Friday, January 31, 2020

The Effect of Selective Loggin on Bird Population Essay

The Effect of Selective Loggin on Bird Population - Essay Example Robinson and Robinson examined the effect of selective logging within a southern Illinois forest in the United States. In their study, the authors compared the abundance of birds within uncut areas of the forest compared to areas where cutting had occurred recently (1 to 5 years before the experiment) or historically (10 to 15 years prior). The prevalence of birds was determined using a count system, where researchers spent six minutes at each post and recorded the number of birds that were observed or heard. Observation points were allocated along a transect line at 150 metre intervals. The authors determined that for most species, there was no significant difference of bird abundance between cut and non-cut areas. Only two species were significantly less common in cut areas than in non-cut areas. These were the Red-eyed Vireo and the Ovenbird. However, the nest predator, the Blue Jay, had a significantly higher prevalence in cut areas than in non-cut areas. The study was well desig ned, and the authors took into account a number of potentially confounding effects, such as observer bias and overlapping observations between the different posts. The authors also examined the power of their statistical tests, and were able to test whether there were significant differences between a large number of different bird species. One limitation of this study was that both control and experiment aspects of the study occurred within the same forest, with the authors using unlogged parts of the forest as the control. This makes it difficult to determine whether the trends that were observed are specific to the forest studied, or they occur widely. A study also published in 1999 also examined how selective logging affected the bird community. This study took place in a Brazilian Atlantic forest. The author chose two nearby sites, one had experienced selective logging and the other had not. The areas were tested for a number of factors including vegetation structure and measur es of the diversity and richness of the bird species that were present, as well as the composition of species. The author determined that diversity and richness of the bird species did not vary between sites, however, which species were present and which were absent, differed considerably. Like the first study, the author made use of spot-counts to determine the abundance of bird species. This study was not powerful, as only two areas of forest were examined, one control (no logging) and one experimental (selective logging). Consequently, there was no replication, and it is difficult to extrapolate from the results of this study to general conclusions. Additionally, the lack of replication made it difficult to test whether the observed results differed significantly between the two areas. Thus, although the study shows that selective logging is having a negative effect on some species, there is not enough information to determine whether this is because of selective logging, or beca use of the particular sites chosen for the study. A final study on selective logging examined this in an Indonesian forest. Observations were taken from a number of stations, each of which was classified as having been logged in the previous six years, or as not having been logged. There was a significantly higher number of birds at the non-logged site than at the logged site, suggesting that logging decreased the abundance of species .

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Aids in the thrid world country :: essays research papers

In 2004 circa 95 thousand people died in Latin America. Cause of death? In a world of today where there is an abundance of bloodshed and carnage, surprisingly violence is not the primary cause of death but AIDS is. Having taken health classes for over five years, HIV/AIDS and STD ¡Ã‚ ¯s were not new or surprising. I became apathetic and impassive to such related issues. It seemed like something distant and remote that would never happen to me. But then a startling news article that stated in large bold letters,  ¡Ã‚ °Brazil houses one-third of the carriers of the HIV virus in Latin America ¡Ã‚ ± caught my attention. In the article it stated that in 2004, circa 95 thousand people died of Aids in Latin America and there were 240 thousand new people diagnosed with HIV. This daunting article was a revelation. It awoke me from the beautiful and hygienic fairy-tale world I was in and dropped me into arms of the real world, where AIDS and STD ¡Ã‚ ¯s are not that remote and it could happen to anyone. In Latin America out of the 400 million inhabitants nearly 1.7 million are carriers of the virus that causes AIDS. This incurable deadly virus is spreading in a frightening manner. People diagnosed with HIV are increasing by 25% each year in Latin America. The cause is due to ignorance. People tend to believe that only homosexuals are affected by the virus. What they are unaware of is that HIV is caused by exchange in blood, semen, or other bodily fluids. Therefore everyone is susceptible to the virus, primarily consumers of injectable drugs and people that have multiple sex partners and those that don ¡Ã‚ ¯t use protection during the act of intercourse. This issue is important, firstly because a third of the carriers of the virus live where I live. Consequently it made me more conscious and aware of the environment I live in and it also made me a more grateful person. Secondly it is a serious issue that is burgeoning and if not contained could in the long run expunge a large population of people in Latin America. Immediate containment of the virus is imperative. In order to reduce the spread of the virus most importantly people should become educated and conscious of the virus. In a country where a large portion of the population is from the lower class not many people received proper sex education consequently public awareness of this issue is low if almost negligible.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Shen Fu

Shen Fu The book Shen Fu’s Six Records of a Floating Life is both an autobiography and love story of a man named Shen Fu, who was educated toward the path to grow up to be a scholar, but he kept on failing the exams. He went on to earn his living as secretary for a magistrate and also selling off his wife’s artwork. His wife is the girl that he fell had fallen in love with as a young child. Together, they had a very weird and odd relationship (at least compared to our modern day idea of a relationship).I think that Shen Fu really wanted the big job as the magistrate, but it also seemed like he didn’t really want to work very hard for the position. Perhaps he was a tad on the lazy side of things. He grew up in a rather scholarly middle class family and he spent much of his life trying to pass the exam. The only problem was that he kept failing it over and over again, and did never actually get around to passing it. Shen Fu seemed to focus a lot of his attention on status, and I think that it was mostly due to his family and his social class that he was born into.It seems to me that the higher status you had back then, the more you focused on status and put being born of high class up on a pedestal. Shen Fu his whole life was seeking this â€Å"Floating Life† which basically means that you’re economically secure, and that life is a more of a â€Å"dream† rather than actual reality. I thought he was always seeking this because he was always trying to figure out how to make a good deal more money, or to get a desirable scholarly position. Shen Fu, in my opinion, was rather greedy and materialistic, and was generally out for himself.Although, to be fair, he did provide for his family by taking on many different kinds of jobs, loans, and even by attempting to sell his wife’s artwork. This book is actually better known being a love story. Though it is much different then what we think a love story should traditionally c onsist of. Shen Fu was known for spending a lot of time with Prostitutes, and his wife seemed ok with it, she even went and found him a concubine. Shen Fu basically viewed his wife as his equal, rather than looking down on her as a woman, this was a very rare view for a man to have considering the time and place this took story took course.Most traditional loves stories would make this story appear crazy, this is mostly because the more traditional thought of love is between two people sharing and expressing mutual feelings for each other. Love is generally not thought of as the wife going out and searching for a good Concubine for her husband to sleep with. However, I think the more romantic and warming part of the story was that Shen Fu and his wife, Yun, enjoyed reading, drinking, and writing poetry together. I actually think that they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.Another reason why this story could be view as a bit of a romance, was because Shen Fu was really co mmitted to supporting his family by working and taking on many jobs and responsibilities. His dedication to his wife was pretty romantic in and of itself. I didn’t think that Shen Fu was a filial son because there was a lot of conflict between his family. Think that a lot of the conflict was because he went down in class and never did become a magistrate like he and his family had hoped he would.It seems like his family viewed at him as if he didn’t try hard enough and was a somewhat of a failure to them. I would consider Shen Fu in the lower to middle class, because, he never got the job as a magistrate and didn’t have enough money to adequately support his family, so he has to sell off his wife’s artwork. I would probably put him in the lower class, but the fact that he came from a middle class family and had a concubine might put him a little on the higher side of classes. I think that this story of Shen Fu’s life does indeed exemplify the typic al lifestyle during the Qing Dynasty.Shen Fu and his wife both viewed each other as equals, which back then was really different from the norm. How he focused mush of his attention on status was a really big thing during the Qing era, and how he aspired to have a floating life style. I think it also showed how that even though he had a wife, he went out drinking with prostitutes and with his Concubine, which seems like it was pretty common back then. Overall, I thought that it was actually a pretty interesting book. It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, and It gave a good example of how life was for his class during the Qing era.

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Chercher midi à quatorze heures

Expression: Chercher midi à   quatorze heures Pronunciation: [sher shay mi di a kah tor zeur] Meaning: to make something more complicated, make a mountain out of a molehill Literal translation:  to look for noon at two pm Register: normal Notes The French expression chercher midi à   quatorze heures is a quirky way of telling someone that s/he is making an issue more difficult than it needs to be—turning something simple into something complicated. You might use it to mean someone has lost perspective or has gotten so caught up in a project that s/he is overdoing it. The literal translation makes it seem more like youre trying to do something too late or to do something impossible, since of course at 2pm noon is long gone—but thats idiomatic language for you. Example   Ã‚  Ã‚  Cest dà ©jà   parfait, je te dis—pourquoi cherches-tu midi à   quatorze heures  ?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Its already perfect, Im telling you—why are you making it more complicated? Humorous variation: chercher midi à   douze heures - to look for noon at twelve oclock