Situating nature: On doing cultural geographies of Australian nature     

Lesley Instone 《The Australian geographer》2004,35(2):131-140

This paper concentrates on the practices and possibilities of doing poststructural cultural geographies of nature. The paper begins with an overview of the ways in which nature is being reconceptualised in social thought. It charts a middle territory between strong social constructivism and realist approaches, arguing for a relational understanding of nature and culture, and the extension of agency to non-humans--organic and artificial. These 'more than human worlds' (<citeref rid="b51">Whatmore, 'Hybrid geographies'</citeref>, Sage, London, 2002) pose considerable challenges for researchers. They open spaces for new subjects and new subjectivities, decentre human agency, and challenge more conventional methodological approaches that rely on a separation between subject and object. The paper considers the sorts of methodological shifts required for relational analysis, arguing for a multilayered, multivalent, embodied and situated approach. The practices of situatedness are emphasised in the Australian context, especially in relation to cross-cultural and postcolonial understandings. The paper concludes with a brief comment on the politics of doing such cultural geographies.  相似文献   

Trends and variability in column-integrated atmospheric water vapor   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4  

Kevin E. Trenberth  John Fasullo  Lesley Smith 《Climate Dynamics》2005,24(7-8):741-758

An analysis and evaluation has been performed of global datasets on column-integrated water vapor (precipitable water). For years before 1996, the Ross and Elliott radiosonde dataset is used for validation of European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalyses ERA-40. Only the special sensor microwave imager (SSM/I) dataset from remote sensing systems (RSS) has credible means, variability and trends for the oceans, but it is available only for the post-1988 period. Major problems are found in the means, variability and trends from 1988 to 2001 for both reanalyses from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and the ERA-40 reanalysis over the oceans, and for the NASA water vapor project (NVAP) dataset more generally. NCEP and ERA-40 values are reasonable over land where constrained by radiosondes. Accordingly, users of these data should take great care in accepting results as real. The problems highlight the need for reprocessing of data, as has been done by RSS, and reanalyses that adequately take account of the changing observing system. Precipitable water variability for 1988–2001 is dominated by the evolution of ENSO and especially the structures that occurred during and following the 1997–98 El Niño event. The evidence from SSM/I for the global ocean suggests that recent trends in precipitable water are generally positive and, for 1988 through 2003, average 0.40±0.09 mm per decade or 1.3±0.3% per decade for the ocean as a whole, where the error bars are 95% confidence intervals. Over the oceans, the precipitable water variability relates very strongly to changes in SSTs, both in terms of spatial structure of trends and temporal variability (with a regression coefficient for 30°N–30°S of 7.8% K^?1) and is consistent with the assumption of fairly constant relative humidity. In the tropics, the trends are also influenced by changes in rainfall which, in turn, are closely associated with the mean flow and convergence of moisture by the trade winds. The main region where positive trends are not very evident is over Europe, in spite of large and positive trends over the North Atlantic since 1988. A much longer time series is probably required to obtain stable patterns of trends over the oceans, although the main variability could probably be deduced from past SST and associated precipitation variations.  相似文献   

Modeling semi-steady state near-well flow performance for horizontal wells in anisotropic reservoirs     

Jie Cao  Nan Zhang  Lesley A. James  Thormod E. Johansen 《Computational Geosciences》2018,22(3):725-744

This paper presents a novel methodology to model semi-steady state horizontal well flow performance in an anisotropic reservoir taking into account flow in the near-well region for an arbitrary well trajectory. It is based on an analytical productivity model describing coupled axial reservoir flow and radial well inflow. In order to apply this model in an anisotropic reservoir, the permeability field relative to the radial direction perpendicular to the well trajectory and the axial direction along the well trajectory must first be determined. A classical space transformation is used in concert with rotational transforms to obtain a virtual isotropic model. The transformation preserves the volumes and pressures. It is not a novel concept, but different from previous approaches in the sense that it is only applied in the near-well domain to formulate an equally isotropic media. As a result, the use of this virtual isotropic model requires the Dietz shape factor for an ellipse, transformed from the original cylindrical near-well domain. The Dietz shape factors are determined numerically in this research. The semi-steady state well/near-well model is implemented in a numerical simulator incorporating formation anisotropy and wellbore hydraulics. The specific productivity index along the well trajectory is generated using the virtual configuration. Numerical results for different anisotropy ratios and also incorporating frictional losses in the well are presented. Furthermore, the well/near-well model is applied in coupling with streamline reservoir model for a water flooding case. This appears to be the first coupling of a well hydraulics model and a streamline simulator. It presents the application of the well/near-well model in integrated reservoir simulation in an efficient and accurate manner. The results demonstrate that the coupling approach with a streamline reservoir model and the well/near-well is of great potential for advanced well simulation efficiently.  相似文献   

FITC‐conjugated lectins as a tool for differentiating between toxic and non‐toxic marine dinoflagellates     

Lesley L. Rhodes  Allison J. Haywood  David W. Fountain 《新西兰海洋与淡水研究杂志》2013,47(3):359-365

FITC‐conjugated lectins proved to be effective probes for differentiating between morphologically similar dinoflagellate species isolated from New Zealand coastal waters. In particular the binding (fluorescence) of peanut (PNA) lectin differentiated G. mikimotoi from Gymnodinium sp. (Waimangu) and G. pulchellum and the non‐binding of Helix pomatia (HPA) and wheat germ (WGA) lectins discriminated between G. mikimotoi and the other Gymnodinium species tested. G. breve (Florida) was differentiated from the New Zealand isolates by binding with soy bean (SBA) lectin. Ulex europeus (UEA) distinguished the toxic species Alexandrium minutum from the morphologically similar, but non‐toxic, Cachonina hallii. Two strains of Prorocentrum lima (Spain and Rangaunu) were not differentiated by the lectins, but P. lima was differentiated from P. compressum.  相似文献   

International accreditation of sandwich hybridisation assay format DNA probes for micro‐algae     

Katie Ayers  Lesley L. Rhodes  John Tyrrell  Melissa Gladstone  Chris Scholin 《新西兰海洋与淡水研究杂志》2013,47(6):1225-1231

The sandwich hybridisation assay (SHA) is a DNA probe‐based method for rapid identification and enumeration of toxic micro‐algae which uses species specific oligonucleotide probes targeted at ribosomal RNA. It is suited to fragile micro‐algal cells which commonly collapse during the fixation stage of sample collection, compromising identification by traditional microscopy. The assay has been available for research for several years, but was validated and accepted for international accreditation for commercial laboratory use in New Zealand in May 2004 (International Accreditation New Zealand: ISO 17025). During the validation of the raphidophyte assay, some discrepancies were noted between SHA cell concentration estimates and traditional light microscope cell counts. Higher SHA estimates were recorded when blooms had collapsed but rRNA was still present in sea water. Conversely, higher traditional cell counts occurred when sample delivery was delayed more than 48 h, presumably owing to degradation of rRNA in the live cultures used for the SHA. SHA cell concentration estimates of the toxic diatom bloom‐former Pseudo‐nitzschia australis were also compared with whole cell format DNA probe counts and traditional microscope counts; SHA counts were comparable for the three methods tested.  相似文献