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Education in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Islands is a critical reference guide to development of education in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Comoros Islands, Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles and Zanzibar. The chapters provide an overview of the education system in each country, focusing particularly on contemporary education policies and some of the problems countries in this region face during the processes of development. Key themes include the practice of implementation of educational policy and the impact of global and local educational decisions on societies. Due to the demographic scale and the cultural diversity of India, the volume contains a particularly extensive coverage of the distinctive educational issues in this country.

Alterations to the global water cycle are of concern as Earth's climate changes. Although policymakers are mainly interested in changes to terrestrial rainfall—where, when, and how much it's going to rain—the largest component of the global water cycle operates over the ocean where nearly all of Earth's free water resides. Approximately 80% of Earth's surface freshwater fluxes occur over the ocean; its surface salinity responds to changing evaporation and precipitation patterns by displaying salty or fresh anomalies. The salinity field integrates sporadic surface fluxes over time, and after accounting for ocean circulation and mixing, salinity changes resulting from long-term alternations to surface evaporation and precipitation are evident. Thus, ocean salinity measurements can provide insights into water-cycle operation and its long-term change. Although poor observational coverage and an incomplete view of the interaction of all water-cycle components limits our understanding, climate models are beginning to provide insights that are complementing observations. This new information suggests that the global water cycle is rapidly intensifying.

During the second Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study (SPURS-2) field experiments in 2016 and 2017 in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, the surface salinity profiler (SSP) measured temperature and salinity profiles in the upper 1.1 m of the ocean. The SSP captured the response of the ocean surface to 35 rain events, providing insight into the generation and evolution of rain-formed fresh layers. This paper describes the measurements made with the SSP during SPURS-2 and quantifies the fresh layers in terms of their vertical salinity gradients between 0.05 m and 1.1 m, ΔS 1.1–0.05m. For the 35 rain events sampled with the SSP in 2016 and 2017, the maximum value of ΔS 1.1–0.05m is well correlated with the accumulated rainfall. The maximum value of ΔS 1.1–0.05m is shown to be linearly proportional to the maximum rain rate and inversely proportional to the wind speed. This wind speed-dependent relationship shows a high degree of scatter, reflecting that the vertical salinity gradient formed during any individual rain event depends on the complex interaction between the local ocean dynamics and the highly variable forcing from rain and wind.

In this article, I argue for the notion of what I term ‘uncanny water’ as a conceptual tool for reading contemporary oceanic fictions. The uncanny’s affective capacity to destabilise epistemological and ontological certainties makes it a particularly potent literary tool for challenging the nature/culture binary. I argue that fictions which actively defamiliarise the ocean can be used to redress the anthropocentric privilege found in hitherto narratives of the oceanic that were predicated upon mastery and control, and that uncanny moments of displacement and uncertainty can illuminate human/oceanic interconnections and foster a sense of responsibility and compassion towards the oceans. I identify resonances between the uncanny’s continuing referentiality and the notion that feminist transcorporeality interrelates the subject into networks of materiality which extend across time and space in unknowable ways. Both transcorporeality and the uncanny work against the conceit of the individual through the dissolution of boundaries, and, crucially, both require a suspension of assumptions of the self as whole, discrete and impermeable. To demonstrate this, I read the uncanny waters of contemporary fictions from the Northern Atlantic Littoral (Atlantic Canada and the westernmost parts of the UK). The littoral position of these spaces makes them ideally placed to negotiate the borders between habitable and unhabitable spaces, and the limitations of knowledge that run alongside this. I assert that iterations of uncanny water offer a transoceanic dialogue which shifts constructions of subjectivity away from national and terrestrial boundaries to one more akin to the fluid and relational dialectics of transcorporeality.

Background Vision-related quality of life (vrQoL) is advancing more and more into the focus of interest in ophthalmological clinical research. However, to date only little information is available about vrQoL from large non-interventional studies in terms of \"real-world evidence\". The purpose of this investigation was to describe baseline VFQ-25 visual function scores, to evaluate whether they differ from previous phase III clinical trials, to determine which contributing factors (e.g. indication, age, gender) affect VFQ-25 scores and to identify its impact on driving. Methods The non-interventional OCEAN study ( O bservation of treatment patterns with Lu CE ntis and real life ophthalmic monitoring, including optional OCT in A pproved i N dications) is the largest ophthalmic study conducted in Germany, to evaluate the real world situation of patients treated with ranibizumab (NCT02194803). The NEI-VFQ-25 questionnaire was conducted at baseline, months 4, 12 and 24. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the baseline data. ANOVA was performed to evaluate the impact of various contributing factors on composite and selected subscale scores. Results Overall, 4844 (84.1 %) of all 5760 OCEAN patients completed the VFQ-25 questionnaire at baseline. Thereof, 3414 treatment-naïve patients were further analysed. Overall, the VFQ subscore general health was most affected by the ocular disease, followed by general vision. No major differences were detected in comparison to corresponding VFQ-25 scores of previous phase III clinical trials, except in DME patients, or with respect to possible contributing factors. A tendency towards a more decreased VFQ-25 composite score was observed for nAMD, for elderly patients ≥75 years of age, for female patients, for patients with low baseline visual acuity (VA; <50 letters) and for those with statutory health insurance. Indication, age, gender, baseline VA (all p <0.01) and the interaction of age and indication, as well as baseline VA and indication ( p <0.01 each) had a significant impact on composite, general vision and distance vision scores (ANOVA). About 10 % of patients gave up driving due to eyesight issues. Conclusions The knowledge of a patient’s subjective disease burden is crucial to understanding anxieties and mental anguish. Additionally, the understanding of the impact of various contributing factors on the VFQ-25 scores and the extent to which they can be influenced help to optimize patient care. It demonstrates the need for medical and mental support by all medical staff, to encourage patients’ compliance with a comprehensive anti-VEGF therapy, to increase BCVA and, consecutively, VFQ-25 scores. Trial registration NCT02194803

Two saildrones participated in the Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study 2 (SPURS-2) field campaign at 10°N, 125°W, as part of their more than six-month Tropical Pacific Observing System (TPOS)-2020 pilot study in the eastern tropical Pacific. The two saildrones were launched from San Francisco, California, on September 1, 2017, and arrived at the SPURS-2 region on October 15, one week before R/V Revelle. Upon arrival at the SPURS-2 site, they each began a two-week repeat pattern, sailing around the program’s central moored surface buoy. The heavily instrumented Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) SPURS-2 buoy serves as a benchmark for validating the saildrone measurements for air-sea fluxes. The data collected by the WHOI buoy and the saildrones were found to be in reasonably good agreement. Although of short duration, these ship-saildrone-buoy comparisons are encouraging as they provide enhanced understanding of measurements by various platforms in a rapidly changing subsynoptic weather system. The saildrones were generally able to navigate the challenging Intertropical Convergence Zone, where winds are low and currents can be strong, demonstrating that the saildrone is an effective platform for observing a wide range of oceanographic variables important to airsea interaction studies.

The objective of this article is to provide a critical analysis of maritime heterotopia as a category for reinterpreting ships, shipwrecks and maritime landscapes between the 16th and 18th centuries. Through an interdisciplinary approach combining history, underwater archaeology, heritage theory and literary analysis, it explores the ways in which maritime spaces, especially ships and shipwrecks, functioned as ‘other spaces’–following Foucault’s concept of heterotopia–in the articulation of imperial projects, power relations, experiences of transit and narratives of memory. A particular focus has been placed on the examination of shipwreck accounts, which are regarded as microhistories of human behaviour in contexts of crisis. These accounts have been shown to offer insights into alternative social structures, dynamics of authority, and manifestations of violence or solidarity. A review of the legal framework and practices related to shipwrecks in the Spanish Carrera de Indias is also undertaken, with particular emphasis on their impact on maritime legislation and international law. This article proposes a reading of maritime heritage as a symbolic and political device in constant dispute, where material remains and associated narratives shape collective memories, geopolitical tensions and new forms of cultural appropriation. Shipwrecks thus become sites of rupture and origin, charged with utopian, dystopian and heterotopic potential.

The subtropical ocean, exposed to evaporation excess over precipitation, is characterized by regional sea surface salinity maxima (SSS-max). Ocean circulation and mixing processes inject freshwater, establishing a quasi-steady state, though imbalances across the time spectrum result in periods of increasing and decreasing SSS-max. The integrated effect of the array of atmospheric and oceanic forces governing sea surface salinity is shaped by the specific regional ocean basin configuration as well as their coupling to the global ocean system, resulting in SSS-max patterns and locations that display marked differences between the subtropical regimes. We provide a brief description of the SSS-max characteristics of the five subtropical regimes and present aspects of their regional settings that may account for their dissimilarities.

Work class remotely operated vehicle (ROV) rated for 6000 m depth of operation (ROSUB 6000) has been developed at the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai, for deep-ocean resource studies. This system is being developed for the exploration of deepsea mineral deposits such as poly-metallic nodules, gas hydrates, cobalt crust and other deep-ocean scientific observations in the Indian waters. The first ROVbased deep-water scientific expedition was performed to decipher the surface expression of gas hydrate at a depth of 1017 m in the Krishna–Godavari basin, Bay of Bengal, during September 2009. High-resolution bathymetry with multibeam sonar, vertical profiles of dissolved oxygen and water temperature were also collected in real time using ROV. Live images of seafloor habitats and deep-sea organisms such as fishes, shrimp, corals, holothurians and polychaetes were recorded and identified. Probable deep-water coral reef province is being established from deep waters of the Bay of Bengal and the exploration results have brought out chemosynthetic habitat at the expedition site in Bay of Bengal.

Seemingly infinite, and above all so far away from our daily worries, the ocean may look like it can put up with all anthropic pressures: plastic, warming, acidification, resources overconsumption, novel entities, biodiversity and habitat loss. But science keeps showing it cannot. There is an urgent need to address these pressures that threaten both natural and human ecosystems. In this context of urgency, it appears crucial to develop Sustainable Ocean Studies , whose keystone could be management science. Unfortunately, while natural sciences have largely contributed to our understanding of marine issues and their solutions, management scholars on the contrary have rather neglected the ocean. In this special issue, we focus on the need for Sustainable Ocean Studies through three original highlights: scuba diving, marine wild meat consumption and interdisciplinary ocean research.