The systematic position of Equus hydruntinus, an extinct species of Pleistocene equid

Palaeolithic people commonly hunted Equus hydruntinus, an extinct species of equid whose cursorial body proportions suggest an adaptation to semi-arid conditions. Despite the frequency with which it is encountered in fossil deposits, only partial cranial remains have been reported until now. As a result, the systematic affiliation of the species remains a subject of controversy. Two nearly complete E. hydruntinus crania are presented here for the first time. These skulls show that E. hydruntinus is a distinct species, more closely related to the hemiones (Asiatic asses) than to any other equid. This suggests that the social organisation of E. hydruntinus followed one of two known equid sociotypes: resource defense territoriality.     

The Girls' Home, Bangkok, Thailand: Developing Thoughts on Democracy

This paper describes an exercise with children in the implementation of housing rights. Based on the argued opinion that housing rights cannot be exercised without participation and that participation without knowledge is pretence, a Kids and Architecture programme was initiated with a group of 40 children — displaced from homes in the Klong Toey slum in Bangkok — at a girls' home run by the Human Development Foundation (HDF). The programme, developed in two phases and involving students from the King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), School of Architecture, set about to teach these children some of the elements of architecture so that they could participate in the design of their own housing. From this experiment a number of conclusions are drawn about the implementation of housing rights and about the teaching of architecture, both to children and architecture students.     

LETS get real: constraints on the development of Local Exchange Trading Schemes

Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) are widely promoted as a new tool for local economic development, but until recently the focus has been on their alleged 'potential' rather than the realities of their operation. This paper assesses the practical economic role of LETS by examining the amount of trading conducted, and demonstrates that both the volume of trading and the value of the trades are very low. Drawing on an intensive case study of the first UK LETS created explicitly as part of a local authority's anti–poverty strategy, explanations for the low levels of participation are suggested, and significant structural constraints on the development of LETS are identified.     

Simulation of the effect of methane bubble plumes on vertical mixing in Mono Lake

A one-dimensional vertical mixing model modified for application to hypersaline Mono Lake reproduced mixed layer dynamics well but hypolimnetic heating was underestimated. One possible source of increased hypolimnetic heating is vertical mixing caused by bubble plumes of methane rising from the sediments. Estimates of vertical mixing from methane seepage in Mono Lake were made with the inclusion of a bubble plume algorithm. A methane ebullition rate three hundred times greater than the maximum estimate for Mono Lake was required to simulate the observed hypolimnetic heating.     

Hilbert-semblance method for acoustic logging data processing

We suggest a method of multi-element low-frequency acoustic logging data processing which combines advantages of the semblance and phase velocity processing (PVP) techniques, namely, the interference resistance in the former and better accuracy in the latter. The new method is based on point (windowless) semblance by the Hilbert transformation. The introduced concept of phase semblance makes it possible to estimate the signal distribution semblance and the phase. Also suggested are an algorithm for preliminary estimation of formation S-wave slowness from signal group power variations and improved forms of processed data imaging.     

Distribution of total Al,Cd, Co,Cu, Ni and Zn in the tongue of the ocean and the northwestern Atlantic Ocean

The elements Al, Cd, Co, Cu, Ni and Zn were concentrated from seawater using tetraethylenepentamine resin and analysed by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The spatial distribution of these elements in the northwest Atlantic Ocean is discussed with respect to possible riverine inputs to the area from Puerto Rico.