Sedimentation strategies provide effective but limited mitigation of relative sea-level rise in the Mekong delta

The Mekong delta is experiencing rapid environmental change due to anthropogenic activities causing accelerated subsidence, sea-level rise and sediment starvation. Consequentially, the delta is rapidly losing elevation relative to sea level. Designating specific areas for sedimentation is a suggested strategy to encourage elevation-building with nature in deltas. We combined projections of extraction-induced subsidence, natural compaction and global sea-level rise with new projections of fluvial sediment delivery to evaluate the potential effectiveness of sedimentation strategies in the Mekong delta to 2050. Our results reveal that with current rates of subsidence and sediment starvation, fluvial sediments alone can only preserve elevation locally, even under optimistic assumptions, and organic sedimentation could potentially assume a larger role. While sedimentation strategies alone have limited effectiveness in the present context, combined with enhanced organic matter retention and interventions reducing anthropogenic-accelerated subsidence, they can considerably delay future relative sea-level rise, buying the delta crucial time to adapt.

Music’s Textual Dilemma

Music is sound: audible, unique, ephemeral. For music composed before the advent of electronic recording a century and a quarter ago, musical texts — the unique arrangements of musical symbols by which music is represented in visible form — are our principal evidence for how that music sounded when it was created. But the texts in which Western music of the past is preserved are not necessarily accurate representations of the music they record. Although the symbols that make up Western musical notation have remained relatively stable over the centuries, much that they represent has changed. Tunings and temperaments have varied — from repertoire to repertoire and from place to place. So have styles of singing and of playing instruments. So have the instruments themselves. Most important in the present context, the conventions for realizing texts have varied substantially; the idea that performers should follow their texts closely dates only from the mid eighteenth century. In these contradictions lies music’s textual dilemma: music historians and performers must depend upon texts, but even supplemented by research in performance practice, texts do not necessarily provide the information necessary to support informed discussion.

Tourism Entrepreneurial Prospects in Bardiya, Nepal: Challenges and Way-forwards

In the present context of Nepal, tourism is a new cultural expression and performance of national formation. Nepal is ready to deliberately utilize in a modern world as a means of creating a sense of identity and solidarity. The country has developed policies that directly influence and continue to shape tourism activities in Nepal. Despite plethora of literature available in Nepalese tourism sector still less has been paid attention on tourism entrepreneurial prospects and not much talked about regional and sectorial tourism prospects including Bardiya District, which is potential destination for national and international tourist for many causes. Thus, this study aims to identify tourism entrepreneurial prospects along with its challenges and potential recommendation for tourism entrepreneurial development in Bardiya District. This study is based on explanatory research design where local residents residing in Thakurbaba Municipality have been interviewed using structured questionnaire. Primary data were collected with 290 respondents selected using convenience sampling methods. Result indicates that 40% of the local people want to participate on tourism activities and want to get involved in accommodation services (31%), travel guide (26%), service foods (22%), transportation sector (18%), and other services (3%). It also finds that the major challenges in development of tourism entrepreneurship in Bardiya is lack of efficient management of transportation within the municipality and security of tourists. Hence, more investment on infrastructure will help to promote tourism entrepreneurial prospects in Bardiya.

Exploratory Considerations in Chemistry Education—Didactic Modelling for Complexity in Students’ Discussions

Research has shown the importance of dealing with real-life issues and of enabling student encounters with complexity in chemistry education in order to increase student participation. Therefore, this study aims to analyse how complexity evolves in students’ discussions and how this complexity relates to aspects of tentativeness in chemistry. In the study, we analyse how a previously developed didactic model can be refined from the students’ considerations evolving from the present context. The study was conducted as an in situ study in one upper-secondary school. Students’ discussions were recorded on video. The recordings were transcribed and analysed using deliberative educational questions. Two different kinds of considerations emerged in the students’ discussions: factual and exploratory considerations. While factual considerations are an important element of chemistry education, students also need to encounter exploratory considerations. The study proposes a didactic model useful for teachers in didactic analysis and design of activities aiming to support students to unfold complexity through exploratory considerations. One implication is to base activities on real-life issues in order to invite the unpredictability needed for experiencing complexity and the exploratory nature of chemistry. These issues enable students to experience aspects of tentativeness in chemistry and thereby increase their understanding of NOS and chemistry as a knowledge building practice. Furthermore, this might also increase student participation in chemistry education.

Challenges Faced by Arabic Madrasas in Sri Lanka and Proposed Solutions

Learning different languages for different reasons in addition to the mother tongue is essential in the present context, like learning Arabic in Sri Lanka. Arabic is the language of religion of Islam. Muslims in Sri Lanka have been learning this language since the emergence of Islam for religious purposes. Religious educational institutions were established many years ago in Sri Lanka. These institutions (madrasas) for teaching the Holy Quran and religious sciences appeared in the late eighteen centuries. However, there are shortcomings in these educational institutions in terms of their educational and administrative activities. A study on "Challenges faced by Arabic Madrasas in Sri Lanka", aims to reveal the entry of Arabic into Sri Lanka and its status. It also identifies the challenges and difficulties faced by these institutions in teaching Arabic. To obtain accurate scientific results, this study follows the descriptive qualitative method, using primary and secondary information, primary data was collected through interviews with specialists in teaching Arabic. For secondary data, books and other authentic documents were studied. In this study, the researcher has identified difficulties in teaching Arabic in the Sri Lankan context; designing teaching materials due to lack of agreement among the institutions, difficulties in appointing efficient teachers since the salaries are not attractive, unavailability of good environment for education and the lack of modern equipment.

Geometric Mediator Structures, Transition Dynamics and Force Constants

It is shown in the present work that the distorted-space model of matter can describe conventional force-constants and transition-mediator structures. We use the verbiage “distorted” to communicate the concept of “energetic warping” to distinguish “spatial warping” from “classical matter warping”, although the concept of “matter” is in fact, in the present context, the “geometric distortion energy” of the spatial manifold itself without a classical “matter stressenergy source”. The “distorted-geometry” structures exhibit non-Newtonian features wherein the hole or core-region fields of the structures are energetically-repulsive (negative pressure), do not behave functionally in an r -4 manner and terminate at zero at the radial origin (no singularity). Near the core of the distortion the magnetic fields dominate the energy-densities of the structures thereby departing from classical particle-structure descriptions. Black-body radiation-emission and structural modeling lead to a description of transition dynamics and photonic entities.

Geometric Mediator Structures, Transition Dynamics and Force Constants

It is shown in the present work that the distorted-space model of matter can describe conventional force-constants and transition-mediator structures. We use the verbiage “distorted” to communicate the concept of “energetic warping” to distinguish “spatial warping” from “classical matter warping”, although the concept of “matter” is in fact, in the present context, the “geometric distortion energy” of the spatial manifold itself without a classical “matter stressenergy source”. The “distorted-geometry” structures exhibit non-Newtonian features wherein the hole or core-region fields of the structures are energetically-repulsive (negative pressure), do not behave functionally in an r -4 manner and terminate at zero at the radial origin (no singularity). Near the core of the distortion the magnetic fields dominate the energy-densities of the structures thereby departing from classical particle-structure descriptions. Black-body radiation-emission and structural modeling lead to a description of transition dynamics and photonic entities.

English Speaking Skill and Indian Undergraduate ESL Learners: Interleaving or Block Practice?

Recent studies showed that compared to practicing language skills in A stepwise manner over a period known as block practice, mixing the units of learning, and making them less predictable by presenting them randomly to the language learners, known as interleaving, may prove to be a more effective approach to language teaching (Finkbeiner&Nicol, 2003; Schneider et al., 1998, 2002; Miles, 2014; Nakata, 2015). This paper is an attempt at reporting the findings of a 24-day long experimental study on the pedagogical effect of the interleaving and block practice approach to language learning (speaking skill in the present context) on undergraduate English as a second (ESL) learner. The teaching experimentation was done online on 36 undergraduate learner participants at the School of Sciences in Tezpur University during the Autumn Semester, 2020-21. The interleaving group showed slightly better language pedagogical results in speaking skills in English than the block practice group. It is, however, stated that the difference in performance was not found to be statistically significant. The performance of the two groups across the four micro-skills of speaking in English identified as interaction, pronunciation, fluency & coherence, and vocabulary & grammar remained static within the duration of the experimentation. Additionally, the groups did not demonstrate any significant difference in their L2 attitude and motivation over time.

Immigrant Gnosis: Making Work in the United States

This essay proposes a reflection on the curatorial work I did for the exhibition Comunidades Visibles: The Materiality of Migration, exhibited between February and May 2021, at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, in Buffalo, New York. The exhibition brought together artworks by first- or second-generation immigrant Latinx artists. Each combines materials and techniques from their country of origin, from other colonized places, or from their present context with everyday or art historical references.

Geometric Mediator Structures, Transition Dynamics and Force Constants

It is shown in the present work that the distorted-space model of matter can describe conventional force-constants and transition-mediator structures. We use the verbiage “distorted” to communicate the concept of “energetic warping” to distinguish “spatial warping” from “classical matter warping”, although the concept of “matter” is in fact, in the present context, the “geometric distortion energy” of the spatial manifold itself without a classical “matter stressenergy source”. The “distorted-geometry” structures exhibit non-Newtonian features wherein the hole or core-region fields of the structures are energetically-repulsive (negative pressure), do not behave functionally in an r -4 manner and terminate at zero at the radial origin (no singularity). Near the core of the distortion the magnetic fields dominate the energy-densities of the structures thereby departing from classical particle-structure descriptions. Black-body radiation-emission and structural modeling lead to a description of transition dynamics and photonic entities.