memory and stands as a subject of study of the keenest interest, in view of the increasing amount of research being done on the discipline of stage direction. The objective of the thesis being presented is to provide an overview of Narros’ work, so as to draw conclusions related to the situation of theatre in Spain throughout the second half of the twentieth century and in the early twenty-first century and to elucidate the director’s poetic conception and a theory of his stage practice. The thesis has focused on the director’s biography —in which work and personal life are closely intertwined—, the artistic and technical credits and dates of his stage productions, the compiling and summarising of a number of reviews in the press, the classification and discussion of the different historical and literary periods dealt with by the director, as well as the poetics of his theatre (his points of reference, his conception as stage director —form and content— and his position on the elements that make up a stage production). Also attached is a selection of photographs of more than half of his stagings (in addition to some of the director himself) which are testimony to his creation and a reflection of a number of the characteristics of his theatre. The study —based on information from the written press, public and private archives (which provided everything from photographs to handbills) and a number of personal interviews, among other sources— reveals a professional whose work transformed, enriched and consolidated the Spanish stage. Indeed, Spanish theatre simply cannot be understood without taking into account Miguel Narros. Narros worked as an actor and immersed himself in the teachings of the figures that populated the theatre world of the mid-twentieth century, such as Jardiel Poncela, Elvira Noriega, José María Rodero, Carmen Seco and, above all, Luis Escobar...

Multiresistance in Pasteurella multocida is mediated by coexistence of small plasmids

In most gram-negative bacteria, acquired multiresistance is conferred by large plasmids compiling numerous antimicrobial resistance genes. Here, we show an evolutionary alternative strategy used by Pasteurella multocida to become resistant to multiple clinically relevant antibiotics. Thirteen beta-lactam-resistant clinical isolates, concomitantly resistant to tetracyclines and/or streptomycin as well as to sulfonamides, were studied. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis revealed different profiles among the isolates, showing that clonal dissemination was not the sole event responsible for the spread of multiresistance. Each P. multocida strain carried two or three small plasmids between 4 and 6 kb in size. A direct association between resistance profile and plasmid content was found. Complete nucleotide sequencing of all plasmids revealed seven different replicons, six of them belonging to the ColE1 superfamily. All plasmids carried one, or a maximum of two, antimicrobial resistance determinants. Plasmids pB1000 and pB1002 bore bla(ROB-1), pB1001 carried tet(B), pB1003 and pB1005 carried sul2 and strA, pB1006 harbored tet(O), and p9956 bore the tet(H) gene. All plasmids except pB1002 and pB1006 were successfully transformed into Escherichia coli. pB1000, also involved in beta-lactam resistance in Haemophilus parasuis (A. San Millan et al., Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 51:2260-2264, 2007), was mobilized in E. coli using the conjugation machinery of an IncP plasmid. Stability experiments proved that pB1000 was stable in P. multocida but highly unstable in E. coli. In conclusion, bla(ROB-1) is responsible for beta-lactam resistance in P. multocida in Spain. Coexistence and the spread of small plasmids are used by P. multocida to become multiresistant.

Successful Aging with Illness

In twenty years almost one in four Canadians will be over the age of 65. How successfully these people age will influence their quality of life and contribute to their physical health. Illness and disease are frequent components of aging; however, ‘successful aging’ research normally excludes people with illness. Older people living with illness, even life threatening illness, often self-report a good quality of life and continue to experience psychological well-being and a significant engagement in social life. This dissertation uses a three manuscript approach to examine successful aging among people with illness. The first manuscript employed a scoping review to examine the models used in recent successful aging research, compiling the most frequently used constructs which included: engagement, optimism and/or positive attitude, resilience, spirituality and/or religiosity, self-efficacy and/or self-esteem, and gerotranscendence. The second manuscript utilized data gathered via interviews (online or in person) with people over the age of 65 years living with illness. The majority of these participants reported success in aging; only resilience was predictive in the binomial regression analysis. The third manuscript examined the role of social determinants of health on successful aging. The analysis revealed that disengagement from community-activities showed a significant association with higher self-reported successful aging. The best fitting model for predicting rate of successful aging with illness was a linear combination of participants’ ageism score and community activity score, while controlling for gender and age. When considered together, the results from these three manuscripts suggest that successful aging can be experienced by older adults aging with illness. And that, among these older adults, resilience, community interaction and ageism may all play a part in determining the extent to which aging is experienced as successful. Recommendations include the suggestion that we embrace the idea that people with illness can self-define as successful agers. Further, since some of the associated constructs (e.g. resilience) can be fostered, successful aging could be bolstered by education or programs to build skills along with the usual treatment modalities for the illnesses that co-exist.

INTERNET Y LA GEOGRAFÍA

 Los geógrafos ahora tienen a su disposición la red mundial de INTERNET. Esta res es mucho más que un depósito gigante de datos y programas. Es un cúmulo de experiencias humanas que incluyen texto, artículos, imagen,  video y foros de discusión. Es una nueva forma de procesamiento a la información de formas que antes considerábamos imposibles. El profesional que continúe procesando y obteniendo información de la manera tradicional se estará quedando al margen de nuevo conocimiento disponible a diario en INTERNET. El profesional de hoy no se limita a recopilar información en una biblioteca o librería, sino que accesa directamente sitios de búsqueda que le permitirán encontrar rápidamente los datos que busca. Un ejemplo, son los meteorólogos que tienen en INTERNET su mejor herramienta, ya que pueden recuperar imágenes sobre el clima casi inmediatamente después que son almacenadas desde el satélite, lo cual les permite evaluar y discernir sobre el estado actual del clima (Aberdeen University Compiting Center, 1996). Las imágenes las pueden ver y bajar a su computadora individual para su propio uso. Los profesores en la actualidad brindan al estudiante todo su material almacenándolo en INTERNET. La relación profesor-estudiante ya no es la misma. Al estudiante se le exige encontrar la información en su computadora y asimilarla. El viejo cuaderno no es necesario, las lecciones pueden ser recuperadas para su estudio sin que el profesor tenga que impartirlas, como se hace en la mayoría de las universidades de los Estados Unidos (Ohio State University, 1996). En general, este articulo persigue mostrar a los profesionales de las ciencias geográficas, dónde encontrar la información que buscan t cómo localizar más de lo que imaginan con la red INTERNET.  ABSTRACT Geographers now have at their disposition the world network of INTERNET. This network is much more than just a large deposit of digital data and programs. It is an accumulation of human experiences that include text, articles, images, videos, and discussion bulletin boards. It is a new form of processing and managing information that was previously considered impossible. The professional who continues searching and obtaining information by traditional methods will be left on the fringes of this new wave of digital information and material available daily on INTERNET. Hence, a professional is not limited to compiling information in libraries or bookstores as direct and rapid access of desired research materials is available on the INTERNET. For example, meteorologists have in INTERNET their best tool in that they can acquire meteorologic satellite images, which permit them to evaluate and discern the actual present climatic situation (Aberdeen University Computing Center, 1996). One can see and then down load to one´s personal computer imagines of interest for personal use. Professors can offer to students all their materials for a class through and stores on the INTERNET. The relationship between professor and student is not the same. Students can be asked to access and assimilate the information via individual computers connected to the INTERNTET. Notebooks are becoming obsolete given that all class lectures and materials could be placed on the INTERNET for review without a professor having to give a lecture, as is being done in many universities of the United States (Ohio State University, 1996).This article pursues showing, in general, where professionals in Geographical Sciences can find available information and much more on the INTERNET.

Manual de la comunicación inclusiva

El Manual de la Comunicación Inclusiva es una guía para generar mensajes éticos acerca de las personas que tradicionalmente son consideradas “minorías” en Costa Rica. Pretende dar recomendaciones al momento de escribir o difundir mensajes audiovisuales sobre la gente con discapacidad, la infancia, las personas afrodescendientes, los hombres homosexuales, las mujeres lesbianas, las personas indígenas o migrantes, entre otros. Es un trabajo colectivo del curso semestral “Comunicación inclusiva” que se impartió en la Escuela de Ciencias de la Comunicación Colectiva de la Universidad de Costa Rica durante los años 2007 y 2008. La población estudiantil colaboró en su redacción. Las diferentes organizaciones de la sociedad civil también aportaron ideas. Además, estas organizaciones capacitaron semanalmente al estudiantado en cada uno de sus temas de interés. El trabajo de compilación y edición estuvo a cargo del profesor del curso. El Manual de la comunicación inclusiva aspira a que toda persona emisora de un mensaje, reflexione sobre la forma y el contenido antes de emitirlo con el fin de lograr un producto comunicacional, que aliente el respeto y la inclusión de todas las personas dentro de una sociedad, que aún no logra superar todas las manifestaciones de discriminación. The Inclusive Communication Manual is a guide that allows us generate ethical messages about people or groups of people who are traditionally considered in Costa Rica as “minorities”. It Intends to provide recommendations for the autho messages that has to do with people who have certain disability or about childhood, African American people, homosexual men, lesbian women, group of natives and migrants among others.  It’s a collective work from the “Inclusive Communication” course that took place at the “Collective Communication School of Costa Rica’s University” during the year of 2007 and 2008. The students collaborated in its redaction as well as different other organizations of the civil society who provided ideas. Also, these organizations trained the students on a weekly basis on each and everyone of the subjects in study. The work of compiling information and its editing was done by the professor of the course.The Manual of Inclusive Communication intends to make the person who sends a message, think about the message, its content and form, before sending the message in order to accomplish a communicational product that will reinforce the respect and the inclusion of every single person within a society which even nowadays it can’t overcome the different manifestations of discrimination.