The global problem of biological invasions will continue escalating, given inadequate biosecurity worldwide. Developing stringent biosecurity is hindered by the lacking essential information on the ...global flows of alien species, especially alien species accidentally transported and neglected by biosecurity due to inapparent economic significance. We provide evidence and new perspectives on the temporal, geographical, taxonomic, and transport sub-pathway dimensions of the global flows of neglected alien species, using alien amphibians and reptiles (“herpetofauna”) accidentally transported to New Zealand as a case study (2610 records from 1929 to 2021). We decomposed and forecasted the alien herpetofauna transport frequency using locally-weighted smoothing and dynamic regression modelling. We explored geographical patterns of the alien herpetofauna origins and destinations, and explored temporal trends in species diversity. Finally, we analysed a species×transport sub-pathway network to elucidate the diversity of sub-pathways used by alien herpetofauna. Alien herpetofauna transport frequency is generally increasing, with fluctuations coinciding with changes in biosecurity and economic expansion and recessions. The most recent decline was during the COVID-19 recession, but we forecast transport to recover. Two hundred and forty-three alien herpetofauna worldwide arrived at ports of entry across New Zealand. Alien herpetofauna were accidentally transported through 13 sub-pathways, primarily as stowaways in 'personal effects and household goods', and in 'machinery, vehicles, and equipment'. Our study illuminates that neglected alien species' transport frequency, spatial extent of origins and destinations, species diversity, and accidental transport sub-pathways are hugely underestimated and dynamic. These crucial oversights in the global flows of alien species significantly impede biosecurity worldwide.
This article posits an expanded conceptualisation of disaster communities. It extends previous research on disaster and media ecology by reflecting broader understandings of disaster but articulates ...a new analytical framework that recognises both their global dimensions and local contexts. When theorising disaster communities, we present a framework that unpacks the social, institutional and mediated points of connection that are characteristic of these communities and their communicative dynamics. These ties, we argue, are not defined solely by a shared geography but instead expand beyond this through the emergence of spontaneous connections that often emerge in response to disasters and their drivers. Moreover, these connections may also demonstrate a greater degree of permanency, provide boundary definitions and strengthen identity for these communities. Importantly, we recognise how media and journalism can create both new interrelations and consolidate existing points of connection for disaster communities and elaborate on the dynamics and composition of these mediated ties. The article closes by presenting avenues for future research to explore points of connection for disaster communities, in particular those established and consolidated by media, and the contribution of community approaches within the context of the globalised nature of disaster and their drivers.
Globalization is now at its most disjunctive phase in human history. The planetary COVID-19 crisis has combined with the vulnerabilities of global capitalism to break down social routines. Yet, the ...current moment of the Great Unsettling also offers a critical opportunity to take stock of the present state of globalization. To this end, this article revisits and re-engages some pertinent themes raised in the pathbreaking 1990 TCS Global Culture issue. In particular, the article explores the crucial role of structural divergences that have been developing among major formations of globalization. Gaining a better understanding of the current globalization system requires a new conceptual framework that captures different formations of globalization, ranging from the embodied to the disembodied. The multiple disjunctive relationships that have developed among and within these formations shape not only the morphology of the contemporary globalization system but also cast a long shadow on its future dynamics.
The 2002 'glonacal' paper described higher education as a multi-scalar sector where individual and institutional agents have open possibilities and causation flows from any of the interacting local, ...national and global scales. None
have permanent primacy: global activity is growing; the nation-state is crucial in policy, regulation and funding; and like the other scales, the local scale in higher education and knowledge is continually being remade and newly
invented. The glonacal paper has been widely used in higher education studies, though single-scale nation-bound methods still have a strong hold. Drawing on insights from human geography and selected empirical studies, the present paper
builds on the glonacal paper in a larger theorization of space and scale. It describes how material elements, imagination and social practices interact in making space, which is the sphere of social relations; it discusses multiplicity
in higher education space and sameness/different tensions; and it takes further the investigation of one kind of constructed space in higher education, its heterogenous scales (national, local, regional, global etc.). The paper reviews
the intersections between scales, especially between national and global, the ever-changing ordering of scales, and how agents in higher education mix and match scales. It also critiques ideas of fixed scalar primacy such as
methodological nationalism and methodological globalism - influential in studies of higher education but radically limiting of what can be imagined and practised. Ideas matter. The single-scale visions and scale-driven universals must be
cleared away to bring a fuller geography of higher education to life. Author abstract
Buenaventura, Colombia's rapidly expanding Pacific port, is simultaneously a city of violence. Focusing the linkages between local violence and the port economy, this contribution explores the role ...the port's global interconnections play for Buenaventura as a site of violence. In which ways does everyday violence shape urban spatial practices, particularly movement? How do every day coping strategies, reacting to a violent context, produce urban space? I suggest an analysis that links the production of urban space through everyday practices to the notion of violence as inherent to urban power relations on the one, and to the role of global flows of goods in urban space on the other hand. The main argument is that, global interconnections through the port are not decoupled from, but rather constitute a condition for violence in Buenaventura, particularly in neighbourhoods next to port terminals. This urban space is constituted both by daily violence and by stretching along global supply chains. Both violence and the secured, off-access port spaces shape, transform and limit inhabitants' mobility, while they enable global flows. I identify coping strategies such as mapping safe spaces, accompaniment, adaptation of movement to zig-zag patterns, and organised spatial strategies. The article contributes to recent debates on violence and the everyday, and urban space shaped by violent global-local encounters.
Corporate and public actors have built the physical and financial flows of petroleum into the very landscape. This article identifies different layers of those flows— physical, represented, and ...everyday practices—that combine into a palimpsestic global petroleumscape. It posits that these layers historically became essential parts of modern society and of citizens’ everyday lives. Resulting path dependencies and an energy culture help maintain the buildings and urban forms needed for physical and financial oil flows and celebrate oil as a heroic cultural agent, in a feedback loop that leads societies to consume more oil. Following a general analysis, the article uses the Rotterdam/The Hague area, part of the North West European petroleum hub, as a case study of this feedback loop. Only in appreciating the power and extent of oil can we engage with the complex emerging challenges of sustainable design, policy making, heritage, and future built environments beyond oil.
This paper applies Appadurai’s notion of scapes in globalisation to study international student mobility. Thirty mainland Chinese students were interviewed; the majority of whom studied at ...prestigious institutions in the West before enrolling in their current PhD programmes at a research-intensive university in Hong Kong (HK) in the immediate aftermath of HK’s large-scale social protests and amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. We seek to understand why these students relocated to HK to further their studies given these turbulent circumstances and how their mainlander identity and sojourns in the West influence their perceptions of HK’s social movements from the perspectives of ethnoscape and ideoscape, respectively. Our findings reveal that HK represented the ‘best’ compromise for our participants, mitigating their nostalgia for home (i.e. mainland China) whilst offering a superior education to the Chinese mainland. Most participants perceived HK as a nationalistic ideoscape, wherein HK people’s pursuit of autonomy is subordinated to the putative Chinese national interests. Moreover, ethnoscape and ideoscape dynamics were found to crisscross other scapes. Generous scholarships (i.e. financescape) provided additional incentives driving student relocations. The persistent consumption of Chinese social media (techno-mediascape) was found to have resulted in worldview conformity between our participants and the Chinese state.
Sobolev active contours SUNDARAMOORTHI, Ganesh; YEZZI, Anthony; MENNUCCI, Andrea C
International journal of computer vision,
07/2007, Letnik:
73, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
All previous geometric active contour models that have been formulated as gradient flows of various energies use the same L ^sup 2^-type inner product to define the notion of gradient. Recent work ...has shown that this inner product induces a pathological Riemannian metric on the space of smooth curves. However, there are also undesirable features associated with the gradient flows that this inner product induces. In this paper, we reformulate the generic geometric active contour model by redefining the notion of gradient in accordance with Sobolev-type inner products. We call the resulting flows Sobolev active contours. Sobolev metrics induce favorable regularity properties in their gradient flows. In addition, Sobolev active contours favor global translations, but are not restricted to such motions; they are also less susceptible to certain types of local minima in contrast to traditional active contours. These properties are particularly useful in tracking applications. We demonstrate the general methodology by reformulating some standard edge-based and region-based active contour models as Sobolev active contours and show the substantial improvements gained in segmentation.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
The origins, influence and perspectivisation of American hip hop can be traced to African American locational references to the 'hood'. The global diffusion of hip hop ensures that the 'hood' ...identity is continually localised and appropriated within emergent localities. Within Nigerian hip hop culture, the 'street' is a site for asserting identity, as well as for recurring locations, ideas and shared experiences of authentication and credibility. This article contextualises the street and its forms of enactment in selected Nigerian hip hop songs to help understand mass-mediated identities. Relying on a theoretical framework based on Bourdieu's social theory of agency and Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, the study concludes that the framing of the street is expressed through multiple modes, including linguistics (slang), locational references (places), the glorification of materialism, and the psychological fixation on attitudes (sex, drugs and alcohol), which together accentuate the exotic essence and flavour of street-conscious Nigerian music.
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