Hampshire College

About: Hampshire College is a education organization based out in Amherst Center, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Genetic programming & Population. The organization has 461 authors who have published 998 publications receiving 40827 citations.

Parasite Lost: Chemical and Visual Cues Used by Pseudacteon in Search of Azteca instabilis.

Abstract: An undescribed species of phorid fly (genus: Pseudacteon) parasitizes the ant Azteca instabilis F Smith, by first locating these ants through the use of both chemical and visual cues. Experiments were performed in Chiapas, Mexico to examine a) the anatomical source of phorid attractants, b) the specific chemicals produced that attract phorids, and c) the nature of the visual cues used by phorids to locate the ants. We determined that phorid-attracting chemicals were present within the dorsal section of the abdomen, the location of the pygidial gland. Further experiments indicate that a pygidial gland compound, 1-acetyl-2-methylcyclopentane, is at least partially responsible for attracting phorid flies to their host. Finally, although visual cues such as movement were important for host location, size and color of objects did not influence the frequency with which phorids attacked moving targets.

Reform and political impunity in Kenya: transparency without accountability

Abstract: Kenya has been going through a period of political reform since 1991, when section 2A of the constitution, which had made Kenya a de jure one-party state, was repealed. This reform followed a prolonged struggle on the part of citizens both inside and outside the country, and their call for democracy was one that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was embraced by Western countries. Via diplomatic pressure and conditionality on aid, Western donors played an important role in the repeal of section 2A, the return of multiparty elections, and the creation and reform of a number of political institutions and offices via a separation of powers. But although these changes were supported by the political opposition and much of civil society in Kenya, they did not rise organically from the national struggle over political power. Nor did these reforms lead to a determination in the country to hold the political elite accountable for their transgressions. This article argues that modern Kenya's history of economic and political inequality has resulted in a population whose very divisions make it difficult for politicians to be disciplined. Accountability has two dimensions: the horizontal accountability among branches of government that is assured by checks and balances, and the vertical accountability of the state to its citizens. Vertical accountability depends on a constituency of like-minded citizens defending broad national interests, or an electorate with a collective identity or set of identities attached to the Kenyan nation. But in the absence of such shared goals and demands, narrow personal and local interests prevail, and politicians remain unaccountable to the nation as a whole. Resume: Le Kenya traverse une periode de reformes politiques depuis 1991, lorsque la section 2A de la constitution, qui avait jusque-la fait du Kenya un etat a parti unique de droit, a ete revoquee. Cette reforme est arrivee a la suite d'un long combat impliquant les citoyens a l'interieur et a l'exterieur du pays, leur appel a la democratie ayant ete soutenu par les pays occidentaux apres la chute du mur de Berlin. Avec l'appui d'une pression diplomatique et de conditions placees sur l'aide humanitaire, les donateurs de fonds occidentaux ont joue un role important dans le rejet de la section 2A, le retour aux elections multipartites, a la creation et aux reformes d'un certain nombre d'institutions politiques via le principe de separation des pouvoirs. Mais bien que ces changements aient ete soutenus par l'opposition et la plupart de la societe civile du Kenya, ils n'ont pas ete l'aboutissement naturel d'un combat national pour la prise de pouvoir politique. Ces reformes n'ont pas mene non plus a un engagement determine dans le pays d'exiger que l'elite politique rende des comptes sur ses transgressions et abus de pouvoir. Cet article postule que la presence d'inegalites economiques et politiques dans l'histoire moderne du Kenya a engendre des divisions au sein de la population kenyane qui n'aident pas les pouvoirs politiques a faire preuve de discipline. La notion de responsabilite se presente sur deux dimensions : la responsabilite horizontale a l'interieur des branches du gouvernement qui est assuree par un systeme de verifications et de comptes-rendus, et la responsabilite verticale de l'etat envers ses constituants. La responsabilite verticale depend d'un ensemble de citoyens unis par des interets larges qu'ils defendent, ou sur un electorat avec soit une identite collective, soit un ensemble d'identites attachees a la nation kenyane. Or, en l'absence d'une vision unifiee et d'attentes communes, les interets locaux et personnels prennent le pas sur l'interet commun, et les pouvoirs politiques ne sont pas tenus de rendre des comptes a la nation dans son ensemble. "To set up a state is easy, but to create a nation is extremely difficult. We are still suffering the consequences." -Murat Belge (2008) (speaking of Turkey) Introduction On August 4, 2010, in a national referendum with a 72 percent turnout, Kenyans overwhelmingly voted "yes" by a margin of 67 to 31 percent for a new constitution. …

Use of the “Acetylene blockage” technique for assaying denitrification in a salt marsh

Abstract: The “acetylene blockage” technique was evaluated for measurement of denitrification in salt-marsh sediments (near Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada). N2O in the gas phase of closed Spartina alterniflora marsh-sediment systems was analyzed with use of a thermal conductivity gas chromatograph sensitive to approximately 0.1 nmoles ml-1 gas. No N2O was detected for unfertilized sediment samples taken through the growing season and incubated in sealed buckets with 10% C2H2. For sediment samples amended with nitrate and for enrichments, initial rates of N2O evolution were higher in the presence of 10% C2H2 than in the absence of C2H2, but after longterm incubation N2O was consumed in some samples containing C2H2 as well as in samples without C2H2. In addition, total gaseous nitrogen (N2 and N2O) production in the absence of C2H2 was higher than in the presence of C2H2. Acetylene appears to be an inconsistent inhibitor of N2O reduction in salt-marsh sediments. The usefulness of the acetylene-denitrification technique in this habitat is, therefore, questionable.

The Gendered Hidden Curriculum of Adventure Education

Abstract: Background: Critical examination by adventure educators in North American colleges and universities reveals that students receive messages about the nature of adventure education through both the i...

A bargain between the secular state and Turkish Islam: politics of ethnicity in Central Asia

Abstract: . This paper reveals and analyses the ethnic politics mobilised by a fast-growing Islamic movement, the Gulen movement, which emerged in the 1980s in Turkey and expanded to Central Asia in the mid-1990s. Following the micro-sites, where nationness is reproduced as an everyday practice, my ethnographic research in Almaty-Kazakhstan explored the emergent Islamic sensibilities for the nation and ethnic identity. Revivalist Islam has often been essentialised as incompatible with nationalism, since it has been widely associated with the Muslim community rather than nations and nation-states. I argue that this bias is facilitated and maintained by the deep division in the literature. Scholarly work on both Islam and nationalism are split into two opposing approaches, state-centered and culture-centered. The findings of the present study challenge the binary thinking that juxtaposes politics against culture and dichotomises ethnic and state-framed base of nationalism and nationhood. My major finding is that the Gulen movement has not only inherited the symbols and myths of descent from the founding fathers of the Turkish state, but it is also currently reproducing the related ethnic politics in cooperation with–not in opposition to–the secular states in the post-Soviet Turkic world. The study reconciles ethno-symbolic and state-centered approaches in explaining the convergence between Islamic and secular nationalism in the formation of ethnic politics in Almaty-Kazakhstan.