How Paranoid Are You?: Issues in Location Information of Ambient Systems

The prevalence of location-informing devices such as smart phones brings a lot of benefits, such as the ability to find the right services nearby. Nonetheless, there are also concerns that such devices might infringe our privacy and breach security. This paper discusses both viewpoints by outlining how location information might be obtained, what the location information can be used for, as well as the issues and problems that might be faced when location information becomes available too readily or in too much detail. We illustrate these with a case study using an iPhone application that we developed, which allows users to track the last known location of their “contacts” (such as friends or family), and to specify the granularity level of the information they are willing to share with each of their contacts in return

Towards the Implementation of an Internet-based Neighbourhood Watch Scheme

In this paper we discuss the current state of our work regarding the development and planned in-situ testing of a computer-based system to enhance community relations through the Neighbourhood Watch scheme. The system is intended for use in a community to help the residents interact with each other more easily and to encourage the reporting of suspicious behaviour or crime. We discuss some details of the system and how we plan to test it in the field using an iterative process. We also discuss the possible implications of the work for the future

World Catalog of Bee Flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae): Corrigenda and Addenda

A list of corrections and additions to the world catalog of bee flies, published in 1999 is presented. New taxonomic information presented in this paper includes the following 42 new species-group synonymies: Geron paramonovi Greathead (junior synonym of G. asiaticus Zaitzev), syn. n., Anastoechus olivaceus Paramonov, Anastoechus olivaceus var. corsikanus Paramonov, Anastoechus olivaceus var. corsicanus Zaitzev (all junior synonyms of A. nitidulus Fabricius), syn. n., Anastoechus leucochroicus Hesse (junior synonym of A. varipecten Bezzi, 1921), syn. n., Bombylius punctatus Fabricius, Bombylius sticticus Boisduval, Bombylius subluna Walker (all junior synonyms of Bombomyia vertebralis (Dufour)), syn. n., Bombylius flavescens Palm, Bombylius minor var. ochraceus Paramonov, Bombylius luteolus Evenhuis, Bombylius thapsinoides Evenhuis (all junior synonyms of B. minor Linnaeus), syn. n., Bombylius rhodius Loew (junior synonym of B. trichurus Pallas), syn. n., Bombylius aurulentus Wiedemann (junior synonym of Systoechus ctenopterus (Mikan)), syn. n., Bombylius lucidus Loew, Systoechus tesquorum Becker (all junior synonyms of Systoechusgradatus (Wiedemann)), syn. n., Argyramoeba maculosa Sack, Anthrax ipiriensis Dils &amp; Weyer, Anthrax tajikistanus Evenhuis &amp; Greathead (all junior synonyms of Anthrax chionostigma Tsacas), syn. n., Spogostylum nigrum Austen (junior synonym of Anthrax lucidus (Becker)), syn. n., Argyromoeba velox Loew, Anthrax hellenicus François (all junior synonyms of Anthrax virgo Egger), syn. n., Exoprosopa dispar var. interrupta Paramonov, Exoprosopa dispar ssp. paramonovi Evenhuis (all junior synonyms of E. dispar Loew), syn. n., Thyridanthrax albicingulus Austen, Thyridanthrax amoenus Austen (all junior synonyms of Exhyalanthrax melanchlaenus (Loew)), syn. n., Thyridanthrax innocens Austen (junior synonym of Exhyalanthrax muscarius (Pallas)), syn. n., Anthrax venusta Meigen, Anthrax margaritifer Dufour, Anthrax dolosa Jaennicke, Anthrax turbidus Loew (all junior synonyms of Villa fasciata Meigen), syn. n., Villa orientalis Zaitzev (junior synonym of Villa fasciculata Becker), syn. n., Anthrax humilis Ruthe, Anthrax mucida Zeller, Anthrax pygarga Loew, Anthrax albulus Loew, Villa quinta Becker (all junior synonyms of Villa ixion (Fabricius)), syn. n., Anthrax faustina Osten Sacken, Anthrax alternata var. fulvipes Coquillett, Villa lateralis ssp. semifulvipes Painter in Painter &amp; Painter (all junior synonyms of Villa lateralis (Say)), syn. n., Petrorossia chraminensis Zaitzev, Petrorossia dobrogica Dusa (all junior synonyms of Petrorossia hespera (Rossi)), syn. n.; the following new synonymy in genus-group names: Gazlia Zaitzev (junior synonym of Xeramoeba Hesse), syn. n.; and the following 11 new combinations: Apolysis barri (Tabet) (from Oligodranes), comb. n., Apolysis nauseosus(Tabet) (from Oligodranes), comb. n., Parageron loewi (Becker) (from Usia), comb. n., Chalcochiton carmelitensis (Becker) (from Cytherea), comb. n., Exoprosopa rivularis Meigen (from Heteralonia), comb. n. Micomitra shelkovnikovi (Paramonov) (from Pterobates), comb. n., Xeramoeba albula (Zaitzev) (from Gazlia), comb. n., Xeramoeba kinereti (Zaitzev) (from Chiasmella), comb. n., Xeramoeba stackelbergi (Zaitzev) (from Chiasmella), comb. n., Xeramoeba turkmenica (Zaitzev) (from Chiasmella), comb. n. Two species are returned to their original genus: Exoprosopa dispar Loew (returned to Exoprosopa from Heteralonia), comb. rev., and Spogostylum nitidum Austen (returned to Spogostylum from Anthrax), comb. rev. Three species in Pipunculopsis were invalid when originally proposed by Zaitzev in 2001. They are hereby validated with the criteria fulfilling Article 16.4.2 and the original authorship of Zaitzev should be kept since he provided the information to validate the names herein.</jats:p

Diversity, distribution and conservation of the terrestrial reptiles of Oman (Sauropsida, Squamata)

All authors: Salvador Carranza , Meritxell Xipell, Pedro Tarroso, Andrew Gardner, Edwin Nicholas Arnold, Michael D. Robinson, Marc Simó-Riudalbas, Raquel Vasconcelos, Philip de Pous, Fèlix Amat, Jiří Šmíd, Roberto Sindaco, Margarita Metallinou †, Johannes Els, Juan Manuel Pleguezuelos, Luis Machado, David Donaire, Gabriel Martínez, Joan Garcia-Porta, Tomáš Mazuch, Thomas Wilms, Jürgen Gebhart, Javier Aznar, Javier Gallego, Bernd-Michael Zwanzig, Daniel Fernández-Guiberteau, Theodore Papenfuss, Saleh Al Saadi, Ali Alghafri, Sultan Khalifa, Hamed Al Farqani, Salim Bait Bilal, Iman Sulaiman Alazri, Aziza Saud Al Adhoobi, Zeyana Salim Al Omairi, Mohammed Al Shariani, Ali Al Kiyumi, Thuraya Al Sariri, Ahmed Said Al Shukaili, Suleiman Nasser Al Akhzami.In the present work, we use an exceptional database including 5,359 records of 101 species of Oman’s terrestrial reptiles together with spatial tools to infer the spatial patterns of species richness and endemicity, to infer the habitat preference of each species and to better define conservation priorities, with especial focus on the effectiveness of the protected areas in preserving this unique arid fauna. Our results indicate that the sampling effort is not only remarkable from a taxonomic point of view, with multiple observations for most species, but also for the spatial coverage achieved. The observations are distributed almost continuously across the two-dimensional climatic space of Oman defined by the mean annual temperature and the total annual precipitation and across the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the multivariate climatic space and are well represented within 17 out of the 20 climatic clusters grouping 10% of the explained climatic variance defined by PC1 and PC2. Species richness is highest in the Hajar and Dhofar Mountains, two of the most biodiverse areas of the Arabian Peninsula, and endemic species richness is greatest in the Jebel Akhdar, the highest part of the Hajar Mountains. Oman’s 22 protected areas cover only 3.91% of the country, including within their limits 63.37% of terrestrial reptiles and 50% of all endemics. Our analyses show that large areas of the climatic space of Oman lie outside protected areas and that seven of the 20 climatic clusters are not protected at all. The results of the gap analysis indicate that most of the species are below the conservation target of 17% or even the less restrictive 12% of their total area within a protected area in order to be considered adequately protected. Therefore, an evaluation of the coverage of the current network of protected areas and the identification of priority protected areas for reptiles using reserve design algorithms are urgently needed. Our study also shows that more than half of the species are still pending of a definitive evaluation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).This work was funded by grants CGL2012-36970, CGL2015-70390-P from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (cofunded by FEDER) to SC, the project Field study for the conservation of reptiles in Oman, Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, Oman (Ref: 22412027) to SC and grant 2014-SGR-1532 from the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya to SC. MSR is funded by a FPI grant from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (BES-2013-064248); RV, PT and LM were funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through post-doc grants (SFRH/BPD/79913/2011) to RV, (SFRH/BPD/93473/2013) to PT and PhD grant (SFRH/BD/89820/2012) to LM, financed by Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH) – Quadro de Referência Estrategico Nacional (QREN) from the European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministerio da Educação e Ciência

Fauna Europaea: Diptera -Brachycera

Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Pape, T., Beuk, P., Pont, A. C., Shatalkin, A. I., Ozerov, A. L., Woźnica, A. J., ... de Jong, Y. (2015). Fauna Europaea: 3, [e4187]. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.3.e4187 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Abstract Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all extant multicellular European terrestrial and freshwater animals and their geographical distribution at the level of countries and major islands (east of the Urals and excluding the Caucasus region). The Fauna Europaea project comprises about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. Fauna Europaea represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing taxonomic specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many user communities in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. The Diptera-Brachycera is one of the 58 Fauna Europaea major taxonomic groups, and data have been compiled by a network of 55 specialists. Within the two-winged insects (Diptera), the Brachycera constitute a monophyletic group, which is generally given rank of suborder. The Brachycera may be classified into the probably paraphyletic &apos;lower brachyceran grade&apos; and the monophyletic Eremoneura. The latter contains the Empidoidea, the Apystomyioidea with a single Nearctic species, and the Cyclorrhapha, which in turn is divided into the paraphyletic &apos;aschizan grade&apos; and the monophyletic Schizophora. The latter is traditionally divided into the paraphyletic &apos;acalyptrate grade&apos; and the monophyletic Calyptratae. Our knowledge of the European fauna of Diptera-Brachycera varies tremendously among families, from the reasonably well known hoverflies (Syrphidae) to the extremely poorly known scuttle flies (Phoridae). There has been a steady growth in our knowledge of European Diptera for the last two centuries, with no apparent slow down, but there is a shift towards a larger fraction of the new species being found among the families of the nematoceran grade (lower Diptera), which due to a larger number of small-sized species may be considered as taxonomically more challenging. Most of Europe is highly industrialised and has a high human population density, and the more fertile habitats are extensively cultivated. This has undoubtedly increased the extinction risk for numerous species of brachyceran flies, yet with the recent re-discovery of Thyreophora cynophila (Panzer), there are no known cases of extinction at a European level. However, few national Red Lists have extensive information on Diptera. For the Diptera-Brachycera, data from 96 families containing 11,751 species are included in this paper

An investigation into the influence of student personality type and other factors on a code comprehension and design task in Java

This study aimed to examine the skill of student participants with regard to understanding Java code by reading it via a 'code comprehension task', as well as their skill in making 'sign-like decisions' via a 'design matrix task'. The aim was to ascertain any relationships between these abilities and participants' personality as measured by the MBTI test. Relationships were also examined with the cognitive style of Fielc Dependence or Field Independence. Relationships with background information were also examined.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Heteralonia (Acrodisca) umbrosa

Heteralonia (Acrodisca) umbrosa (Loew) Exoprosopa umbrosa Loew, 1860: 194. Distribution. Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa (Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga), Tanzania, Zimbabwe. Material examined. 1♂, Katuma Mulilo District, Salambala camp site, 17°50'01"S 24°36'09"E, 22–24.ii.2001, A.H. Kirk­Spriggs & E. Marais, Malaise trap sample; 1♂, Katima Mulilo District, Salambala 4 km NE of, 17°49'21"S 24°36'07"E, 25.iii.–1.iv.2001, A.H. Kirk­Spriggs & E. Marais, Malaise trap sample; 4♂♂, Kavango, Popa Falls, 18°07'S 21°04'E, 26.ii.–1.iii.1992, E. Marais & M. Pusch.Published as part of Greathead, David J., 2006, New records of Namibian Bombyliidae (Diptera), with notes on some genera and descriptions of new species, pp. 1-88 in Zootaxa 1149 (1) on page 76, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.1149.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/505808

Paratoxophora cuthbertsoni Engel 1936

Paratoxophora cuthbertsoni Engel Paratoxophora cuthbertsoni Engel, 1936: 40. Distribution. Botswana, Namibia *, South Africa (Gauteng, KwaZulu­Natal, Tanzania, Zimbabwe. Material examined. 1♂, Rundu District, Mile 46, 18°18'39"S 19°15'29", 25–27.iii.2003, A.H. Kirk­Spriggs, Malaise traps; 1♂, West Caprivi Park, Ougali River, 18°01'S 22°18'E, 7.iv.1990, E. Marais; 1♂, Waterberg Pl Park, Restcamp, 20°30'S 17°14'E, 9.–13.iv.1993, S.V. Green, Malaise trap; 1♂, Gobabis District, Somerkoms 521, 20°01'59"S 19°57'22"E, 6–8.ii.2001, A.H. Kirk­Spriggs & E. Marais, Malaise trap sample.Published as part of Greathead, David J., 2006, New records of Namibian Bombyliidae (Diptera), with notes on some genera and descriptions of new species, pp. 1-88 in Zootaxa 1149 (1) on page 52, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.1149.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/505808