Musiktraditionen im Kontext moderner Globalisierungsprozesse und globaler Denkkonzepte

The documentation of music cultures and the research in and on “classic” regions like India, Indonesia, and Sub-Saharan Africa still plays a central role within ethnomusicological research. However, given the increasing impact of global processes, the central guiding questions of the discipline have undergone profound changes in recent years. Approaches towards globalization are highly varied: One dominant perspective – which can be described as “skeptical” – has equated globalization with musical homogenization. This perspective is still apparent in approaches in European folk music research, which focus on the preservation of “traditional” cultures. Besides hyperglobal perspectives, which perceive the emergence of global networks (hypermedia, mass media, cultural organizations) as a positive development, one can predominantly observe the emergence of transformationalist approaches in recent decades: Global interconnectedness is viewed as a (neutrally perceived) basis for the emergence of new musical structures here. The transformation of the discipline is also apparent in the shift of the historical perspective. Comparative Musicology had already developed a global-historical perspective, which, however, became problematic due to the lack of contextualization. This might explain the subsequent distanced stance taken towards global concepts. Yet the focus on oral cultures also neglected deeper analysis of the historical dimension. At present, one can observe the emergence of a – albeit highly differentiated – change of perspective. While the Anglo-American approaches encourage the development of a specifically ethnomusicological-historical methodology, this separation between ethnomusicological and historical topics is perceived as racist in countries like South Africa. Starting out with an analysis of the concept of canonization in ethnomusicology, this article not only provides an overview of the aforementioned approaches and developments, but also discusses the integration of these processes into ethnomusicologically informed music pedagogical teaching material – within both a school and university context.

Constitutionality: Conditions for Crafting Local Ownership of Institution-Building Processes

This article presents constitutionality as a new approach for analyzing bottom-up institution-building processes emphasizing local perceptions and local agency in common pool resource management. Using four case studies—fisheries in Zambia; pasture and forestry in Mali; fisheries in Indonesia; forestry in Bolivia—this approach analyzes examples of local institution building differing from top-down imposed participation. Our analysis highlights six components of constitutionality: emic perceptions of the need for new institutions, participatory processes of negotiation, preexisting institutions as a basis for institution building, outside catalyzing agents, recognition of local knowledge, and higher level acknowledgment of the new institutions.

Development of a Novel Rabies Simulation Model for Application in a Non-endemic Environment.

Domestic dog rabies is an endemic disease in large parts of the developing world and also epidemic in previously free regions. For example, it continues to spread in eastern Indonesia and currently threatens adjacent rabies-free regions with high densities of free-roaming dogs, including remote northern Australia. Mathematical and simulation disease models are useful tools to provide insights on the most effective control strategies and to inform policy decisions. Existing rabies models typically focus on long-term control programs in endemic countries. However, simulation models describing the dog rabies incursion scenario in regions where rabies is still exotic are lacking. We here describe such a stochastic, spatially explicit rabies simulation model that is based on individual dog information collected in two remote regions in northern Australia. Illustrative simulations produced plausible results with epidemic characteristics expected for rabies outbreaks in disease free regions (mean R0 1.7, epidemic peak 97 days post-incursion, vaccination as the most effective response strategy). Systematic sensitivity analysis identified that model outcomes were most sensitive to seven of the 30 model parameters tested. This model is suitable for exploring rabies spread and control before an incursion in populations of largely free-roaming dogs that live close together with their owners. It can be used for ad-hoc contingency or response planning prior to and shortly after incursion of dog rabies in previously free regions. One challenge that remains is model parameterisation, particularly how dogs' roaming and contacts and biting behaviours change following a rabies incursion in a previously rabies free population.

Lithothamnion Prolifer Foslie: A Common Non-Geniculate Coralline Alga (Rhodophyta: Corallinaceae) from the Tropical and Subtropical Indo-Pacific

A little-known, but ecologically important non-geniculate coralline, Lithothamnion prolifer, is recorded from a number of tropical Indo-Pacific sites, including Fiji, Australia, Kiribati and Indonesia. The species occurs primarily on vertical walls of caves and overhangs in Fiji and Australia, but was also found as rhodoliths in Kiribati. Lithothamnion prolifer is characterized by the combination of characters which follow. The thallus is extremely glossy, smooth, and rosy coloured. Thalli usually produce complanate protuberances, but protuberances become terete when growing on well lit, horizontal substrata, when unattached, or when growing on loose substrata. Conceptacles occur mainly on the tips of protuberances, and tetra/bisporangial conceptacles are large (to 1300 mu m external diameter, with chambers up to 1100 mu m diameter). The tetra/bisporangial conceptacles are flush or only slightly raised, and often extensive and irregularly shaped (resembling small sori). They lack a raised rim, and have flattened pore plates. The rosette cells surrounding the tetra/bisporangial pore appear somewhat sunken below the surrounding roof cells in SEM, and the cells of filaments lining the pore canals of tetra/bisporangial conceptacles do not differ from the cells of filaments making up the rest of the roof. Old conceptacles persist and become buried in the thallus, and are then usually completely filled in by irregularly arranged calcified cells.

Export Promotion through Exchange Rate Policy: Exchange Rate Depreciation or Stabilization?

Exchange rate movements affect exports in two ways -- its depreciation and its variability (risk). A depreciation raises exports, but the associated exchange rate risk could offset that positive effect. The present paper investigates the net effect for eight Asian countries using a dynamic conditional correlation bivariate GARCH-M model that simultaneously estimates time varying correlation and exchange rate risk. Depreciation encourages exports, as expected, for most countries, but its contribution to export growth is weak. Exchange rate risk contributes to export growth in Malaysia and the Philippines, leading to positive net effects. Exchange rate risk generates a negative effect for six of the countries, resulting in a negative net effect in Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and a zero net effect in Korea and Thailand. Since the negative effect of exchange rate risk may offset, or even dominate, positive contributions from depreciation, policy makers need to reduce exchange rate fluctuation along with and possibly before efforts to depreciate the currency.

Introduction to disaster epidemiology for public health personnel

There has been a renewed interest in disaster epidemiology after the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks of 2001, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the overwhelming loss of life that resulted from the tsunami that originated in the Indian Ocean and struck Indonesia and other adjacent countries on December 26, 2004. Institutions that have accepted the challenge of training the next generation of public health professionals as well as to continue the education of the dedicated professionals already serving in public health fields have a responsibility to train practitioners in the basic principles of disaster epidemiology as well as in practical applications of these principles. This culminating experience project involved developing an on-line course complete with the background information as well as relevant case studies that can be used as a curriculum for an introductory course in disaster epidemiology. ^

Paleomagnetic of the Cobb Mountin event sections

Detailed paleomagnetic investigations are reported for 283 specimens, sampled from three closely spaced Ocean Drilling Program Leg 135 cores from the Lau Basin. These specimens cover three rather similar records of the reversed Cobb Mountain short polarity event, having an age of about 1.12 m.y. On the basis of a very detailed subsampling every 0.6 cm, we found that the transition times for the Cobb Mountain geomagnetic polarity event, as seen in the three Lau Basin sediment records, appear to have been as short as 0.6-1.0 k.y., although the duration of the normal-polarity event itself lasted only about 17 ± 4 k.y. The older (R to N) transition as well as the younger (N to R) transition show virtual geomagnetic paths roughly along the Americas, but shifted some 30° ± 10° to the east. These paths conflict with Cobb Mountain transition paths recorded in sediments from the Labrador Sea and the North Atlantic, but they are in fair accordance with sediment records from the Celebes and Sulu seas when corrected for differences in site longitude, suggesting that the transitional fields are dominated by nonaxial, high-order spherical harmonics.