Search

Laryngeal echolocation in bats could have evolved following two scenarios: a single origin from a common ancestor or an independent acquisition inside the two clades Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera. Later, some members of Yinpterochiroptera possibly lost their ability to echolocate. In bats, the larynx produces vocalizations for communication and, in most species, for echolocation. Here, we describe how comparative chiropteran laryngeal morphology is a novel area of research that could improve the understanding of echolocation and may help resolve the evolutionary history of bats. This review provides morphological descriptions and comparisons of the bat larynx and bioacoustics interpretations. We discuss the importance of understanding: (1) laryngeal sound production so it may be linked with the evolution of the chiropteran auditory system; and (2) the evolution of laryngeal morphology to understand the ecological and behavioural aspects of bat biology. We find that a strong phylogenetic signal is potentially the main source explaining macroevolutionary variation in laryngeal form among bats. We predict that the three parameters of sound production in echolocation (frequency, intensity, and rate of calls) are independently modulated by different laryngeal components, but this hypothesis remains understudied in terms of species diversity.

We examine the claim that virtual reality (VR) holds significant potential for pedagogical applications in geography. We do so with reference to results from a two-year research-teaching project embedded in a postgraduate course on “Heritage and Its Management.” We reflect on the implementation of a VR field trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum enabled by the high-immersive Inside Auschwitz guided documentary, drawing on surveys and interviews held with students after their participation in the field trip. We found that VR technology may work as a (dis)inhibitor and provided users with a sense of social and temporal freedom to explore sites but in combination with a new set of spatial and perceptual constraints. The VR field trip generated curiosity about the “details” of the site, but we argue that learning with and through VR technology only became possible via active bodily adaptations and renewed understandings of bodily capacities and their inequalities. We conclude that VR works most effectively if conceived not as a journey into a self-contained virtual realm but instead as a spatial prompt designed to provoke new questions for students already on the path to developing geographical understandings and imaginations related to specific sites.

The morphology of the stylohyal-tympanic bone articulation found in laryngeally echolocating bats is highly indicative of a function associated with signal production. One untested hypothesis is that this morphology allows the transfer of a sound signal from the larynx to the tympanic bones (auditory bulla) via the hyoid apparatus during signal production by the larynx. We used µCT data and finite element analysis to model the propagation of sound through the hyoid chain into the tympanic bones to test this hypothesis. We modeled sound pressure (dB) wave propagation from the basihyal to the tympanic bones, vibratory behavior (m) of the stylohyal-tympanic bone unit, and the stylohyal and tympanic bones when the stylohyal bone is allowed to pivot on the tympanic bone. Sound pressure wave propagation was modeled using the harmonic acoustics solver in ANSYS and vibratory behavior was modeled using coupled modal and harmonic response analyses in ANSYS. For both analyses (harmonic acoustics and harmonic response), the input excitation on the basihyal and thyrohyals was modeled as the estimated pressure (Pa) imposed by the collision of the vibrating thyroid cartilage of the larynx against these bones during signal production. Our models support the hypothesis that this stereotypical hyoid morphology found in laryngeally echolocating bats can transfer sound to the auditory bullae at an amplitude that is likely heard for the species Artibeus jamaicensis and Rhinolophus pusillus.

Using imaging spectroscopy (hyperspectral imaging), we sought to assess the effects of image pixel resolution, size of mapping windows composed of pixels, and number of spectral species assigned to pixels on the capacity to map plant beta diversity using the biodivMapR algorithm, in support of the planned NASA Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) satellite remote sensing mission. BiodivMapR classifies pixels as spectral species, then calculates beta diversity as dissimilarity of spectral species among mapping windows each composed of multiple pixels. We used NEON airborne 1 m resolution hyperspectral images collected at three sites representing native longleaf pine ecosystems in the southeastern U.S. and aggregated pixels to sizes ranging from 1-90 m for comparative analyses. Plant community composition was groundtruthed. Results show that the capacity to detect plant beta diversity decreases with fewer pixels per mapping window, such that pixel resolution limits the size of mapping windows effective for representing beta diversity. Mapping window size in turn limits the spatial resolution of beta diversity maps composed of mapping windows. Assigning too few pixels per window, as well as assigning too many spectral species per image, results in overestimation of dissimilarity among locations that have plant species in common. This overestimation undermines the capacity to contrast mapping window dissimilarity within versus among community types and reduces the information content of beta diversity maps. These results demonstrate the advantage of maximizing spatial resolution of hyperspectral imaging instruments on the anticipated NASA SBG satellite mission and similar remote sensing projects.

In this abbreviated extract of his memoirs of a life in malaria research, Richard Carter (1945-2021) describes the expansion and genetic characterisation of the rodent malaria parasite collection in Edinburgh, culminating in the description of four species, Plasmodium yoelii, Plasmodium berghei, Plasmodium chabaudi and Plasmodium vinckei, and the separation of these into multiple sub-species. The origins of the use of P. chabaudi for the investigation of the genetic determinants of drug resistance in malaria parasites is discussed.

Until recently, bat phylogeny separated megabats (laryngeally non-echolocators) and microbats (all laryngeal echolocators) into two distinct clades. This segregation was consistent with the assumption that laryngeal echolocation was acquired by a common ancestor and inherited by all microchiropterans. Thus, laryngeal echolocation was regarded to have evolved once. Recent advances in bat genome sequencing have added insights regarding the origin of bats and their phylogenetic relationships. The megabats previously thought to be phylogenetically isolated are now sharing a common ancestor with the superfamily Rhinolophoidea, which is constituted of laryngeal echolocators. This new relationship brings a counterpoint regarding the hypothesis of single origin of echolocation, which could have appeared several times independently. Concomitantly, recent studies in bat evolutionary developmental biology have illuminated the importance of characters from embryonic development to discussions of how and when echolocation evolved. Here, we describe how comparative chiropteran laryngeal morphology is a novel area of research that could improve the understanding of echolocation and may help resolve the evolutionary history of bats. This review provides morphological descriptions and comparisons of the larynx, bioacoustics interpretations, and newly developed visualisation approaches (i.e., contrast-enhanced computed tomography). We discuss the importance of understanding (1) laryngeal sound production so it may be linked with the evolution of the Chiropteran auditory system and (2) the evolution of laryngeal morphology to understand the ecological and behavioural aspects of bat biology.

Intelligent digital assistants, such as products like Amazon’s Alexa, are becoming more prolific and available as time progresses. This work reports on the process of developing applications, refered to by Alexa as ’skills,’ to support in-service professional development for teachers. The precedent of allowing Alexa to be utilized within the classroom, but not necessarily for teachers’ skill development, is explored to contextualize the application of the technology as a professional development modality. Across the entire content development spectrum – spanning script writing to deployment and release – lessons are presented from experience to assist future teams embarking on the process in the hopes they are able to avoid repeating the problems encountered by this research team. Finally, a general discussion relating to the future of intelligent digital assistants and their applications to professional development is presented with the intent of provoking discussion and setting the stage for more rigorous investigations into the usability, efficacy, and results of this technology. Published version

Premise With digitization and data sharing initiatives underway over the last 15 years, an important need has been prioritizing specimens to digitize. Because duplicate specimens are shared among herbaria in exchange and gift programs, we investigated the extent to which unique biogeographic data are held in small herbaria vs. these data being redundant with those held by larger institutions. We evaluated the unique specimen contributions that small herbaria make to biogeographic understanding at county, locality, and temporal scales. Methods We sampled herbarium specimens of 40 plant taxa from each of eight states of the United States of America in four broad status categories: extremely rare, very rare, common native, and introduced. We gathered geographic information from specimens held by large (≥100,000 specimens) and small (

The second anthology of perspectives on the future of text, one of our most important mediums for thinking and communicating. Foreword by the founder of the modern Library of Alexandria, Ismail Serageldin. With astounding developments in computer special effects in movies and the emergence of powerful AI, text has developed little beyond spellcheck and blue links. In this work we look at myriads of perspectives to inspire a rich future of text through contributions from academia, the arts, business & tech. Ismail Serageldin • Frode Hegland • Alexandra Saemmer • Ann Bessemans • Barbara Tversky • Robert E. “Bob” Horn • Bob Stein • Brendan Langen • Daniel Berleant • Daveed Benjamin • Erik Vlietinck • Fabian Wittel & David Felsmann • Fabio Brazza • Faith Lawrence • Imogen Reid • Jad Esber • Jamie Joyce • Jay Hooper • Jeffrey Chan • Jessica Rubart • Joe Devlin • John Hockenberry • Jonathan Finn • Karl Hebenstreit, Jr. • Kyle Booten • Lesia Tkacz • Luc Beaudoin • Mark Anderson • Megan Ma • Niels Ole Finnemann • Peter Wasilko • Philippe Bootz • Rafael Nepô • Richard A. Carter • Rob Haisfield • Sam Brooker • Sam Winston • Sarah Walton • Stephen Fry • Tim Brookes • Vinton G. Cerf • Yohanna Joseph Waliya This is a Future of Text initiative, along with the software Author & Reader: www.augmentedtext.info

In this abbreviated extract of his memoirs of a life in malaria research, Richard Carter (1945-2021) describes the beginnings of malaria parasite genetics research at Edinburgh university, culminating in the first laboratory genetic cross between two strains of malaria parasites. EDITORS' NOTE: This manuscript is an abridged excerpt from Richard Carter's first volume of memoirs describing his career in malaria research. Both volumes, the first concerning malaria parasite genetics, the second focussing on transmission and transmission blocking, are housed in the Wellcome Collection, London [1,2]. Electronic copies of the unabridged memoirs are available to the interested reader upon request to the Editors. These memoirs began as a series of 'recollections' written to a PhD student in March 2014, and were expanded and revised by the author up to 2018. Apart from abridgement, the text is presented in its original form, preserving the informal style in which it was written.

In this abbreviated extract of his memoirs of a life in malaria research, Richard Carter (1945-2021) describes the history of the first genetic cross with the human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. This work followed on from Richard's initial involvement in the establishment of the field of malaria parasite genetics using the malaria parasites of rodents, the history of which is recounted in Parts I [1] and II [2] of this series. EDITORS' NOTE: This manuscript is an abridged excerpt from Richard Carter's first volume of memoirs describing his career in malaria research. Both volumes, the first concerning malaria parasite genetics, the second focussing on transmission and transmission blocking, are housed in the Wellcome Collection, London [3,4]. Electronic copies of the unabridged memoirs are available to the interested reader upon request to the Editors.

The first Water Decade aimed to serve everyone with safe drinking water by 1990. More than three decades later, the task is far from finished; it is now abundantly clear that it will take more time — in some countries much more time — than the 15 years of the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the United Nations declaration that no-one would be left behind, without step-changes in commitment, know-how, and resources, many rural households will still be struggling for their daily water supply in 2030 and beyond. In this book, Richard Carter weaves together the myriad of factors that need to come together to make rural water supply truly available to everyone. Sustainable water supply for all requires sound stewardship of water resources, good quality physical infrastructure, and management and financing arrangements that are equally fit-for-purpose. In many countries, systemic change is needed. Ultimately, radical changes to the global web of injustice that divides this world into rich and poor may be the only way to address the underlying problems.

COVID‐19 has radically changed the higher education sector in Australia and beyond. Restrictions on student movement (especially for international students) and on gatherings (which limited on‐campus sessions) saw universities transition to fully online teaching modes almost overnight. In this commentary, we reflect on this transition and consider the implications for teaching the disciplines of geography and planning. Reflecting on experiences at the Department of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University, we explore a series of challenges, responses and opportunities for teaching core disciplinary skills and knowledge across three COVID‐19 moments: transition, advocacy, and hybridity. Our focus is on the teaching of core disciplinary skills and knowledge and specifically on geographical theory, methods, and fieldwork and professional practice skills. In drawing on this case from Macquarie University, we offer insights for the future of teaching geography and planning in universities more broadly.

Recent literature in camp geographies has sought to emphasize the significance of political agency among camp residents, particularly in refugee camps, as part of a critical reaction against the highly influential Agambenian conceptual vocabulary of exception and bare life. The concept of community has been integral to this body of work, with diverse accounts of the camp implicitly or explicitly positioning community as the natural scale through which camp resident and inmate agency is formulated, and yet there has hitherto been little research reflecting directly on the meaning that community takes on in the specific context of the camp. In this article we adopt Roberto Esposito's critique of the concept of community to problematize the assumption that camp communities necessarily constitute a space of empowerment and agency for camp residents and inmates. Drawing on Esposito's genealogical account of communitas (2010), whereby community is encountered not in terms of a property shared among individuals but instead as the loss of individuality and other forms of ‘the proper’, we suggest that the implementation of community, while generative of agency, is also fundamental to camp authorities and related regimes of power. Furthermore, we argue that the operation of camp communities includes its own forms of politics that are specific to the exceptional space of the camp and that potentially expose individuals to violence. We develop this argument through an experimental reading of communitas in relation to the two empirical contexts that have been most influential on the trajectory of camp studies within geographical debates, the concentration camp and the refugee camp, represented in this paper by Auschwitz and the contemporary archipelago of Serbian refugee camps respectively. The ambivalent account of power relationships emerging from these readings suggests that Esposito's rendering of community may have important analytic value in investigating the complexity of camp spatialities and the distinctive co-articulation of power and agency therein.

The chapter focuses on the fortune of the concept of community in contemporary geography. In particular, we argue that the community debate is currently unproblematized. “Community” is assumed to be a positive, emancipatory concept, both at the national and the local scale. The reactionary and repressive dimension of communitarianism is hence relinquished as marginal or residual, as the failure of a concept that is intrinsically positive. To deconstruct these assumptions, we turn to a critical understanding of the community that involves philosophers Roberto Esposito, Maurice Blanchot, and Giorgio Agamben. In this philosophical journey, we envisage a new possibility for geography to engage with an affirmative community. Only a geography that accepts a void, empty space at the inner core of the community can escape the exclusionary outcome of communitarianism.

We present two analysis methods for measuring stress induced birefringence in bonded optics. These processes were used to measure the stress induced birefringence of direct laser bonded and adhesive bonded BK7 to aluminum. .

We present the successful welding of undoped YAG to an aluminum silicon alloy. The laser welding parameters were optimized in terms of shear strength.

This book is the first anthology of perspectives on the future of text, one of our most important mediums for thinking and communicating, with a Foreword by the co-inventor of the Internet, Vint. Cerf and a Postscript by the founder of the modern Library of Alexandria, Ismail Serageldin. In a time with astounding developments in computer special effects in movies and the emergence of powerful AI, text has developed little beyond spellcheck and blue links. In this work we look at myriads of perspectives to inspire a rich future of text through contributions from academia, the arts, business and technology. We hope you will be as inspired as we are as to the potential power of text truly unleashed. Contributions by Adam Cheyer • Adam Kampff • Alan Kay • Alessio Antonini • Alex Holcombe • Amaranth Borsuk • Amira Hanafi • Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. • Anastasia Salter • Andy Matuschak & Michael Nielsen • Ann Bessemans & María Pérez Mena • Andries Van Dam • Anne-Laure Le Cunff • Anthon Botha • Azlen Ezla • Barbara Beeton • Belinda Barnet • Ben Shneiderman • Bernard Vatant • Bob Frankston • Bob Horn • Bob Stein • Catherine C. Marshall • Charles Bernstein • Chris Gebhardt • Chris Messina • Christian Bök • Christopher Gutteridge • Claus Atzenbeck • Daniel Russel • Danila Medvedev • Danny Snelson • Daveed Benjamin • Dave King • Dave Winer • David De Roure • David Jablonowski • David Johnson • David Lebow • David M. Durant • David Millard • David Owen Norris • David Price • David Weinberger • Dene Grigar • Denise Schmandt-Besserat • Derek Beaulieu • Doc Searls • Don Norman • Douglas Crockford • Duke Crawford • Ed Leahy • Elaine Treharne • Élika Ortega • Esther Dyson • Esther Wojcicki • Ewan Clayton • Fiona Ross • Fred Benenson & Tyler Shoemaker • Galfromdownunder, aka Lynette Chiang • Garrett Stewart • Gyuri Lajos • Harold Thimbleby • Howard Oakley • Howard Rheingold • Ian Cooke • Iian Neil • Jack Park • Jakob Voß • James Baker • James O’Sullivan • Jamie Blustein • Jane Yellowlees Douglas • Jay David Bolter • Jeremy Helm • Jesse Grosjean • Jessica Rubart • Joe Corneli • Joel Swanson • Johanna Drucker • Johannah Rodgers • John Armstrong • John Cayle • John-Paul Davidson • Joris J. van Zundert • Judy Malloy • Kari Kraus & Matthew Kirschenbaum • Katie Baynes • Keith Houston • Keith Martin • Kenny Hemphill • Ken Perlin • Leigh Nash • Leslie Carr • Lesia Tkacz • Leslie Lamport • Livia Polanyi • Lori Emerson • Luc Beaudoin & Daniel Jomphe • Lynette Chiang • Manuela González • Marc-Antoine Parent • Marc Canter • Mark Anderson • Mark Baker • Mark Bernstein • Martin Kemp • Martin Tiefenthaler • Maryanne Wolf • Matt Mullenweg • Michael Joyce • Mike Zender • Naomi S. Baron • Nasser Hussain • Neil Jefferies • Niels Ole Finnemann • Nick Montfort • Panda Mery • Patrick Lichty • Paul Smart • Peter Cho • Peter Flynn • Peter Jenson & Melissa Morocco • Peter J. Wasilko • Phil Gooch • Pip Willcox • Rafael Nepô • Raine Revere • Richard A. Carter • Richard Price • Richard Saul Wurman • Rollo Carpenter • Sage Jenson & Kit Kuksenok • Shane Gibson • Simon J. Buckingham Shum • Sam Brooker • Sarah Walton • Scott Rettberg • Sofie Beier • Sonja Knecht • Stephan Kreutzer • Stephanie Strickland • Stephen Lekson • Stevan Harnad • Steve Newcomb • Stuart Moulthrop • Ted Nelson • Teodora Petkova • Tiago Forte • Timothy Donaldson • Tim Ingold • Timur Schukin & Irina Antonova • Todd A. Carpenter • Tom Butler-Bowdon • Tom Standage • Tor Nørretranders • Valentina Moressa • Ward Cunningham • Dame Wendy Hall • Zuzana Husárová. Student Competition Winner Niko A. Grupen, and competition runner ups Catherine Brislane, Corrie Kim, Mesut Yilmaz, Elizabeth Train-Brown, Thomas John Moore, Zakaria Aden, Yahye Aden, Ibrahim Yahie, Arushi Jain, Shuby Deshpande, Aishwarya Mudaliar, Finbarr Condon-English, Charlotte Gray, Aditeya Das, Wesley Finck, Jordan Morrison, Duncan Reid, Emma Brodey, Gage Nott, Aditeya Das and Kamil Przespolewski. Edited by Frode Hegland.