Identifying Patterns of Key Factors in Sun Glare-Related Traffic Crashes

Sun glare is one of the major environmental issues contributing to traffic crashes. Every year, many traffic crashes in the United States are attributed to sun glare. However, quantitative analysis of the influence of sun glare on traffic crashes has not been widely undertaken. This study used traffic crash narrative data for 7 years (2010–2016) from Louisiana to identify crash reports that provided evidence of drivers indicating sun glare as the primary contributing factor of the crashes. Additional geometry and traffic information was collected to identify the list of key crash-contributing factors. This study used cluster correspondence analysis to perform the data analysis. After performing several iterations, six clusters were identified that provided additional insight in relation to sun glare-related crashes. The six clusters are associated with mixed (business and residential) localities, intersection-related crashes on U.S. roadways, single-vehicle crashes on residential two-lane undivided roadways, curve-related crashes on parish roadways in residential localities, interstate-related crashes in open country localities, and curve-related crashes in open country localities. The findings of the current study can add insights to the ongoing safety analysis on sun glare-related crashes.

Night Capture of Roosting Cave Birds by Neanderthals: An Actualistic Approach

Evidence is accumulating on the regular and systematic Neanderthal exploitation of birds. However, the motivations, mechanisms, and circumstances underlying this behavior remains little explored despite their potential implications on Neanderthal ecology and capabilities. Fossil remains of choughs (Pyrrhocorax, Corvidae) are among the most abundant in cave sites with Mousterian technology. We reviewed the evidence showing that Neanderthals processed choughs for food, and confirmed that it occurred frequently over a widespread spatial and temporal scale. This lead us to propose the hypothesis that the cave-like refuge is the keystone resource connecting Neanderthals and choughs captured at night in rocky shelters eventually used by both species. By adopting an actualistic approach, we documented the patterns of refuge use and population dynamics of communally roosting choughs, the strategies and technology currently used to capture them, and their behavioral response against experimental human predators at night. Actualistic experiments showed that large numbers of choughs can be captured without highly sophisticated tools at night regularly and periodically, due to their occupation year-round during long-term periods of the same nocturnal shelters, the constant turnover of individuals, and their high site tenacity at these roost-sites even after recurrent disturbance and predation. Captures even with bare hands are further facilitated because choughs tend to flee confused into the cavity in darkness when dazzled and cornered by human (experimental) predators. Given the extreme difficulty of daylight chough capturing in open country, nocturnal hunting with the help of fire in the roosting caves and consumption in situ are proposed as the most plausible explanations for the strong association of choughs and Neanderthals in fossil assemblages. Night hunting of birds has implications for the social, anatomical, technological, and cognitive capacities of Neanderthals.

National identity, cosmopolitanism, and attitudes toward immigrants

This study examines the effects of national and cosmopolitan self-identity on xenophobic attitudes across 33 countries with a multilevel analysis of data from the National Identity Module III of the International Social Survey Programme. Of primary interest is how country contexts are intertwined with the sense of national belonging to predict individuals’ anti-immigrant attitudes. The study finds that individuals with a stronger ethnicity-based national identity tend to evidence stronger xenophobia. Net of the individual-level effect of ethnic national identity, citizens of countries with a higher average of ethnic national identity also tend to be more xenophobic. Interestingly, the link between ethnic national identity and xenophobia is stronger in countries where this perspective is not shared as strongly. In the seemingly more ‘open’ country context, individuals’ belief in the requirement of ancestral roots for national membership may entail stronger exclusivism as a fringe ideology.

The use of malacological analysis in studies on anthropogenic transformations in microhabitats: an example from the Cracow region, southern Poland

The presented study is dedicated to the assessment of the scope and degree of anthropopressure, and the dependence of its intensity on the characteristics and nature of micro-environments. The research was based on the subfossil remains of molluscs. Eleven profiles of Late Holocene sediments in the Dulówka valley near Cracow were subjected to malacological analysis. In the upper part of the valley, there are calcareous tufas containing rich molluscan assemblages with a large share of shade-loving species. In the lower part, malacofauna dominated by open-country snails occurs in fluvial sediments. Radiocarbon dating has shown that mollusc-bearing deposits represent the last 2,000 years. The diversity of ecological features of molluscan assemblages in different parts of the valley depends on the intensity of anthropopressure. In the upper part, natural forest communities have survived to the present day, and anthropopressure has only been marked to a limited extent. The lower section has undergone a major transformation, mainly due to deforestation and the development of agricultural areas. Unfavorable terrain conditions for the human economy should be considered the major cause of the low anthropopressure intensity in the upper part of the valley. The malacological analysis used in the study allowed showing a significant diversity of microhabitats within the valley and its uneven susceptibility to human interference in natural processes.

An Analysis of the Dilemma and Strategy of Foreign Student Education in China

With the modernization of our country’s education in recent years and the rapid promotion of our country’s international status, more and more foreign students are scrambling to come to our country to study, hoping to feel the charm of Chinese culture in their study. So as an inclusive and open country, facing the study of foreign students, of course, is the first time to formulate a corresponding solution. However, with the development of society, more and more foreign students come to our country, which will inevitably appear the problem of mixed fish and dragon. This problem will affect the normal development of our education, so we should solve the problem of foreign students in China.

Cultural awareness in an Iranian English language classroom: A teaching intervention in an interculturally “conservative” setting

Despite Iran’s increasing use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and its growing position as a more open country to international relationships, Iran’s education policy is still culturally conservative and intercultural language education is absent from the national curriculum and hence classrooms. In response, this article presents the results of a ten-session course focused on implementing and developing cultural awareness (CA) in an Iranian English language classroom. The data revealed that this course had a positive effect in developing students’ levels of CA, moving from basic in the first half of the course towards advanced in the second half. This provides important empirical evidence illustrating the value of systematic instruction of CA in students’ cultural learning. Furthermore, this course was the first of its kind in the predominantly monolingual, culturally restricted context of this study, where intercultural education is missing from the curriculum, yet where students are likely to use ELF for intercultural communication while travelling abroad or inside the country for communication purposes with non-Iranians. This study, thus, demonstrates the feasibility and documents the processes of integrating intercultural teaching into English education, specifically in contexts where educators might be limited by language policy makers.

Plži přírodní rezervace U Výpustku v CHKO Moravský kras [Gastropods of the U Výpustku Nature Reserve in the Moravian Karst PLA]

The U Výpustku Nature Reserve is located in the central part of the Moravian Karst PLA near the Křtiny Town. The reserve is predominantly forested area with multitude of karst features, such as caves and sinkholes. The valley was shaped in devonian limestones by the Křtinský potok Brook during the Quaternary. In total, 73 species of terrestrial gastropods were recorded (43% of the 171 species occurring in the Czech Republic), seven of which are included in the Red List of threatened species in the Czech Republic and 13 were newly recorded for the area. The majority of the recorded species (43; 59%) are forest dwellers, followed by euryvalent species (13; 18%). The proportion of open-country species is lower: sun-lit rock and steppe (5; 7%), silviphobic (3; 4%), dry-habitat (2; 3%), hygrophilous (4; 6%) and wetland (2; 3%). Among the recorded taxa, there are several rare and sensitive species reflecting the well-preserved state and biological value of the studied area, e.g. Daudebardia brevipes (VU), Ruthenica filograna, Truncatellina claustralis (VU), Chondrina arcadica clienta (NT) and Granaria frumentum (NT). Synanthropic (Arion distinctus, Deroceras reticulatum) and invasive (Arion vulgaris) species were recorded for the first time in the reserve, suggesting their current spread.

Scene Recognition using Significant Feature Detection Technique

Scene classification is basic problem in robotics and computer vision application. In Scene classification focused on complete view or event that contains both low and high level features. The main purpose of scene classification is to diminish the semantic gap in between social life & computer system. The main issue in scene classification is recognizing tall buildings, mountain, open country and inside city. We applied combination algorithms of feature extraction on trained datasets. Our proposed algorithm is hybrid combination of SIFT+ HOG named as HFCNN. As compare with the existing CNN architecture, HFCNN perform betters with high accuracy rate. Accuracy rate for proposed architecture is more than 96% as calculated with better time consumption and cost effective.

Cinco décadas no son suficientes. Carta de una abuela a su querida nieta.

The text is a letter from a grandmother born in 1964 to her granddaughter born in August 2020. Through this letter, the grandmother tries to explain what the education she received in the seventies was like, as well as the events that took place during the transition from an isolated and dictatorial Spain to a democratic and open country. She does so from a double perspective. On the one hand, by focusing on women and, on the other, on the laws that have requested the educational system to introduce subjects into the curriculum that would highlight equality between men and women. The text has been structured over the decades to follow the lifeline that would allow the grandmother to describe and analyze some facts about the complex reality of the country. Among these facts, it examines the impact of the new discourses on gender identity in the education system. The new discourses reflected in the new laws move the gender discourse towards gender identity discourse. All of this takes place within the context of a capitalist and narcissistic post-modernity that has displaced the plural towards the singular, the collective towards the individual, and the right to desire.

‘In The Open Country’: Nature and the Environment during the ‘Monster’ Meeting Campaign of 1843

This chapter explores the role of nature and the environment during the series of O’Connellite ‘monster’ meetings demanding the repeal of the Act of Union during the spring and summer of 1843. It considers the nature and extent of popular participation in O’Connell’s extra-parliamentary campaign amidst a charged political atmosphere and within specific environments in which place, identity, and a discourse of nationalist grievance as negotiated through a historicisation of the Irish landscape. It seeks to analyse both the processional nature of O’Connell’s rallies, the politicised culture of conviviality they engendered, and the extent to which the Repeal Association staged these rallies with a view to how they were reported in the popular press. O’Connell’s 1843 campaign is thus seen as a burst of popular participation on a scale hitherto unseen in Ireland. The O’Connellite ‘monster’ meeting is presented as a campaign to dominate public space in both small town and rural environments, based on a symbiotic relationship between the Repeal Association and Catholicism which deployed a nationalist iconography that deployed images of the natural world, and exhorted the Irish peasantry to peacefully demonstrate in favour of Repeal by invoking the natural advantages of Ireland that would be unleashed by self-government.