Northeast Corner Research Articles

ASTRONOMY WITH SMALL TELESCOPES

We have designed and built three cost effective observatories, in distinct models, which can house Schmidt-Cassegrain type small telescopes having aperture sizes up to 16 inches. Using the available small telescopes, we provided the people of Manipura State in the far north-east corner of India the opportunity to observe directly with their own eyes the rare, spectacular events of the solar eclipse of January 15, 2010, lunar eclipse of December 10, 2011 and the transit of Venus of June 6, 2012. Apart from sharing a platform with the public for astronomy education and popularization through public outreach programs such as workshops, seminars and night watch programs, we have also developed a laboratory infrastructure and gained expertise in observational techniques based on photoelectric photometry, CCD imaging, CCD photometry and spectroscopy. Our team has become a partner in the ongoing international 'Orion project' headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, USA which will be producing high quality photometric and spectroscopic data for five stars in the Orion constellation, namely Betelgeuse (alpha Orionis), Rigel (beta Orionis), Mintaka (delta Orionis), Alnilam (epsilon Orionis) and Alnitak (zeta Orionis). In the present paper, the authors would like to give a detailed report of their activities for the growth of astronomy in the state of Manipur, India.

Using several monitoring techniques to measure the rock mass deformation in the Montserrat Massif

Montserrat Mountain is located near Barcelona in Catalonia, at the north-east corner of Spain, and its massif is formed by conglomerate interleaved by siltstone/sandstone with steep slopes very prone to rock falls. The increasing visitor's number in the monastery area, reaching 2.4 million per year, has pointed out the risk derived from rock falls for this building area and also for the terrestrial accesses, both roads and rack railway. A risk mitigation plan is currently been applied for 2014-2016 that contains monitoring testing and implementation as a key point. The preliminary results of the pilot tests carried out during 2014 are presented, also profiting from previous sparse experiences and data, and combining 4 monitoring techniques under different conditions of continuity in space and time domains, which are: displacement monitoring with Ground-based Synthetic Aperture Radar and characterization at slope scale, with an extremely non uniform atmospheric phase screen because of the stepped topography and atmosphere stratification; Terrestrial Laser Scanner surveys quantifying frequency for unnoticed activity of small rock falls, and monitoring rock block displacements over 1cm; monitoring of rock joints with a wireless net of sensors; and tentative surveying for singular rocky needles with Total Station.

Mantle flow at the highly arcuate northeast corner of the Lesser Antilles subduction zone: Constraints from shear-wave splitting analyses

Seismic anisotropy is used to investigate deformation in subduction zones, where many dynamic processes are at play. Recently, a global pattern of trench-parallel subslab mantle deformation in subduction zones has emerged through shear-wave splitting measurements. We investigated the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean to find that the northeast corner of the subduction zone presents an interesting setting in which to observe seismic anisotropy, where the trench-parallel subslab splitting signal may become complicated due to oblique subduction. Here, we present 201 shear-wave splitting measurements of SKS and SKKS phases from teleseismic events recorded at 20 broadband seismic stations in the northeastern Caribbean. We observe average apparent fast polarization directions (ϕ) that are primarily trench-parallel, with average delay times (δ t ) ranging from 0.5 s to 2.0 s. Our results suggest trench-parallel mantle flow is continuous along the northeastern plate boundary where the Lesser Antilles subduction zone changes strike from nearly east-west trending to north-south trending. Our preferred explanation for the observed splitting pattern is that the dominant process is subslab mantle return flow.

Communities of practice in the management of an Arctic environment: monitoring knowledge as complementary to scientific knowledge and the precautionary principle?

ABSTRACTThis article addresses knowledge management in governing vulnerable polar areas and tourism. Since the 1870s, Svalbard has been a cruise tourism destination. Due to less ice during the summer period, the number of tourists visiting the remote northeast corner of the archipelago has increased significantly, and the potential negative impact on this vulnerable natural environment has become an issue. The standard modes of managing these areas have either been to apply the precautionary principle or measures based on scientific evidence. As management models, however, both principles are contested for a number of reasons. This paper argues for a third model that is partly based on a form of monitoring knowledge that has circulated in ‘communities of practice’ and that has been developed over time. This form of knowledge constitutes viable expertise for the governing and management of the environment-tourism nexus in the area, but it needs to be acknowledged as a complementary management platform. This article demonstrates how such monitoring can be done, and it suggests some principles for the development of monitoring knowledge for administrative and management purposes.

Tourism Potentiality in Tinsukia district of Upper Assam: An Analysis

North East of India, popularly known as N.E., comprises of the eight States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim and geographically situated in the North East corner of India with an area of 25.5 million Sq. Km (7.8% of the land mass of the country). N.E. shares the International boundaries of India with China to the North, Bangladesh to the South-West, Bhutan and Nepal to the North-West and Myanmar to the East. It has from time immemorial been the meeting ground of diverse ethnic and cultural streams. Through the long columns of history, people of different races and ethnology have migrated into this land and merged into a common harmonious whole in a rare process of fraternization and assimilation. Tourism in Assam is essentially nature based; therefore, national parks, wild life sanctuaries, rivers, lakes, hot water springs and thick wooded forest and wildlife are the major components of tourist attractions in Assam. Tinsukia is one of the twenty seven administrative districts in the state of Assam. The district occupies an area of 3790 km² and has a population of 1,316,948 (as of 2011 Census) of which males constitute 51% of the population and females 49%. The Tourism potentiality of the Tinsukia district of Assam is immense with a combination of human, natural, cultural, ethnic beauty, religious attractions, heritage sites and deep forests. Most foreign travelers look for ethnic and culture mosaic, adventure and Tourism while a domestic tourist is enthused by religious attractions, wildlife and flora and fauna. In all these areas the Dehing Patkai Region of the Tinsukia District of Assam has tremendous scope for attraction. The lush green valleys and scenic splendour of this area covering the geographical areas of Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts and South-Eastern part of Arunachal Pradesh, cast spell on visitors. The lush green rain forest patch of Joypur, Dirok and Upper Dehing locations are ideal for a wide variety of flora and fauna as also for trekking. Thus the whole region of the Tinsukia District of Assam has tremendous potentiality for furthering Tourism development. Hence the area also has tremendous scope for entrepreneurship development. The paper intends to highlight the potentiality of tourism development in the Tinsukia district of upper Assam with that of its infrastructure planning.

Competing Reflexive Models of Regional Speech in Northern Ohio

Campbell-Kibler (2012) argued that the “northern” or Cleveland accent has been developing as a register (Agha 2003, 2007) in Ohio, primarily positioned as an unstigmatized and idiosyncratic form of linguistic difference from an imagined central Ohio norm. The current study examines northern Ohioans’ orientation to this construct within a larger understanding of their sociolinguistic imagining of Ohio. Northerners are found to share many language ideologies with other Ohioans, including a focus on north-to-south variation, an emphasis on rural versus urban language difference, and a belief in the local existence of unaccented, educated, normative speech. They differ from other Ohioans in sometimes conceptualizing urban speech as standard, failing to mark central Ohio as a distinct region, and subdividing the northeast (their own region) in a Cleveland-centered small region and a larger northeast corner of the state. Most importantly, they differ from central Ohioans in their treatment of the linguistic difference between central and northern Ohio, i.e., the Inland North/Midland dialect boundary (Labov, Ash & Boberg 2006). Forty-two percent of northerners and 52 percent of others fail to construct a perceptual boundary between central and northeast Ohio, while 27 percent and 48 percent respectively indicate the north as the divergent speech area. Northerners differ, however, in having a third group (31 percent), who position their own speech as normative and the central Ohio speech as marked, counter to the discourses of central Ohioans. These results support Agha’s (2007) point that individuals’ stakes in particular reflexive models are a key influence on models’ circulation and further show the importance of “unremarkable” as a context-bound and often valuable sociolinguistic meaning, rather than a lack of meaning.

Human Resource Development in the Libraries of Institutions of Higher Education in North East India with Special Reference to Library Automation

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the prospect of Human Resource Development (HRD) in the libraries of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in North East India with special reference to library automation. A group of 172 libraries of North East India was selected for the questionnaire based survey conducted during the period 2007-2010 using Likert Scaling method. The analysis of the data collected in this survey shows that there is lack of HRD practices in majority of these libraries. Results of this survey shows that the library professionals working in these libraries, need proper training in different aspects of automation like basic computer operation, maintenance, design websites, searching OPAC etc. The paper highlights the need for proper HRD in libraries involved in automation. The responses received in the survey provide ample evidence for the authorities to develop proper training programs to keep the library manpower abreast of latest technologies. The paper also unfolds the true picture of HRD in the libraries of HEIs in the remote North East corner of India.

An integrated geophysical imaging of the upper-crustal features in the Harney Basin, southeast Oregon

The Harney Basin is a relatively flat-lying depression in the northeast corner of the enigmatic High Lava Plains volcanic province in eastern Oregon. A thick blanket of volcanics including flood basalts, rhyolites, tuffs, ash flows, and distinct eruptive centers covers the basin, making it very difficult to study the upper-crustal features. In addition to a portion of the High Lava Plains active source seismic data in the Harney Basin area, we employed geologic, gravity, magnetic, digital elevation, and other geospatial data in our integrated study. We generated an upper-crustal 3D seismic tomographic model of the Harney Basin using a sparse grid of 2D seismic lines and constructed an integrated geophysical model of the upper-crustal structure, which reveals that the basin reaches as deep as 6 km in its central area. The tomographic inversion also detected some unusually high-velocity (>6.5 km/s) bodies in the upper crust near the central basin area. The presence of several ash-flow tuffs and voluminous rhyolites in the Harney Basin region indicates that the sources of these materials are nearby. We observe two major caldera-shaped features within the basin, which we interpret to be likely candidates for the source of some of these tuffs. These potential calderas are associated with low seismic velocities, low gravity anomaly values, and topographic depressions. We interpret the extent and evolution of these potential calderas based on our integrated analysis.

O urbanizmu Osora nakon 1450. godine

Obnova jadranskih gradova pod mletačkom vlašću obuhvatila je i sva centralna urbana naselja na Kvarnerskim otocima. Krajem 15. i tijekom 16. stoljeća Cres je dobio novi prsten zidina, kneževu palaču, gradsku ložu, gradski toranj sa satom nad lučkim vratima, fontik, zbornu crkvu te se proširio na područje srednjovjekovnog burga. Redizajn Krka provodio je mletački providur Vinciguerra krajem 15. stoljeća, a opsežni graditeljski pothvati zahvatili su i Rab. Osor, antička metropola Cresko-lošinjske otočne skupine, u tom se razdoblju radikalno smanjuje. Sredinom naselja, koje je od prapovijesti zauzimalo cjelokupnu površinu niske prevlake smještene između otoka Cresa i Lošinja, podignut je novi potez bedema kojim je grad prepolovljen. Istočna polovica naselja, u kojoj je smješten ranokršćanski katedralni kompleks, ostala je izvan bede-ma. Istočni bedem vremenom se urušava i razgrađuje, katedrala se reducira na središnji brod jedne od bazilika, a gradsko tkivo nestaje.

O urbanizmu Osora nakon 1450. godine

O urbanizmu Osora nakon 1450. godine

The Rungus Longhouse of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo – A Dying Architecture

The Rungus tribal group can be found in the northeast corner of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, farming the land mostly on agricultural products in small scale plantations. Their longhouses, facing extinction, are dual-purpose dwellings, constructed entirely of traditional materials utilising small split timbers lashed with rattan for the frame, palm fronds for the thatched roof, split bamboo for the floor and tree bark of hewn wood for the compartment walls. Each family has its own separate quarters off a common hall for socialising and community work. Village life is usually communal and the village is the major political unit based on the cultural traditions. Strongly related to the spirit of the place, the ‘rice spirit’, in particular, figures prominently in the Rungus people’s beliefs and practices in controlling the spirits and the people’s daily life. Unfortunately, all of these unique beliefs seem to have disappeared through time, thus requiring proper documentation of the longhouses. The objectives gear towards analysing the architectural values and investigating cultural understanding associated with the longhouses. Most importantly, the issue of how the Rungus people relate to the environment is studied through the tangible and intangible cultural aspects of the people. The research utilises the observation technique, interviews with the residents, visual data collection and measured drawings of five longhouses as the processes to document data. The paper instigates an investigation into the conformity of the Rungus people of their place in the environment to perpetuate their lifestyle in a land that is surrounded by nature.

First record of Cervus elaphus at eastern Sierra Nevada

119 During routes walked on December 27th 2013 and July 6th 2014 along two areas of the foothills of Sierra Nevada mountain known as Barranco Carretero and Penon de Carroquero, both in the municipality of Abla (Almeria), we observed a group of 6 individuals first (37° 7’ 49” N, 2° 46’ 47” W) and one isolated specimen later (37° 7’ 24” N, 2° 47’ 6” W), of red deer (Cervus elaphus Linnaeus, 1758; Fig. 1). Red deer were at a height above sea level of 1,022 and 1,231 m, respectively. Numerous deer latrines and tracks were also found on the areas. Both observations were within the 10 km UTM grid 30SWG10 (Fig. 1), where the species had not been previously recorded (Carranza, 2007). These deer must have naturally reached Sierra Nevada, after an introduction that occurred in the 1980s by the hunting society “La Perdiz” of Baza, in the mountain with the same name (Ruiz et al. 1988), and subsequent expansion by the Baza and Filabres mountains (Granados et al. 2001). These authors had cited the species in the 10 km UTM grids located just northern of the one reported in this note. The area presents abandoned almond crops, pine plantations (Pinus pinaster), and scattered well developed and numerous regenerations of oaks (Quercus ilex). The authors frequently visit the area, so presence of deer there is not old, probably not more than one or two years ago. In fact, on April 23th 2011 one of the authors saw and photographed two adult female deer in the area known as Las Juntas (37° 8’ 59” N, 2° 45’ 6’’ W), in the municipality of Abla as well (Fig. 1), at the confluence of Nacimiento and Los Santos rivers. This area belongs to the 10 km UTM grid 30SWG21, and is located just 2.8 km from the northeast corner of the 30SWG10. This area could be the natural way for deer from Filabres mountain colonizing Sierra Nevada, since it is a point where the foothills of the two mountain ranges get close together, with natural vegetation in the edges of both mentioned riverbanks, and these rivers also provide a natural understep on the A-92 highway that might be a barrier between Filabres and Sierra Nevada mountains. First record of Cervus elaphus at eastern Sierra Nevada

English

In this paper, the North east corner ( NEM ) procedure is successfully coded and tested via many randomly generated problem instances . Based on the results we can conclude that the correctness of the newly coded NEM is promising as compared with the previously coded one. We Select very big problem of Transportation problem using Object oriented programming in C++ and develop a NEM in C++ Flowchart, Algorithm, program.In this paper submitted in screen short.

Spatial distribution and potential sources of trace metals in insoluble particles of snow from Urumqi, China.

The purpose of this work is to characterize trace elements in snow in urban-suburb gradient over Urumqi city, China. The spatial distribution patterns of 11 trace metals in insoluble particulate matters of snow were revealed by using 102 snow samples collected in and around urban areas of Urumqi, a city suffering from severe wintertime air pollution in China. Similar spatial distribution for Mn, Cu, Zn, Ni, and Pb was found and their two significant high-value areas located in the west and east, respectively, and a high-value area in the south, which were correlated with factory emissions, traffic activities, and construction fugitive dust. The high-value areas of Cr, Ni, and V occurred in the northeast corner and along main traffic paths, which were linked to oil refinery and vehicular emissions. High value of Be presented in the west of the city. The high-value area of Co in the northeast could be related to local soil. Cd and U displayed relatively even spatial patterns in the urban area. In view of distance from the urban center, e.g., from the first circular belt to the fourth circular belt, except Be, V, Cd, and U, the contents of other metals generally decreased from the first circular belt to the forth circular belt, implying the effect of human activity clearly. Additionally, prevailing northwesterly winds and occasionally southeasterly winds in winter were associated with decreased, generally, concentrations of trace metal in snow from the urban center to the southern suburb along a northwest and southeast transect. The information on concentrations and spatial distributions of these metals in insoluble particles of snow in winter will be valuable for further environmental protection and planning.

A Backward Glance over Some Leading Citizens in the Poe World

Having grown up, academically speaking, in the shadow of Arthur Hobson Quinn, who lived roughly half an hour from my college, Ursinus, and with so many of my college teachers having studied their American literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where Quinn was supreme when American literature was still a fairly new subject in university instruction, and now with myself looking like I might well be a contemporary of Quinn, or even Poe and John Greenleaf Whittier, and being from a family in which genealogy was important, it may be natural that I should represent historical memory and share my recollections of some persons who pioneered in and opened up Poe studies. Some may be surprised to learn that Professor Quinn was, first and foremost, not a Poe specialist, but that his preeminent scholarly love was American drama. For pre-twentieth-century American plays, Quinn’s studies typically remain, after nearly a century, almost the only informed commentaries. Many have become increasingly aware that William Dunlap, America’s first major playwright, and the novelist Charles Brockden Brown, might each properly be deemed the Adam to American literary Gothicism. To return to Professor Quinn: when I began my own academic studies, he was in his eighties, ill, and housebound. He spent most of his time nestled in a chair, swathed in blankets and quilts, and wearing a sun shade, claiming that reading so many early American plays had ruined his eyesight. Before such ills befell him, Quinn was active in having established the Clothier Collection of American Drama at the University of Pennsylvania, which remains one of the foremost collections of early American plays. The Poe interest emerged from Quinn’s own work in American drama—Poe’s parents being actors—and from his aim to furnish an accurate biographical portraiture of Poe which would demolish the long-standing depiction by Rufus Griswold. Spending more than twenty years in preparing that biography, which appeared first in 1941 but has stood the test of time well enough to go through several reprintings, Quinn achieved a solid narrative account, though many of his critical opinions have been modified or superseded in the work of others. A Quinn student, J. Albert Robbins, followed his mentor’s practices in determining to present factually accurate scholarship, as some early volumes in the American Literary Scholarship journal attest. Robbins often recounted to me anecdotes of his days as Quinn’s student. Those who know Quinn primarily for

THE AGORA OF GYTHEUM

The Roman ‘Agora’ of Gytheum appears to be a large compound with an interior peristyle; its width is 52 m and its length at least 61 m. Excavations have revealed the remains of the north-east corner and a portion of the west wing. The extant architectural blocks allow the reconstruction of the colonnades. Column shafts were made of local red limestone and at least some of them were crowned with lotus-and-acanthus capitals. Three different interaxial column spacings are present. A single column must have stood on each corner of the peristyle. The style of the column capital suggests a date after the yearad100. The entablature is almost identical, in both style and dimensions, to the one found on the Captives' Facade at Corinth. The inscription on two epistyles reveals the private dedication of an exedra totheoi Sebastoiand the city. Most probably the exedra was behind the colonnaded space; the mention oftheoi Sebastoimight suggest imperial cult either in the exedra alone or both in the exedra and in the entire colonnaded compound. Quite possibly, and following A. Themos' suggestion, a large part of the colonnaded compound that is conventionally termed the ‘Agora’ can be identified with the Sebasteum/Caesareum of Gytheum; this latter structure is attested in other inscriptions from the city.

A Building with Jewish Elements in Limyra/Turkey – A Synagogue?

This article gives a preliminary excavation report about a building in the Lycian city of Limyra and the finds which were made in it. In the north-east corner of the building – the only part excavated so far – one room was equipped with a marble wall revetment and windows with glass of at least four different colors. Inside, a square water basin was supplied by collected rainwater which was channeled through a terracotta pipe into the basin. Some elements suggest that the basin was used for bathing. The entry to the building led from the main street into a vestibule, which was originally partially open at the front. At a later period, the floor of the building was raised to its current level by means of two stone slabs and two pillars which were in secondary use. The two slabs are remnants of chancel screens decorated with three menorah images. The front side of one of the slabs is decorated also with a shofar and the second one also with a lulav. The combination of these features suggests that the building was connected with the Jewish community of Limyra. The chancel screens indicate that a synagogue was once located in the immediate vicinity. It is therefore not improbable that the building itself was this synagogue.

Characterization of very-long-period seismicity accompanying summit activity at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai'i: 2007–2013

Eruptive activity returned to the summit region of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai'i with the formation of the “Overlook crater” within the Halema'uma'u Crater in March 2008. The new crater continued to grow through episodic collapse of the crater walls and as of late 2013 had grown into an approximately elliptical opening with dimensions of ~160×215m extending to a depth of ~200m. Occasional weak explosive events and a persistent gas plume continued to occur through 2013. Lava was first observed in the new crater in September 2008, and through 2009 the lava level remained deep in the crater and was only occasionally observed. Since early 2010 a lava lake with fluctuating level within the Overlook crater has been nearly continuously present, and has reached to within 22m of the Overlook crater rim. Volcanic activity at Kīlauea Volcano is episodic at all time scales and the characterization of very-long-period seismicity in the band 2–100s for the years 2007–2013 illuminates a portion of this broad spectrum of volcanic behavior. Three types of very-long-period events have been observed over this time and each is associated with distinct processes. Type 1 events are associated with vigorous degassing and occurred primarily between 2007 and 2009. Type 2 events are associated with rockfalls onto the lava lake and occurred primarily after early 2010. Both of these event types are induced by pressure and momentum changes at the top of the magma column that are transmitted downward to a source centroid ~1km below the northeast corner of the Halema'uma'u Crater where the energy couples to the solid Earth at a geometrical discontinuity in the underlying dike system. Type 3 events are not related to surficial phenomena but are associated with transients in mass transfer that occur within the dike system. Very-long-period tremor has also accompanied the return of eruptive activity, with increasing amplitude associated with hours- to months-long changes in gas emission rates and summit deformation.

Implementation of method of lines to predict water levels due to a storm along the coastal region of Bangladesh

In this study, the method of lines (MOL) has been applied to solve two-dimensional vertically integrated shallow water equations in Cartesian coordinates for the prediction of water levels due to a storm surge along the coast of Bangladesh. In doing so, the partial derivatives with respect to the space variables were discretized by the finite difference (central) method to obtain a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with time as independent variable. The classical fourth-order Runge–Kutta method was used to solve the obtained system of the ODEs. We used a nested finite difference scheme, where a high resolution fine grid model (FGM) capable of incorporating all major islands along the coastal region of Bangladesh was nested into a coarse grid model (CGM) covering up to 15°N latitude of the Bay of Bengal. The boundaries of the coast and islands were approximated through proper stair step. Appropriate tidal condition over the model domain was generated by forcing the sea level to be oscillatory with the constituent M 2 along the southern open boundary of the CGM omitting wind stress. Along the northeast corner of the FGM, the Meghna River discharge was taken into account. The developed model was applied to estimate water levels along the coast of Bangladesh due to the interaction of tide and surge associated with the April 1991 storm. We also computed our results employing the standard finite difference method (FDM). Simulated results show the MOL performs well in comparison with the FDM with regard to CPU time and stability, and ensures conformity with observations.

The Architectural and Cultural Heritage of Sabah - The Rungus Longhouse

This paper dwells into heritage tourism that is related to the architectural and cultural heritage of the Rungus people of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. It investigates the cultural influence on the architecture of the longhouse. The Rungus tribal group can be found in the northeast corner of Sabah, farming the land mostly on agricultural products in small scale plantations. Their longhouses, facing extinction, are dual-purpose dwellings, constructed entirely of traditional materials utilising small split timbers lashed with rattan for the frame, palm fronds for the thatched roof, split bamboo for the floor and tree bark of hewn wood for the compartment walls. Each family has its own separate quarters off a common hall for socialising and community work and village life is usually based on the cultural traditions. Strongly related to the spirit of the place, the 'rice spirit', in particular, figures prominently in the Rungus people's beliefs and practices in controlling the spirits and the people's daily life and often governed by the words of the bobohizans, the high priestess. The objectives gear towards analysing the architectural values and investigating cultural understanding associated with the longhouses. Most importantly, the issue of how the Rungus people relate to the environment is studied through the tangible and intangible cultural aspects of the people. The research utilises the observation technique, interviews with the residents, visual data collection and measured drawings of five longhouses as the processes to document data. The paper instigates an investigation into the conformity of the Rungus people of their place in the environment to perpetuate their lifestyle blessed with a unique heritage found in their architecture and culture, in a land where nature reigns. It is a heritage that worth a second look in the tourism industry of Sabah.