Dust in the wind: How climate variables and volcanic dust affect rates of tooth wear in Central American howling monkeys.

OBJECTIVES: Two factors have been considered important contributors to tooth wear: dietary abrasives in plant foods themselves and mineral particles adhering to ingested food. Each factor limits the functional life of teeth. Cross-population studies of wear rates in a single species living in different habitats may point to the relative contributions of each factor. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We examine macroscopic dental wear in populations of Alouatta palliata (Gray, 1849) from Costa Rica (115 specimens), Panama (19), and Nicaragua (56). The sites differ in mean annual precipitation, with the Panamanian sites receiving more than twice the precipitation of those in Costa Rica or Nicaragua (∼3,500 mm vs. ∼1,500 mm). Additionally, many of the Nicaraguan specimens were collected downwind of active plinian volcanoes. Molar wear is expressed as the ratio of exposed dentin area to tooth area; premolar wear was scored using a ranking system. RESULTS: Despite substantial variation in environmental variables and the added presence of ash in some environments, molar wear rates do not differ significantly among the populations. Premolar wear, however, is greater in individuals collected downwind from active volcanoes compared with those living in environments that did not experience ash-fall. DISCUSSION: Volcanic ash seems to be an important contributor to anterior tooth wear but less so in molar wear. That wear is not found uniformly across the tooth row may be related to malformation in the premolars due to fluorosis. A surge of fluoride accompanying the volcanic ash may differentially affect the premolars as the molars fully mineralize early in the life of Alouatta.

Integrating simultaneous prosocial and antisocial behavior into theories of collective action.

Trust and cooperation constitute cornerstones of common-pool resource theory, showing that "prosocial" strategies among resource users can overcome collective action problems and lead to sustainable resource governance. Yet, antisocial behavior and especially the coexistence of prosocial and antisocial behaviors have received less attention. We broaden the analysis to include the effects of both "prosocial" and "antisocial" interactions. We do so in the context of marine protected areas (MPAs), the most prominent form of biodiversity conservation intervention worldwide. Our multimethod approach relied on lab-in-the-field economic experiments (n = 127) in two MPA and two non-MPA communities in Baja California, Mexico. In addition, we deployed a standardized fishers' survey (n = 544) to verify the external validity of our findings and expert informant interviews (n = 77) to develop potential explanatory mechanisms. In MPA sites, prosocial and antisocial behavior is significantly higher, and the presence of antisocial behavior does not seem to have a negative effect on prosocial behavior. We suggest that market integration, economic diversification, and strengthened group identity in MPAs are the main potential mechanisms for the simultaneity of prosocial and antisocial behavior we observed. This study constitutes a first step in better understanding the interaction between prosociality and antisociality as related to natural resources governance and conservation science, integrating literatures from social psychology, evolutionary anthropology, behavioral economics, and ecology.

The phenomenology of religious life: Nietzsche and Bergson

In this paper I identify and discuss some themes in the thought of Nietzsche and Bergson respectively as these bear upon the wider project to which the paper contributes – the articulation of a philosophical naturalism which offers a non-reductive account of the origin and nature of religion on the basis that the real is 'religious' in essence. Implicitly, an alternative is thereby proposed to the approaches and presuppositions of the 'theological turn' perspective within contemporary 'continental philosophy of religion'. [PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR]

Modelling of the time-dependent flow behaviour of lead-free solder pastes used for flip-chip assembly applications

The market for solder paste materials in the electronic manufacturing and assembly sector is very large and consists of material and equipment suppliers and end users. These materials are used to bond electronic components (such as flip-chip, CSP and BGA) to printed circuit boards (PCB's) across a range of dimensions where the solder interconnects can be in the order of 0.05mm to 5mm in size. The non-Newtonian flow properties exhibited by solder pastes during its manufacture and printing/deposition phases have been of practical concern to surface mount engineers and researchers for many years. The printing of paste materials through very small-sized stencil apertures is known to lead to increased stencil clogging and incomplete transfer of paste to the substrate pads. At these very narrow aperture sizes the paste rheology and particle-wall interactions become crucial for consistent paste withdrawal. These non-Newtonian effects must be understood so that the new paste formulations can be optimised for consistent printing. The focus of the study reported in this paper is the characterisation of the rheological properties of solder pastes and flux mediums, and the evaluation of the effect of these properties on the pastes' printing performance at the flip-chip assembly application level. Solder pastes are known to exhibit a thixotropic behaviour, which is recognised by the decrease in apparent viscosity of paste material with time when subjected to a constant shear rate. The proper characterisation of this time-dependent theological behaviour of solder pastes is crucial for establishing the relationships between the pastes' structure and flow behaviour; and for correlating the physical parameters with paste printing performance. In this paper, we present a number of methods which have been developed for characterising the time-dependent and non-Newtonian rheological behaviour of solder pastes and flux mediums as a function of shear rates. We also present results of the study of the rheology of the solder pastes and flux mediums using the structural kinetic modelling approach, which postulates that the network structure of solder pastes breaks down irreversibly under shear, leading to time and shear dependent changes in the flow properties. Our results show that for the solder pastes used in the study, the rate and extent of thixotropy was generally found to increase with increasing shear rate. The technique demonstrated in this study has wide utility for R&D personnel involved in new paste formulation, for implementing quality control procedures used in solder paste manufacture and packaging; and for qualifying new flip-chip assembly lines

Development of an in-situ, non-destructive ultrasonic monitoring technique for solder pastes

This paper concerns the use of a non-destructive ultrasonic technique for characterising the rheological properties of solder paste and specifically, the use of through-mode microsecond ultrasonic pulses for evaluation of viscoelastic properties of paste materials at the molecular level. Ultrasonic techniques are a widely used and a reliable form of non-destructive testing of materials. This is because techniques such as ultrasounds while used for testing or monitoring material properties, has offered immense benefits in applications where access to the sample is restricted or when handling the sample for testing could interfere with the monitoring or analysis process. Very often, this would mean that the measurements taken are not a true representation of the behaviour of the material (due to externally incorporated changes into the material's physical state during the removal or testing process). Ultrasonic based techniques are being increasingly used for quality control and production monitoring functions which requires evaluation of the changes in material properties over wide range of industrial applications such as cement paste quality, plastic/polymer extrusion process, dough, and even sugar content in beverage drinks. In addition, ultrasound techniques are of great interest for their capacity to take rapid measurements in systems which are optically opaque. The viscometer and rheometer are two of the most widely used rheological instruments used in industry for monitoring the quality of solder pastes, during the production and packaging stage. One of the potential limitations of viscometer and rheometer based measurements is that the collection and preparation of the solder paste samples can irreversibly alter the structure and flow behaviour of the sample. Hence the measurement may not represent the actual quality of the whole production batch. Secondly, rheological measurements and the interpretation of rheological data is a very technical and time consuming process, which requires professionally trained R&D personnel. It is for these reasons that materials suppliers (who formulate and produce solder pastes) and solder paste consumers (especially, contract electronics manufacturers) are keen to see the development of simple, easy to use and accurate techniques for the theological characterisation of solder pastes. The results from the work show that the technique can be used by R&D personnel involved in paste formulation and manufacture to monitor the batch-to-batch quality and consistency.

Typical reggaeton in Morocco: forms of female political affirmation throught dance

Through an ethnographic account, this text analyses how social dance may become a discourse involving the cultural affirmation of a subordinate group. It describes how a group of girls faced with a complex of outlooks that construed them as Moroccan, Muslim or unattractive —or as objects of education and intervention— responded by affirming their own culture with an unanticipated corporal discourse. The way in which looking construes bodies is explored through metaphors: a hand that touches, a chisel that sculpts, a whip that lashes and a cobweb that controls and traps bodies. Owing to this political dimension of dance, workshops can also be an oppressive and silencing tool; to prevent this, the article concludes with a series of recommendations to implement dance in social intervention processes.

Intercultural competence in the area of drug dependencies

This article takes a multidimensional or biopsychosocial conception of drug dependency as its starting point. Within this analytical framework, we advocate making the intercultural dimension more visible, since it is essential for the design and implementation of integral intervention processes. We propose intercultural competence as a working model that can increase the capacities of institutions and professionals —a particularly important consideration in the case of social work— in order to effectively address the aforementioned cultural dimension. After an extensive review of the scientific literature, we have defined five processes that can contribute to strengthening an institution’s intercultural competence and four processes that can do the same for a professional’s intercultural competence. Though selected for application in the area of drug dependencies, all these processes can also prove useful in improving attention to any other kind of culturally diverse group or person.

The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing

To what extent do bestselling travel books, such as those by Paul
Theroux, Bill Bryson, Bruce Chatwin and Michael Palin, tell us as
much about world politics as newspaper articles, policy documents and
press releases? Debbie Lisle argues that the formulations of genre,
identity, geopolitics and history at work in contemporary travel writing
are increasingly at odds with a cosmopolitan and multicultural world in
which ‘everybody travels’. Despite the forces of globalisation, common
stereotypes about ‘foreignness’ continue to shape the experience of
modern travel. The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing is
concerned with the way contemporary travelogues engage with, and try
to resolve, familiar struggles in global politics such as the protection of
human rights, the promotion of democracy, the management of
equality within multiculturalism and the reduction of inequality. This is
a thoroughly interdisciplinary book that draws from international
relations, literary theory, political theory, geography, anthropology and
history.