Steinharter residence; Munich Architecture; Residences; Interior

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Steinharter residence; Munich Architecture; Residences; Interior

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Ornate bedroom with mural ceiling; Steinharter residence; Munich Architecture; Residences; Interior

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Kitchen; Steinharter residence; Munich Architecture; Residences; Interior

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King David Hotel - Interior

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The shifting influence of drought and heat stress for crops in Northeast Australia

Characterization of drought environment types (ETs) has proven useful for breeding crops for drought-prone regions. Here we consider how changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations will affect drought ET frequencies in sorghum and wheat systems of Northeast Australia. We also modify APSIM (the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) to incorporate extreme heat effects on grain number and weight, and then evaluate changes in the occurrence of heat-induced yield losses of more than 10, as well as the co-occurrence of drought and heat. More than six million simulations spanning representative locations, soil types, management systems, and 33 climate projections led to three key findings. First, the projected frequency of drought decreased slightly for most climate projections for both sorghum and wheat, but for different reasons. In sorghum, warming exacerbated drought stresses by raising the atmospheric vapor pressure deficit and reducing transpiration efficiency (TE), but an increase in TE due to elevated CO2 more than offset these effects. In wheat, warming reduced drought stress during spring by hastening development through winter and reducing exposure to terminal drought. Elevated CO2 increased TE but also raised radiation use efficiency and overall growth rates and water use, thereby offsetting much of the drought reduction from warming. Second, adding explicit effects of heat on grain number and grain size often switched projected yield impacts from positive to negative. Finally, although average yield losses associated with drought will remain generally higher than for heat stress for the next half century, the relative importance of heat is steadily growing. This trend, as well as the likely high degree of genetic variability in heat tolerance, suggests that more emphasis on heat tolerance is warranted in breeding programs. At the same time, work on drought tolerance should continue with an emphasis on drought that co-occurs with extreme heat. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

The shifting influence of drought and heat stress for crops in Northeast Australia

Characterization of drought environment types (ETs) has proven useful for breeding crops for drought-prone regions. Here we consider how changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations will affect drought ET frequencies in sorghum and wheat systems of Northeast Australia. We also modify APSIM (the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) to incorporate extreme heat effects on grain number and weight, and then evaluate changes in the occurrence of heat-induced yield losses of more than 10%, as well as the co-occurrence of drought and heat. More than six million simulations spanning representative locations, soil types, management systems, and 33 climate projections led to three key findings. First, the projected frequency of drought decreased slightly for most climate projections for both sorghum and wheat, but for different reasons. In sorghum, warming exacerbated drought stresses by raising the atmospheric vapor pressure deficit and reducing transpiration efficiency (TE), but an increase in TE due to elevated CO2 more than offset these effects. In wheat, warming reduced drought stress during spring by hastening development through winter and reducing exposure to terminal drought. Elevated CO2 increased TE but also raised radiation use efficiency and overall growth rates and water use, thereby offsetting much of the drought reduction from warming. Second, adding explicit effects of heat on grain number and grain size often switched projected yield impacts from positive to negative. Finally, although average yield losses associated with drought will remain generally higher than for heat stress for the next half century, the relative importance of heat is steadily growing. This trend, as well as the likely high degree of genetic variability in heat tolerance, suggests that more emphasis on heat tolerance is warranted in breeding programs. At the same time, work on drought tolerance should continue with an emphasis on drought that co-occurs with extreme heat. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Shifting centres: Pedagogical relations in the Era of Big Data

This paper presents a cautious argument for re-thinking both the nature and the centrality of the one-to-one teacher/student relationship in contemporary pedagogy. A case is made that learning in and for our times requires us to broaden our understanding of pedagogical relations beyond the singularity of the teacher/student binary and to promote the connected teacher as better placed to lead learning for these times. The argument proceeds in three parts: first, a characterization of our times as defined increasingly by the digital knowledge explosion of Big Data; second, a re-thinking of the nature of pedagogical relationships in the context of Big Data; and third, an account of the ways in which leaders can support their teachers to become more effective in leading learning by being more closely connected to their professional colleagues.

G20 host Australia faces hard truths of multinational profit shifting

The G20 Finance Ministers have the opportunity this weekend to endorse the initial recommendations of the OECD on how to address the global problem of multinational tax avoidance. The work of the OECD on the issue to date is substantial. Most notable is the adoption by many nations, including Australia, of the Common Reporting Standard for the automatic exchange of tax information. This standard will allow significant inroads to be made into tax avoidance, particularly by individuals sheltering money offshore. This is the first step in an ambitious tax reform program. There is a long way to go if we are to end the issue now known as Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). This week’s release of the first of the OECD recommendations contains some positive signs that further advances will be made. It also recognises some hard truths.

Interior Medial Axis Transform computation of 3D objects bound by free-form surfaces

This paper presents an algorithm for generating the Interior Medial Axis Transform (iMAT) of 3D objects with free-form boundaries. The algorithm proposed uses the exact representation of the part and generates an approximate rational spline description of the iMAT. The algorithm generates the iMAT by a tracing technique that marches along the object's boundary. The level of approximation is controlled by the choice of the step size in the tracing procedure. Criteria based on distance and local curvature of boundary entities are used to identify the junction points and the search for these junction points is done in an efficient way. The algorithm works for multiply-connected objects as well. Results of the implementation are provided. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Shifting the perspective after the patient's response to an interpretation

Psychoanalytic interpretation is normally understood as a sequence of two utterances: the analyst gives an interpretation and the patient responds to it. This paper suggests that, in the interpretative sequence, there is also a third utterance where psychoanalytic work takes place. This third interpretative turn involves the analyst’s action after the patient’s response to the interpretation. Using conversation analysis as method in the examination of audio-recorded psychoanalytic sessions, the paper will explicate the psychoanalytic work that gets done in third interpretative turns. Through it, the analyst takes a stance towards the patient’s understandings of the interpretation, which are shown in the patient’s response to the interpretation. The third interpretative turns on one hand ratify and accept the patient’s understandings, but, in addition to that, they also introduce a shift of perspective relative to them. In most cases, the shift of perspective is implicit but sometimes it is made explicit. The shifts of perspective bring to the foreground aspects or implications of the interpretation that were not incorporated in the patient’s response. They recast the description of the patient’s experience by showing new layers or more emotional intensity in it. The results are discussed in the light of Faimberg’s concept of listening to listening and Schlesinger’s concept of follow-up interpretation.

Interior Photon Absorption Based Adaptive Regularization Improves Diffuse Optical Tomography

An adaptive regularization algorithm that combines elementwise photon absorption and data misfit is proposed to stabilize the non-linear ill-posed inverse problem. The diffuse photon distribution is low near the target compared to the normal region. A Hessian is proposed based on light and tissue interaction, and is estimated using adjoint method by distributing the sources inside the discretized domain. As iteration progresses, the photon absorption near the inhomogeneity becomes high and carries more weightage to the regularization matrix. The domain's interior photon absorption and misfit based adaptive regularization method improves quality of the reconstructed Diffuse Optical Tomographic images.

Recovery of tropical rainforest avifauna in relation to vegetation succession following shifting cultivation in Mizoram, north-east India

1. Recovery of rainforest bird community structure and composition, in relation to forest succession after slash-and-burn shifting cultivation or jhum was studied in Mizoram, north-east India. Replicate fallow sites abandoned after shifting cultivation 1, 5, 10, 25 and approximate to 100 years ago, were compared with primary evergreen and semi-evergreen forest using transect and quadrat sampling. 2. Vegetation variables such as woody plant species richness, tree density and vertical stratification increased with fallow age in a rapid. nun-linear, asymptotic manner. Principal components analysis of vegetation variables summarized 92.8% of the variation into two axes: PC1 reflecting forest development and woody plant succession (variables such as tree density, woody plant species richness), and PC2 depicting bamboo density, which increased from 1 to 25 years and declined thereafter. 3. Bird species richness, abundance and diversity, increased rapidly and asymptotically during succession paralleling vegetation recovery as shown by positive correlations with fallow age and PC1 scores of sites. Bamboo density reflected by PC2 had a negative effect on bird species richness and abundance. 4. The bird community similarity (Morisita index) of sites with primary forest also increased asymptotically with fallow age indicating sequential species turnover during succession. Bird community similarity of sites with primary forest (or between sites) was positively correlated with both physiognomic and floristic similarities with primary forest (or between sites). 5. The number of bird species in guilds associated with forest development and woody plants (canopy insectivores, frugivores: bark feeders) was correlated with PCI scores of the sites. Species in other guilds (e. g. granivores, understorey insectivores) appeared to dominate during early and mid-succession. 6. The non-linear relationships imply that fallow periods less than a threshold of 25 years for birds, and about 50-75 years for woody plants, are likely to cause substantial community alteration. 7. As 5-10-year rotation periods or jhum cycles prevail in many parts of north-east India. there is a need to protect and conserve tracts of late-successional and primary forest.