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The paper presents the case study of the recurrent slope movement in colluvium deposits at Doi Chang, Thailand. A thorough site investigation confirmed the slope movement rate corresponding to slow creep during dry season, while in the rainy season, its velocity remarkably increased. Despite frequent repair, the movement rate was sufficient to result in the recurrent damage of infrastructures like roads and buildings, causing economic loss and public concerns. Furthermore, surface mapping revealed that the hill's topography led to the concentration of flowing water in a particular area. This resulted in a high level of groundwater table, especially during the rainy season. The inclinometer installed in that area suggested an average movement rate of 20.5 mm/month in the wet season. In contrast, during the dry season, it was limited within 2 mm/month, indicating that the increase in the rate of slope movement in the colluvium deposit was primarily due to the rising groundwater table. Field and laboratory tests were conducted to determine the properties of the colluvium deposit. Landslide susceptibility assessment was performed using infinite slope model and later integrated with GIS to evaluate the factor of safety (FS) over a large area. The FS decreased below 1 when the groundwater level rose to 0.3 cm below the ground surface, and using GIS, based on infinite slope model, the potential risk zone were delineated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of an anthropological study combined with historical investigation, this paper analyzes Thai people's responses toward leprosy prior to the discovery of a cure for the disease. The findings indicate that the ambivalent perception of leprosy sufferers as anomalous figures led to their ambivalent segregation within the framework of the community. The analysis of this dual ambivalence is revealed as capable of reconciling two approaches to the study of deviance, grounded in conflicting assumptions concerning individual and cultural tolerance of ambivalence: the first focusing on ambivalent perceptions of social deviants, and the second dealing with ambivalent behavioral reactions toward them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The asymptotic stable region and long-time decay rate of solutions to linear homogeneous Caputo time fractional ordinary differential equations (F-ODEs) are known to be completely determined by the eigenvalues of the coefficient matrix. Very different from the exponential decay of solutions to classical ODEs, solutions of F-ODEs decay only polynomially, leading to the so-called Mittag-Leffler stability, which was already extended to semi-linear F-ODEs with small perturbations. This work is mainly devoted to the qualitative analysis of the long-time behavior of numerical solutions. By applying the singularity analysis of generating functions developed by Flajolet and Odlyzko (SIAM J. Disc. Math. 3(2), 216–240, 1990), we are able to prove that both L 1 scheme and strong A-stable fractional linear multistep methods (F-LMMs) can preserve the numerical Mittag-Leffler stability for linear homogeneous F-ODEs exactly as in the continuous case. Through an improved estimate of the discrete fractional resolvent operator, we show that strong A-stable F-LMMs are also Mittag-Leffler stable for semi-linear F-ODEs under small perturbations. For the numerical schemes based on α -difference approximation to Caputo derivative, we establish the Mittag-Leffler stability for semi-linear problems by making use of properties of the Poisson transformation. The new results and analyses provide not only the rigorous justifications and explanations of the Mittag-Leffler stability of numerical solutions with exact decay rate, but also establish some close connection between the continuous and discrete F-ODEs. Numerical experiments are presented for several typical time fractional evolutional equations, including time fractional sub-diffusion equations and semi-linear F-ODEs. All the numerical results exhibit the typical long-time polynomial decay rate, which is fully consistent with our theoretical predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The behavioral effects of four essential oils extracted from orange peel ( Citrus aurantium L.), cinnamon leaf ( Cinnamomum verum J. Presl), citronella grass ( Cymbopogon winterianus Jowitt), and clove flower [ Syzygium aromaticum (L.) Merrill & Perry] were evaluated against two medically important species of mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti (L.) and Culex quinquefasciatus Say, using an excito-repellency test system. Ae. aegypti was collected from a small village in Kanchanaburi Province and Culex quinquefasciatus was captured from an urban area of Bangkok. Mosquitoes from the F1-F3 generations were tested in the excito-repellency test chamber for contact excitation and non-contact spatial repellency. Results showed that both species demonstrated varying levels of behavioral escape responses to different essential oils, showing a clear dose response depending on percent w/v concentration used. Orange oil produced the least response in both mosquito species, while citronella and clove the greatest. In general, Cx. quinquefasciatus exhibited much stronger behavioral responses to all four essential oils than Ae. aegypti. From this study, we conclude that the essential oils from various botanical sources should continue to be screened for protective properties against mosquitoes and other biting arthropods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In social dilemmas where personal benefits are in conflict with collective benefits, there is an incentive for people to behave non-cooperatively as free-riders. However, everyday observation reveals seemingly unselfish behavior or so-called "other-regarding behavior," which can be a motivation driving conservation decisions. This study presents evidence on how villagers behave in other-regarding games (the dictator game, trust game, and public good game), and how they behave in their actual collective actions in community conservation activities. Findings of the public good game had significant external validity with actual cooperative activities, suggesting that voluntary cooperation behavior plays a key role in real-life cooperative decision-making. However, none of the results of the answers to attitudinal trust questions provides any predictive value in estimating participation rates in conservation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]