TERENO (Terrestrial Environmental Observatories) wild bee monitoring in six agriculturally dominated landscapes of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany)

In 2001 we started as part of the EU FP5 project Greenveins monitoring of insect communities in the normal landscape of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany), which is dominated by agricultural use. We selected four landscape sites of 4x4 km and recorded insects using combined flight traps, combining the ideas of window and yellow pan traps (see Duelli et al., 1999). Traps consist of a yellow funnel (25 cm diameter) filled with water (preserving agent added) and two perspex windows mounted in a way that they are crossed in the center. Within each square km of a site one trap was placed at ecotones between semi-natural habitats and agricultural fields (16 traps per site). Traps were operated in late spring-early summer (three sampling rounds) and late summer (three sampling rounds). Follow-up sampling started in 2010 as long-term monitoring within the TERENO project (www.tereno.net), contributing to the LTER network (Long-Term Ecosystem Research) in Germany (www.lter-d.de) and internationally as well (www.lter-europe.net). Metadata about the sites and related activities and data sets can be found in the DEIMS Repository for Research Sites and Datasets (https://data.lter-europe.net/deims/). In 2010 another two landscapes were added and yearly sampled in the same way. Due to long processing time of trapped insects data of follow-up years will be available about 18 months after trapping.

Wild bee monitoring in six agriculturally dominated landscapes of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) in 2012

Wild bee species abundance based on combined flight traps (yellow funnels with perspex windows) placed at ecotones between semi-natural habitats and agricultural fields. Design: six agricultural dominated landscapes of 4x4 km with one trap per square km in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany), activity of traps in late spring-early summer (three sampling rounds) and late summer (three sampling rounds).

Wild bee monitoring in six agriculturally dominated landscapes of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) in 2013

Wild bee species abundance based on combined flight traps (yellow funnels with perspex windows) placed at ecotones between semi-natural habitats and agricultural fields. Design: six agricultural dominated landscapes of 4x4 km with one trap per square km in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany), activity of traps in late spring-early summer (three sampling rounds) and late summer (three sampling rounds).

Governmentality gone wild: How the separation of sex workers from 'communities' contributes to violence against sex workers

Sex workers are members of our communities, whether they are local or national communities. In law, mainstream media representations, and research sex workers are positioned as outside of or in opposition to communities. Even within marginalized communities sex workers are excluded when appeals to respectability politics are made. In this thesis I analyze three analytic sites from three areas of social life. The first chapter performs a textual analysis of The Bedford Decision (2013) and the resulting Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (2014) as an examination of law. The second chapter is an analysis of filmic discourse on community, sex workers, and violence in the mainstream film London Road (2015) as an examination of mainstream media. The third chapter draws upon empirical research, i.e. in-depth interviews with three current and former sex workers in Ottawa, Canada and analyzes the transcripts using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to center how sex workers’ understanding of their work, community, and the laws and policies that are supposed govern and protect them. In my preface and conclusion I discuss some of the ethical dilemmas I encountered while conducting this research. My findings suggest that sex workers are being positioned and understood as outside of communities in ways that contribute to violence against sex workers. The implications of this research suggest that people who speak in the name of communities—communities in the sense of local neighborhood communities, activist communities, and national communities—need to recognize that sex workers are part of their communities and be accountable to ensuring they are treated as members. Researchers who conduct research on sex work and sex workers need to be accountable to their participants and the impacts their research may have on laws and policies. Sex workers are an over-researched population yet their voices are largely misappropriated or silenced in popular research and policy debates.

Rationalizing spatial exploration patterns of wild animals and humans through a temporal discounting framework

Understanding the exploration patterns of foragers in the wild provides fundamental insight into animal behavior. Recent experimental evidence has demonstrated that path lengths (distances between consecutive turns) taken by foragers are well fitted by a power law distribution. Numerous theoretical contributions have posited that “Lévy random walks”—which can produce power law path length distributions—are optimal for memoryless agents searching a sparse reward landscape. It is unclear, however, whether such a strategy is efficient for cognitively complex agents, from wild animals to humans. Here, we developed a model to explain the emergence of apparent power law path length distributions in animals that can learn about their environments. In our model, the agent’s goal during search is to build an internal model of the distribution of rewards in space that takes into account the cost of time to reach distant locations (i.e., temporally discounting rewards). For an agent with such a goal, we find that an optimal model of exploration in fact produces hyperbolic path lengths, which are well approximated by power laws. We then provide support for our model by showing that humans in a laboratory spatial exploration task search space systematically and modify their search patterns under a cost of time. In addition, we find that path length distributions in a large dataset obtained from free-ranging marine vertebrates are well described by our hyperbolic model. Thus, we provide a general theoretical framework for understanding spatial exploration patterns of cognitively complex foragers.

Rationalizing spatial exploration patterns of wild animals and humans through a temporal discounting framework

Understanding the exploration patterns of foragers in the wild provides fundamental insight into animal behavior. Recent experimental evidence has demonstrated that path lengths (distances between consecutive turns) taken by foragers are well fitted by a power law distribution. Numerous theoretical contributions have posited that “Lévy random walks”—which can produce power law path length distributions—are optimal for memoryless agents searching a sparse reward landscape. It is unclear, however, whether such a strategy is efficient for cognitively complex agents, from wild animals to humans. Here, we developed a model to explain the emergence of apparent power law path length distributions in animals that can learn about their environments. In our model, the agent’s goal during search is to build an internal model of the distribution of rewards in space that takes into account the cost of time to reach distant locations (i.e., temporally discounting rewards). For an agent with such a goal, we find that an optimal model of exploration in fact produces hyperbolic path lengths, which are well approximated by power laws. We then provide support for our model by showing that humans in a laboratory spatial exploration task search space systematically and modify their search patterns under a cost of time. In addition, we find that path length distributions in a large dataset obtained from free-ranging marine vertebrates are well described by our hyperbolic model. Thus, we provide a general theoretical framework for understanding spatial exploration patterns of cognitively complex foragers.

Enhancing public speaking skills - an evaluation of the Presentation Trainer in the wild

Full paper presented at EC-TEL 2016

WILD FLOW

Written for the 2016 BBC Proms to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Ulster Orchestra. Premiered by Ulster Orchestra/Rafael Payare on 21st August 2016 at Royal Albert Hall, London, with BBC Radio 3 broadcast and repeat. NI Premiere: 31st March 2017, Ulster Orchestra/Rafael Payare, Ulster Hall, Belfast

Testicular volume and reproductive status of Wild Callithrix jacchus

ARAÚJO, Arrilton ; SOUSA, Maria Bernardete Cordeiro . Testicular volume and reproductive status of Wild Callithrix jacchus. International Journal of Primatology, v.29, p.1355–1364, 2008. DOI 10.1007/s10764-008-9291-4

Sea turtles recovered at the Wild Fauna Recovery Center in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain)

[EN] Since the beginning of the 1990's, the Wild Fauna Recovery Center in Gran Canaria Canary Islands, Spain) has received a large number of injured animals for recovery. Apart from birds and mammals, a considerable number of sea turtles representing different species are gathered each year. During the last five years (1999-2003), more than 100 turtles were sheltered annually; more than 80% successfully recovered and were released.

Density of sand flies (diptera: psychodidae) in domestic and wild animal shelters in an area of visceral leishmaniasis in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

XIMENES, Maria de Fátima Freire de Melo; SOUZA, Maria de Fátima de; CASTELLON, Eloy Guilhermo. Density of sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in domestic and wild animal shelters in an area of visceral Leishmaniasis in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, v.94, n.4, p.427-432, jul./ago. 1999. Disponivel em: Acesso em: 4 out. 2010.

Multi-scale score level fusion of local descriptors for gender classification in the wild

The 2015 FRVT gender classification (GC) report evidences the problems that current approaches tackle in situations with large variations in pose, illumination, background and facial expression. The report suggests that both commercial and research solutions are hardly able to reach an accuracy over 90% for The Images of Groups dataset, a proven scenario exhibiting unrestricted or in the wild conditions. In this paper, we focus on this challenging dataset, stepping forward in GC performance by observing: 1) recent literature results combining multiple local descriptors, and 2) the psychophysics evidences of the greater importance of the ocular and mouth areas to solve this task...

Testicular volume and reproductive status of Wild Callithrix jacchus

ARAÚJO, Arrilton ; SOUSA, Maria Bernardete Cordeiro . Testicular volume and reproductive status of Wild Callithrix jacchus. International Journal of Primatology, v.29, p.1355–1364, 2008. DOI 10.1007/s10764-008-9291-4

”Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show”. William F. ”Buffalo Bill” Codyn ja hänen Villin lännen show’nsa julkisuuskuva yhdysvaltalaisessa aikalaislehdistössä vuosina 1883 ̶ 1913.

Tässä tutkielmassa tutkin yhdysvaltalaisen aikalaislehdistön lukijoilleen välittämää julkisuuskuvaa Buffalo Billistä ja hänen Villin lännen show’staan sen toiminnan aikana 1883 ̶ 1913. Primääriaineistona käytän The New York Timesiä, mutta lisäksi hyödynnän myös pienempiä paikallislehtiä täydentämään kuvaa. William F. ”Buffalo Bill” Cody on yksi Villin lännen tunnetuimmista hahmoista ja hänen suurin saavutuksensa oli sen legendojen tekeminen tutuksi maailmanlaajuiselle yleisölle. Villin lännen show’n ohjelma koostui viidestä pääteemasta: ratsastustaidoista, ampumataidoista, eläinnäytöksistä, näytelmistä sekä tasankointiaanien ja valkoisten välisistä konflikteista. Tutkitulla ajanjaksolla aikalaislehdistön kuvaukset osoittautuivat hyvin myönteisiksi show’ta kohtaan ja kilpailijoista huolimatta se oli The New York Timesin mukaan ”the only and original Wild West”. Show’ta mainostettiin koko perheelle sopivana ja sen esityksissä vieraili vuosien aikana miljoonia katsojia. Ohjelman kantavana ideana oli kuitenkin väkivallan välttämättömyys lännen valloittamisessa. Samalla show’hun kuuluneet intiaanit esiteltiin areenalla ja lehdistössä hyvin stereotyyppisinä vihollisina, maalattuina ja verenhimoisina. Lehdistö, joka välitti lukijoilleen varsin intensiivisiä kuvauksia tapahtumista showareenalla, huolestui esityksien vaikutuksista lapsiin ja nuoriin. Buffalo Billin yhteistyökumppanit rakensivat hänelle sankarillisen imagon viihderomaanien ja show’n avulla. Riitaisan avioeroprosessin myötä ennen niin hyvä julkisuuskuva lehdistössä alkoi murentua, kun naisseikkailut ja muut salaisuudet tulivat päivänvaloon. Suurista tuloista huolimatta Buffalo Billillä oli vaikeuksia hallita talouttaan anteliaisuutensa ja huonojen sijoituksien vuoksi. Iän karttuessa ja terveyden heikentyessä hänen roolinsa show’ssa väheni, minkä seurauksena myös median kiinnostus alkoi hiipua. Villin lännen show ajautui konkurssiin vuonna 1913, mutta sitä ennen se kiersi lukuisat kaupungit Pohjois-Amerikassa ja Euroopassa. Aikalaislehdistön mukaan Buffalo Bill ja show olivat tehneet suuren vaikutuksen Yhdysvaltojen entiseen siirtomaaisäntään Britanniaan ja seuraava askel on vertailla näiden kahden maan lehdistön suhtautumista esitykseen.