Empty Fields Research Articles

Investigation of approaches to designing complex database structures in systems of integrated monitoring of environmental, economic, energy and social parameters of the territory

The object of research is the traditional and universal approach of designing the database structure in systems of integrated monitoring of ecological, economic, energy and social parameters of the territory, which include diverse data from various subject areas. In the course of the study, an analysis was performed based on a set of criteria such as scalability, ease of updating data, absence of empty fields, volume of the database, number of tables and fields, ease and speed of execution of requests for a sample set of indicators of the research object. The comparison of these approaches took place on the example of water resources monitoring, since it has several subsystems and a large number of indicators that are used for assessment. It is established that the proposed universal approach to designing complex database structures made it possible to reduce the volume of the database by 2.25 times due to the absence of empty fields. In particular, in the considered example, the filling factor of the database with the traditional approach is 1.75 times less than with the proposed universal approach. It should be noted that the rate of table filling for the traditional design approach can vary depending on the number of indicator values, while the table filling rate for the universal approach is always close to 100 %. Also, the proposed database design approach makes it possible to speed up data loading and processing. For example, with the same volume of significant information, the minimum speed of sampling the characteristics of one research object is 3.87 times greater in a database developed according to the principles of the universal approach than according to the rules of the traditional approach. The proposed structure of the database is successfully used in the system of complex eco-energy-economic monitoring. The developed structure of the database can serve as an effective basis for the formation of an electronic data bank at the level of the enterprise, region and country.

Pengujian Sistem Jaringan Dokumentasi Dan Informasi Menggunakan Black Box Testing Dan White Box Testing

Information systems in a company are important to increase productivity and quality in the company. With the development of technology today, it is certainly an convenience for companies in making information systems to support the performance of the company. To ensure the application runs according to functionality and find undiscovered errors in anticipation of upcoming errors, System testing is needed using Black Box and White Box to find errors in code structure and function errors in forms, interface design and data structures so that it can provide recommendations in accordance with the problems found and also facilitate program code maintenance or program code development in the future. From the test results, no problems were found in the login function and the majority of forms did not have handling to check empty input fields and obtained an effectiveness value of 62.5%..

Method of Redevelopment of Underground Mining Facilities

Mining is a set of industrial branches engaged in exploration, extraction, primary processing and obtaining the initial semi-finished product of elements related to minerals. Deposits are ore, non-metallic and alluvial. These deposits are mined by open pit and closed pit methods. After the end of underground operations, empty mine fields remain, which on the surface are labeled as exclusion zones. The problem of cave-in zones, under which the waste mine fields of the mining industry are located, has been particularly acute for decades. These mines are located not only under the industrial zones of populated areas, but also under residential and public areas and cause irreversible transformation of the natural environment, which leads to catastrophic consequences. Transformation of underground space is the main task of redevelopment of industrial areas of this kind. It is possible to build underground structures for other purposes in worked-out mines. Due to the fact that these structures will be maintained and operated, the change in the secondary stress fields in the mountain massif will not have such catastrophic consequences as in the case of alienation-collapse zones. Besides, the reuse of worked-out workings is economically more favorable due to the fact that sinking will be minimal. In this paper only underground mining complexes and the possibility of their reuse will be considered.

Source Attribution of Atmospheric Dust Deposition to Utah Lake

Atmospheric deposition (AD) is a significant source of nutrient loading to waterbodies around the world. However, the sources and loading rates are poorly understood for major waterbodies and even less understood for local waterbodies. Utah Lake is a eutrophic lake located in central Utah, USA, and has high-nutrient levels. Recent research has identified AD as a significant source of nutrient loading to the lake, though contributions from dust particles make up 10% of total AD. To better understand the dust AD sources, we sampled suspected source locations and collected deposition samples around the lake. We analyzed these samples using Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) for 25 metals to characterize their elemental fingerprints. We then compared the lake samples to the source samples to determine likely source locations. We computed spectral angle, coefficient of determination, multi-dimensional scaling, and radar plots to characterize the similarity of the samples. We found that samples from local dust sources were more similar to dust in lake AD samples than samples from distant sources. This suggests that the major source of the dust portion of AD onto Utah Lake is the local empty fields south and west of the lake, and not the farther playa and desert sources as previously suggested. Preliminary data suggest that dust AD is associated with dry, windy conditions and is episodic in nature. We show that AD from dust particles is likely a small portion of the overall AD nutrient loading on Utah Lake, with the dry and precipitation sources contributing most of the load. This case identifies AD sources to Utah Lake and provides an example of data and methods that can be used to assess similarity or perform attribution for dust, soil, and other environmental data. While we use ICP metals, any number of features can be used with these methods if normalized.

A stacking survey of gamma-ray pulsars

ABSTRACT We report on a likelihood-stacking search for γ-ray pulsars at 362 high-latitude locations that coincide with known radio pulsar positions. We observe a stacked signal conservatively 2.5σ over the background. Stacking their likelihood profiles in spectral parameter space implies a pulsar-like spectral index and a characteristic flux a factor of 2 below the Fermi Large Area Telescope point-source sensitivity, assuming isotropic/unbeamed emission from all sample pulsars. The same procedures performed on empty control fields indicate that the pulsars as a population can be distinguished from the background with a Δ(TS) = 28, where TS refers to test statistic, at the peak location (or 4.8σ), and the stacked spectra of the control fields are distinctly softer than those of the pulsars. This study also probes a unique region of parameter space populated by low $\dot{E}$ pulsars, most of which have no γ-ray ephemeris available, and is sensitive to high duty cycles. We also discuss the possible γ-ray emission mechanism from such pulsars.

Mitigating Climate Change Effects: A Global Approach

The following theses are claimed, several contrasting current climate policies and taxonomies. Analysis, based on solely carbon dioxide emission and energy budget, concludes a set of concrete solutions for mitigating climate change effects. Some of the theses violate more orthodox policy which is thus protested against in order to move forward. • Our long-term goal must be to stop using all carbon-containing fuels, including natural gas and other fossil products as well as biofuels. • We must electrify society and industry, with electricity from only non-carbon-based power including nuclear power, hydro-electric, wind and solar power. • We must prepare ourselves for changes. Even if the present emission volumes of carbon dioxide were possible to stop immediately, various lag effects are inevitable and negative development will therefore continue for considerable time. • We must count with continued melting of land ice, the complete liquifying of the Antarctica ice expected to lead to a global sea level rise by some 60 m, flooding most capitals. Among various solutions to mitigate the effects of ice melting, including lowered global temperatures, the following is proposed. • To mitigate sea level rise, stationary water reservoirs should be built around the world. With estimated melting rates it would require ca 1 million reservoirs be deployed or expanded during the next 20-40 years. • Such reservoirs could also solve the emergent problem of lack of fresh water in many places. They could also be used for local storage of hydroelectric energy by using pump storage hydroelectric (PSH) technology. • All energy production sources should be analyzed according to a Total Balanced Energy Budget (TBEB) with the main objective of minimizing the emissions of greenhouse gases. • For each region/country, a table of available or conceivable complementary electric energy sources should be made and ranked according to TBEB—the sources given priority weights depending on feasibility, significance, and environmental friendliness. Tables are presented for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, Ukraine, California, Massachusetts, Maine, Peru, Australia, China and Japan. Generally, we find the following rank of priority applicable. • Solar energy from desert arid areas is given highest priority in replacing carbon-based forms of energy. Submarine electric cables may be deployed along the Australia-Singapore model, if the available power grids are insufficient for the energy transport. • Electrolysis of water producing clean hydrogen gas is given very high priorityboth for using hydrogen as fuel as well as for energy storage. Improved efficiency should be achieved by the development of electrolysis catalysts. • Hydroelectric power in combination with PSH is given high priority to mitigate both grid power fluctuations as well as source (solar and wind) intermittence. • False hope should not be seeded among society and politicians by inflating projects that are less realistic or suboptimal for technological, economic or other reasons. Here, probably most forms of “biofuels” (which although being “carbon neutral” do produce carbon dioxide) and “carbon capture” (catching carbon dioxide gas at the combustion site, compressing it to liquid and depositing it in salt mines or empty oil fields) are considered less significant compared to other more direct solutions. Both biofuels and carbon capture may be associated with social and environmental issues. • Political legislation and instruments (“taxonomy”) invented with the original objective of mitigating negative climate change effects should be reanalyzed and changed if not functional. The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS)—a market for outlet rights, for example, is a local initiative which despite its valuable ambition might be suboptimal with respect to goal of efficient decrease of carbon dioxide emission globally. Similarly, “climate taxonomy” can create loopholes bypassing a sound TBEB. • Science-based targets (SBT) to decarbonize the private sector as part of global efforts to achieve the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement should be further encouraged. • Solve economic and political challenges allowing and promoting establishment of required international energy collaborations (e.g., for solar energy cross-continental transport programs).

THE EXPRESSION OF NUSANTARAN ARCHITECTURE IN SESAT AGUNG ARCHITECTURE

Abstract - As a visual language, architectural expressions can be understood through arrangements of its elements with certain patterns or techniques. According to Rob Krier (1988), the assessment of geometric expressions cannot be separated from the composition of architectural forms, including proportion, rhythm, ornament, shape, material, color and texture. Along the way, Tulang Bawang Barat, which was later abbreviated as Tubaba, became a stopover for migrants from various regions. Regent Umar Ahmad pursued the construction of Tulang Bawang Barat by building a mosque and a convention hall to fill the empty fields in Tulang Bawang Barat. The architectural expression of Balai Adat Sesat Agung – with its modernity – considered as success in reproducing historical and cultural identity of Nusantaran architecture. 
 In identifying the expressions of Nusantaran architecture, the analysis of Sesat Agung architecture is carried out in three areas: site, building, and structure. Through descriptive-analytical methods, this research begins by formulating the properties and compositions of Nusantaran architecture expressions forming through related theories, including Nusantaran architectural theory, concepts of properties and composition, and anatomy of architecture theory. Furthermore, the properties and composition of Sesat Agung are studied to identify the expressions of Nusantaran architecture which manifested in the architecture of the Balai Adat Sesat Agung. This study found that the architectural expression of the Sesat Agung has printed a new architectural identity in Tulang Bawang Regency. However, regardless of the form and the aesthetics it carries, one thing that is missing from Sesat Agung architecture is its spatial quality.
 
 Key Words: expression, Nusantaran architecture, Sesat Agung.

New Housing Concepts: Modular, Circular, Biobased, Reproducible, and Affordable

For a moment, it seemed that the architect had disappeared from the construction supply chain for sustainable and affordable housing provided by Dutch housing associations. Large contractors were making direct agreements with housing associations and wanted to scale up production with their housing factories. However, with the ‘So You Think You Can BUILD’ challenge, architects, consultancies, and contractors reinvented themselves within the construction supply chain and acquired a position as providers of circular building concepts. The aim of this challenge is to stimulate providers of homes to design and produce (in great numbers) affordable and sustainable houses. This not only scales up building production in empty fields but also within difficult and dense build urban areas. A whole new generation of Dutch architects, consultancies, and contractors working in collaboration are now intensively involved with circular and biobased residential buildings, innovative materials and production processes. They are managing to provide attractive products for housing associations and other clients. In the first part of 2021, ‘So You Think You Can BUILD’ challenged teams of designers, engineers and contractors to develop new concepts, with the three winners applying the principles of the ‘passive house’, which is modular and circular, as well as a smart building skin and smart core with open floor space in between.

Six Ways Satellites Tracked COVID-19

A new database reveals dimmer cities, empty farming fields, and vacant ports.

The Sheep

The Sheep Sallie Tisdale (bio) Shannon Airport was empty at 8:30 in the morning, just twenty of us stumbling off the red-eye from Toronto. A few dark-jacketed employees leaned on brooms to watch the fatigued arrivals. One pointed me to the bus for Limerick, where a small, gray-haired man waited. "I'm going to Shannon View Farm," I said, "Will you pass by there?" "Hurry, now, you've got 'aff an 'our to worry abou' thet!" he said and grabbed my backpack, hurrying me up the steps. The bus pulled out of the parking lot, barely faster than I could walk, with a wild clatter. I was gratified to see that the land was emerald after all—emerald and empty. Shannon View, I kept saying to myself, Mrs. Flynn, Bunratty, County Clare—Mrs. Flynn, who had written to me twice in perfect penmanship on lined stationery, and who was the only person whose name I knew in all of Ireland. Suddenly, the bus stopped and the little gray-haired man called to me–"Hurry, now!" and jumped off to get my pack from the baggage compartment. I was shivering with the fragments of long travel. "Where am I?" I cried, looking around at empty fields on either side of the road. "Down there!" he said, pointing at a narrow dirt lane. "Ye'll find it!" He was back on the bus before I could stop him. It was nothing like Mrs. Flynn had described. As I stood there wondering what to do, a small car drove up and stopped. "Are ye needin' help, then?" the driver called. "I'm going to Mrs. Flynn's," I told him. "Shannon View." "Ah, this is the wrong road!" he said. "Get in. I'll take ye there." We drove a few miles farther along, and there it was—a farmhouse, a white fence, the sign for Shannon View. When we stopped at the lane, he smiled again and put his hand on my knee, just to see, and I jumped out of the car and grabbed my pack and ran up Mrs. Flynn's driveway. "Ah, isn't it grand that you're here!" said Mrs. Flynn, and then she put me to bed between cold, white sheets. [End Page 156] I woke up from jet lag to the shock of cold, damp air, and the smell of stew. Arthur and Libby, a retired couple from Florida, were staying in one room, and a pair of silent German women in another. In the evening, we made small talk by the paltry fire. Then I went to my room and bundled up under the covers, my coat around my shoulders. It was wonderful here, I wrote in my journal, overwhelmed by loneliness, "just what I need to really rest." I was seventeen years old. The next day, I drove into Limerick with Arthur and Libby. Women who looked a little like my mother did their shopping with scarves tied under their chins, holding down stiff curls. Skinny men in sporting caps and dark suits pored over the football scores in the cramped cafés on the banks of the Shannon. We had tea and biscuits and I bought a copy of Harbison's Guide to the National Monuments of Ireland, secretly disdainful of Libby's touristy exclamations. Sharp young men, their hair slicked down and eyes bright with plans, prowled the streets past young women wearing Peter Pan blouses and full skirts and sensible heels. I had only jeans and hiking boots, and my long honey-brown hair hung loose. I looked incandescently foreign, and I was dismayed. I was finally a true outsider after working at it for years. ________ I had left my parents' home the year before, a teenaged autodidact with a broad vocabulary and a minor police record. Ten years of public school left me raw as a blister, bored, and full of fight. I didn't exactly drop out of high school; I just didn't go back. Instead, with the help of the court-mandated family counselor, I slipped into an experimental program at a nearby state university. It was called Living/Learning, and...

LAND USE CHANGES IN ÜSKÜDAR ACCORDING TO PERVİTİTCH MAPS

Developing technology, like all other sciences, also influenced the science of historical geography. Thanks to developing information technologies, research questions in history and geography have become more quantitative and complete. The aim of the study is to find the land and residential usage patterns of the Üsküdar in the 1930s and to compare them with today's land and residential usage patterns. The study consists of two stages. Firstly, the 1/200 scale map prepared by J. Pervititch in 1930-1935 was geo-referenced with ArcGIS 10.1.1 program, and land use patterns were made. In the second phase, Üsküdar's land use patterns were digitized and compared with the insurance maps prepared by J. Pervititch. As a result of this, in the Uskudar in the 1930s, the total area of places such as garden, garden, house, place of worship, cemetery, the floor elevations of the houses and the physical conditions (old, new, demolished, wood, reinforced concrete), change in usage patterns were determined. In the 1930s, green areas, which accounted for 36%, decreased. The main reason for this decrease is the disappearance of some cemeteries. On the other hand, the area occupied by the streets and streets has increased. The main reason for this is the construction of new streets and streets in empty fields. There have also been some changes in the characteristics of the roads over time. In the years 1930-1936, there were 142 dead-end streets in the study area. Today, the number of dead streets is 83. The business and trade area of the city was also determined from the Pervitich maps. Between the years 1930-1936, the center of the city is the Üsküdar Pier. In the years 1930-1936, while the majority of the buildings were 1-2 storeys, it is now 5-6 storey. In the 1930s, an important part of the buildings was old and the number of buildings under construction is only one. The reason for this situation is the political and economic conditions of the period.

Data Location Quality at GBIF

I will cover how the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) handles data quality issues, with specific focus on coordinate location issues, such as gridded datasets (Fig. 1) and country centroids. I will highlight the challenges GBIF faces identifying potential data quality problems and what we and others (Zizka et al. 2019) are doing to discover and address them. GBIF is the largest open-data portal of biodiversity data, which is a large network of individual datasets (> 40k) from various sources and publishers. Since these datasets are variable both within themselves and dataset-to-dataset, this creates a challenge for users wanting to use data collected from museums, smartphones, atlases, satellite tracking, DNA sequencing, and various other sources for research or analysis. Data quality at GBIF will always be a moving target (Chapman 2005), and GBIF already handles many obvious errors such as zero/impossible coordinates, empty or invalid data fields, and fuzzy taxon matching. Since GBIF primarily (but not exclusively) serves lat-lon location information, there is an expectation that occurrences fall somewhat close to where the species actually occurs. This is not always the case. Occurrence data can be hundereds of kilometers away from where the species naturally occur, and there can be multiple reasons for why this can happen, which might not be entirely obvious to users. One reasons is that many GBIF datasets are gridded. Gridded datasets are datasets that have low resolution due to equally-spaced sampling. This can be a data quality issue because a user might assume an occurrence record was recorded exactly at its coordinates. Country centroids are another reason why a species occurrence record might be far from where it occurs naturally. GBIF does not yet flag country centroids, which are records where the dataset publishers has entered the lat-long center of a country instead of leaving the field blank. I will discuss the challenges surrounding locating these issues and the current solutions (such as the CoordinateCleaner R package). I will touch on how existing DWCA terms like coordinateUncertaintyInMeters and footprintWKT are being utilized to highlight low coordinate resolution. Finally, I will highlight some other emerging data quality issues and how GBIF is beginning to experiment with dataset-level flagging. Currently we have flagged around 500 datasets as gridded and around 400 datasets as citizen science, but there are many more potential dataset flags.

The application of register of patients with diabetes mellitus for verifying causes of death

The register of patients with diabetes mellitus is appropriate to implement for specification of diagnoses of death of persons registered in this registry. The new version of "The record chart of registration and monitoring of patient with diabetes mellitus" increased information value of register for verifying causes of death at the expense of adding indices of organization of observation of diabetes mellitus and concretization of complications of diabetes mellitus. The information concerning development of complications of diabetes mellitus including the forms the most dangerous for life is very important for rectifying chain ofpathological conditions resulted in death and as a consequence proper determination of initial cause. However, a number of informational and organizational problems are to be resolved to implement information about patients with diabetes mellitus (and other chronic diseases) with purpose of verifying causes of death. First, it is reasonable to make information of specialized registers available to medical specialists providing medical care related to other diseases. The easiest way of searching patient in various registers and data bases is on the basis of one’s personal number of insurance certificate and individual taxation number. The application of two authenticators increases validity of the system of medical information interchange. Second, corrections are to be made in register ofpatients with diabetes mellitus. To correct the record chart of striking individuals with diabetes mellitus off the register can be implemented by two ways. One, to leave empty fields in column "immediate cause of death" and to add subsection "initial cause of death" transferring points of subsection 3.5 to the new subsection. Two, to substitute name of subsection 3.5 with "initial cause of death". Hence, the column "diseases that favored coming of death" is unnecessary in the register of patients with diabetes mellitus.

Analisis Tingkat Kerawanan Longsor Dengan Integrasi Analytical Hierarchy Process dan Pemodelan Spasial Sistem Informasi Geografis di Kabupaten Aceh Tenggara

<p>Southeast Aceh District in Aceh Province is a district that often experiences landslides. High rainfall (>1600 mm/year) and hilly areas with slope levels above 40% are also indicators of landslide vulnerability. The study aims to determine the criteria for the biggest contributors to landslide vulnerability using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and find out the distribution of landslide vulnerability in Southeast Aceh District by using spatial modeling using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Spatial data as a parameter in making landslide models includes 4 (four) parameters, they are land cover, rainfall, slope and soil movement. These parameters have sub-parameters such as land cover parameters that have sub-parameters, i.e empty land, shrubs, rice fields, fields/moor, gardens, settlements, rivers, secondary forests and primary forests. The slope parameters have sub-parameters i.e slope 0-8%, slope of 8-15%, slope of 15-25%, slope of 25-45%, slope> 45%. Rainfall parameters have sub-parameters which are 2,500-2,700 mm/yr, 2,700-2,900 mm/yr, 2,900-3,400 mm/ yr, 3,400-3,600 mm/yr and 3,600-3800 mm/yr. The parameters of soil motion have sub-parameters, i.e middle and middle high movements. These parameters and sub-parameters become questionnaires by Expert Choice 11 as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) software. This questionnaire then becomes an interview material for expert experts to determine the weight values (parameters) and scores (sub-parameters). The weight values and scores obtained from the Expert Choice 11 application are used by the ArcGIS 10.6 to create a spatial model of the distribution of landslide vulnerabilities. Research has produced spatial distribution of landslide vulnerability with a low level of vulnerability distribution of 209,523.56 ha (49%), moderate vulnerability of 158,170.14 ha (37%) and high vulnerability of 56,640.76 (13%)</p>

A Review of White Space Research

The white space in life is everywhere. White space refers to the blank, pages, charms, etc., which are empty, unfilled or undeveloped projects and fields. In this paper, the concept, function, related research of white space are described and discussed, and the research direction and relevant marketing suggestions are put forward, in order to provide useful inspiration for further research in this field.

Birdie..birdie.. come and let’s share our city

Humans have been dominating the urban areas with their abilities and unfavourably tend to have affected other living creatures. This paper directed how to acquire a place in the cities for creating opportunities for birds that live in the cities to live together with us. Several methods were applied emphasizing on Urban Rapid Biodiversity Assessment (RBA) which was adjusted for tropical environments. Vegetation structure, Domain value and the diversity of vascular plants are components determining the quality preference for birds. Results indicated that stream corridors were the best accommodating spaces with an average number of vascular plants was 27; the average number of existing vegetation structures amounted up to 7.00; the average of the total Domain values of all vegetation structures excluding buildings was 24.00 and the average of the total Domain value of all trees was 11.00. Furthermore there were as well empty fields, road corridors, institutional space, green spaces for the public, urban farms and wetlands. The quality of spaces for city birds could be more specific by adding additional filtering of size, ownership, and a development plan. Networking with natural areas would be more feasible if more space were included. Available spaces would be greater when the state of ownership was not limited, despite public spaces were much easier to manage.

What is the reality of wildlife trade volume? CITES Trade Database limitations

Five selected forms (claws, skins, skulls, teeth, and trophies) of American black bear (Ursus americanus) were used to demonstrate how variable the volume of total international trade can be based on different approaches. Records from the comparative tabulations of the CITES Trade Database were presented in three ways: (1) identical data from both the exporter and the importer (4%), (2) traded volume reported by the exporter and importer differed (21%), and (3) traded volume reported either by exporter or importer only (75%). Six types of calculations were used to assess the total trade volume of selected American black bear forms. Proportional deviances of alternatively calculated traded volumes from their respective maxima significantly differed between individual calculations. However, these deviances were consistent between forms. The average difference between maximum and minimum calculated traded volume was 63 ± 23%. The most striking difference was found in trophies, where this difference represented 108,269 trophies in absolute terms. Specific changes to improve the usability of the CITES Trade Database are recommended and include the following: (1) combining the permit number with export and import reports to allow unmistakable identification of the entire trade flow, (2) unambiguous specification of the method of calculating volumes of both gross and net trade tabulations in the database guide, (3) better specification and avoidance of possible confusion of terms (forms), and (4) prohibition of automatically assigning value to empty fields.

An Extraordinary Exhibition

An Extraordinary Exhibition Diane Goodman (bio) The End of Spectacle Virgina Konchan Carnegie Mellon Press www.cmu.edu/universitypress/ 72 Pages; Paper, $15.95 Erudite, elegant, beautiful, complex, lyrical, layered, challenging, profound. Not only do these words describe Virginia Konchan's new collection of poems, The End of Spectacle, but they also describe each and every poem within it. This collection is testimony to its author's mastery of her craft, where poem after poem offers up startling, original observations in splendid imagery and a musicality achieved through sharp attention to rhythm, cadence and tone. In a young contemporary voice that belongs to an old, very wise, soul, The End of Spectacle confronts loss and desire and hope in an extraordinary exhibition of how the past speaks to the right now. Konchan, whose poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, and Best New Poets (to name a very few; more than half of these poems previously appeared in literary journals) is the author of the short story collection Anatomical Gift (2017) and the chapbooks That Tree is Mine (2018) and Vox Populi (2015). In addition to poetry, Konchan has published translations, literary criticism and fiction. That Konchan possesses the intelligence and skill and artistry necessary to these endeavors—the balance and manipulation of meaning from language to language, graceful analysis, invention—is dazzlingly evident in her poems. The opening lines in The End of Spectacle—"The view from this tower is all / effluvium and waste…" from the poem "Fairy Tale"—lead to the closing lines from "Madonna and Child," "The illusion is almost complete" and in between, this collection reveals Konchan's inherent, intuitive understanding of how hard it is to navigate the "truth" of human experience, all demonstrated in her seemingly endless knowledge of history, music, art, literature, ancient culture, pop culture, faith and religion. No matter the subject, the poetic voice, or poetic form, there is an osmotic and symbiotic movement back and forth across what might at first seem like endless gulfs or polar opposites but the process and the journey end up affirming universal connections, the shared triumphs and tragedies across ages and cultures. From Monet and Gauguin to Jackson Pollock, from Jesus and Mary to Nabokov and Dolores Haze, from Scheherazade to Whitney Houston, these poems are an odyssey—individual and communal—of shared vulnerability and desire, a journey from history's example toward a sometimes helpless, sometimes willful refusal to learn from it, as evidenced in the poem, "It Is the Perpetual Today." It is the perpetual today, that which hashistorians runningthrough empty fields in white coats,taking the pulse of the world… The last doctrine is that of redistribution of matter.The item is a stick, and, at the end of the stick, a soul. Many of these poems end with the kind of revelation we see above; often, the reader makes the discoveries along with the poetic voice as in "The Red Kerchief (after Monet)" where, "Lightning zigzags across a starlit sky, / but I am stone cold, no, colder / than stone" or in the closing lines of "Façade," when, "Its edges warp. / Like a severed animal, / its essential parts cry / out—no, back—to me." The effect of this shared uncovering of perception between poet and reader contributes to one of the (many) great strengths of this collection—the communal act of trying to understand the complicated world. Images, questions, observations, examinations appear and reappear in the poems, contributing to the collective experience. In "Zsa Zsa Gabor Learns to Read," the speaker asks, "How does one represent thinking?" and it could be argued that nearly all of the poems here attempt an answer. In "O Noir," "You are led to the table of rhetoric / Its edges beveled and smooth" but a few poems later in "The Great Physician" (the title possibly hearkening back to the "historians…running in white coats" from "It Is the Perpetual Today"), the speaker declares, "A myth is not a fact. It's a haystack"; and, finally, in "Madonna and Child," the final poem, we find that "Ideas are things./And things don't fare much better." The End...

Entrainment of visual steady-state responses is modulated by global spatial statistics.

The rhythmic delivery of visual stimuli evokes large-scale neuronal entrainment in the form of steady-state oscillatory field potentials. The spatiotemporal properties of stimulus drive appear to constrain the relative degrees of neuronal entrainment. Specific frequency ranges, for example, are uniquely suited for enhancing the strength of stimulus-driven brain oscillations. When it comes to the nature of the visual stimulus itself, studies have used a plethora of inputs ranging from spatially unstructured empty fields to simple contrast patterns (checkerboards, gratings, stripes) and complex arrays (human faces, houses, natural scenes). At present, little is known about how the global spatial statistics of the input stimulus influence entrainment of scalp-recorded electrophysiological signals. In this study, we used rhythmic entrainment source separation of scalp EEG to compare stimulus-driven phase alignment for distinct classes of visual inputs, including broadband spatial noise ensembles with varying second-order statistics, natural scenes, and narrowband sine-wave gratings delivered at a constant flicker frequency. The relative magnitude of visual entrainment was modulated by the global properties of the driving stimulus. Entrainment was strongest for pseudo-naturalistic broadband visual noise patterns in which luminance contrast is greatest at low spatial frequencies (a power spectrum slope characterized by 1/ƒ-2).NEW & NOTEWORTHY Rhythmically modulated visual stimuli entrain the activity of neuronal populations, but the effect of global stimulus statistics on this entrainment is unknown. We assessed entrainment evoked by 1) visual noise ensembles with different spectral slopes, 2) complex natural scenes, and 3) narrowband sinusoidal gratings. Entrainment was most effective for broadband noise with naturalistic luminance contrast. This reveals some global properties shaping stimulus-driven brain oscillations in the human visual system.

Phenological Observations on Classical Prehistoric Sites in the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yellow River Based on Landsat NDVI Time Series

Buried archeological features show up as crop marks that are mostly visible using high-resolution image data. Such data are costly and restricted to small regions and time domains. However, a time series of freely available medium resolution imagery can be employed to detect crop growth changes to reveal subtle surface marks in large areas. This paper aims to study the classical Chinese settlements of Taosi and Erlitou over large areas using Landsat NDVI time series crop phenology to determine the optimum periods for detection and monitoring of crop anomalies. Burial areas (such as the palace area and the sacrificial area) were selected as the research area while the surrounding empty fields with a low density of ancient features were used as reference regions. Landsat NDVI covering two years’ growth periods of wheat and maize were computed and analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and Euclidean distance. Similarities or disparities between the burial areas and their empty areas were computed using the Hausdorff distance. Based on the phenology of crop growth, the time series NDVI images of winter wheat and summer maize were generated to analyze crop anomalies in the archeological sites. Results show that the Hausdorff distance was high during the critical stages of water for both crops and that the images of high Hausdorff distance can provide more obvious subsurface archeological information.