Urban Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Urban Studies - Essay Example ential by setting up a recreational park in the area much to the chagrin of the local community that comprises of Native American people who have valuable cultural attachment to the place. The conflict between the two culminated to a standoff that lasted 109 days thereby embodied a typical conflict over urban land use as the discussion below portrays. The two groups, The Greater Vallejo Recreation District and the Native American people, both had claims that appeared legitimate to them. To the Native American people, the land was their sacred ground. They gathered in the land for spiritual functions including burial. As such, the place was the resting ground for their ancestors thus was of immense cultural values. They had decorated the land with numerous valuable cultural products and maintained its gardens. Also known to them as the Sogorea Te, the Native people claim that the ground has been their burial and religious site for more than 3,000 years. As such, the people have a historical and cultural attachment to the place that makes it impossible for them to surrender the land to the Greater Vallejo Recreation District (Parrish, 2015). The Greater Vallejo Recreation District on the other hand views the business potential of the strait. The district embodies the modern day urban economy, which continues to foster changes in land use throughout the world. Recreational parks are significant facilities in the modern societies. They offer city residents with great outdoor activities as they walk with their children in the parks and get away from the busy life of the urban settings. To the city planners, recreational parks do not only beautify the scenery of a town but also adds an aesthetic value to the place. The Greater Vallejo Recreation District therefore viewed the business potential of the strait. They sought to rehabilitate the land by planting new plant species and providing reliable sanctuary to the rare animals in the area. Additionally, they would

Audience as Market vs Audience as Public Essay Example for Free

Audience as Market vs Audience as Public Essay The relevance of ratings is very crucial, for it is what determines the most looked after programs that give a hint of satisfaction from the audiences as consumers. It is a measure of response that helps producers and managers determine what type of programs are appropriate for a certain time of the day. It also tells something about the audience, generally, their age and program preference. The audience-as-market view was manifested through the many advertisements that can be found on the commercials or air-time allotted in-between television programs. (Ang, 1991, pp. 28) Most of the television programs were an also profit-making program that generates money from the emotions and satisfaction of the public domain. In a more traditional sense, wherein broadcasting is used as a means of transmitting information, the audiences are viewed as a public. In a broad sense it portrays public service through broadcasting. Those who take broadcasting in the traditional sense believe that they have a responsibility to provide information to the public domain or to their audiences. (Ang, 1991, pp. 29) Impact of Globalization There had been several changes in the broadcasting industry due to the innovations in technology and the advent of globalization. The new ways of delivering audio-visual information via satellite have tremendously increase the audience choice and made access to different programs a lot more cheaper (McQuail, 1997, pp. 9). An instance that shows the advent of globalization can be reflected on the different interactive programs use to generate funds and advertisements. In public service broadcasting, the latest innovations have made it easier to get and present information and news. By being interactive, it had been able to solicit questions and opinions from the audience that further create a more informed viewers. Conclusion Broadcasting is a money-making industry that was promoted by a capitalist institution. Although there were views that it is ought to be used and contextualize to serve the public, nevertheless, this view would only be a part of a larger cultural-market scheme. It is important to analyze the institutional framework that fueled the broadcasting industry in able for one to determine how analyze the audience. Due to the fact that it is the institutional framework which determines who are the audiences and how they are supposed to response and be address. Bibliography Ang, I. 1991Desperately Seeking the Audience, Routledge, London/New York, , pp. 26-32 McQuail, D. 1997Audience Analysis, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, , pp. 1-11. Moores, S. 2000. Media And Everyday Life In Modern Society. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh. pp. 5-23 Schirato, T. and Yell, S. 1996`Communication and Culture`, Communication and Cultural Literacy: An introduction, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, Sydney, , pp. 1-21 Schlesinger, P. Do Institutions Matter For Public Servic Broadcasting? University of Stirling, Scotland. Retrieved on August 12, 2007. Retrieved from www. ofcom. org. uk/consult/condocs/psb2/psb2/psbwp/wp2schles. pdf Thompson, J. 1997, `Mass Communication and Mass Culture` in O`Sullivan, Tim and Jewkes, Yvonne (eds), The Media Studies Reader, Edward Arnold Ltd, London, pp. 28-41 Williams, R. 1997`Mass and Masses` in O`Sullivan, Tim and Jewkes, Yvonne (Eds), The Media Studies Reader, Edward Arnold ltd, , pp. 18-27

Traveling With Children :: Parenting Internet Papers

Traveling With Children About four years ago a friend of mine guided me into a couple of chat rooms. The subject of the rooms had to do with sports. It was very strange how the other members of the community knew when you logged in or logged out. Sometimes the members would see that you were there but not participating in the "conversation". They would try to bring you into the conversation or come right out and ask you what you were there for. The conversations can go quite quickly so I had a hard time keeping up sometimes. They were friendly, though, and would just ask again if a person did not answer in enough time. I have not been in a chat room since. It seems easier when you already know another person in the room. I actually think it is kind of creepy. I will not know who these people are. Do I want them to know my log on name? What if they are weirdoes and look up my personal information on the internet? Do they even have this capability? It is pretty obvious that I do not know much about the internet. I do know how to E-Mail someone. I do not have a problem going to a web site if I know the address. If I am searching for something I actually get very frustrated, because it takes so much time if you do not know what you are doing. One link leads to another, then another, then another and then you forget where you started. The community I am most curious about is the chat room community. I am going to plung right in and face my fears. Will I feel comfortable to participate in the conversations? Will the people in the chat room be talking about something that interests me? Will I be able to keep up? I assume it will be difficult. My topic is "Traveling with Children". I have no idea if there are even any chat rooms out there about this subject. I read an article in the travel section of the Los Angeles Times every other week about traveling with children, so there must be some sort of audience out there. I assume there must be resources on this subject because traveling is so popular. The internet seems like it would be a useful tool for research and if I find the chat rooms I imagine it will be very helpful. Traveling With Children :: Parenting Internet Papers Traveling With Children About four years ago a friend of mine guided me into a couple of chat rooms. The subject of the rooms had to do with sports. It was very strange how the other members of the community knew when you logged in or logged out. Sometimes the members would see that you were there but not participating in the "conversation". They would try to bring you into the conversation or come right out and ask you what you were there for. The conversations can go quite quickly so I had a hard time keeping up sometimes. They were friendly, though, and would just ask again if a person did not answer in enough time. I have not been in a chat room since. It seems easier when you already know another person in the room. I actually think it is kind of creepy. I will not know who these people are. Do I want them to know my log on name? What if they are weirdoes and look up my personal information on the internet? Do they even have this capability? It is pretty obvious that I do not know much about the internet. I do know how to E-Mail someone. I do not have a problem going to a web site if I know the address. If I am searching for something I actually get very frustrated, because it takes so much time if you do not know what you are doing. One link leads to another, then another, then another and then you forget where you started. The community I am most curious about is the chat room community. I am going to plung right in and face my fears. Will I feel comfortable to participate in the conversations? Will the people in the chat room be talking about something that interests me? Will I be able to keep up? I assume it will be difficult. My topic is "Traveling with Children". I have no idea if there are even any chat rooms out there about this subject. I read an article in the travel section of the Los Angeles Times every other week about traveling with children, so there must be some sort of audience out there. I assume there must be resources on this subject because traveling is so popular. The internet seems like it would be a useful tool for research and if I find the chat rooms I imagine it will be very helpful.

Piercing the Corporate Veil Essay -- Papers

Piercing the Corporate Veil Since the establishment in Salomon v Salomon, the separate legal personality has been long recognised in English law for centuries, that is to say, a limited liability company has its own legal identity distinct from its shareholders or directors. However, in certain circumstances the courts may be prepared to look behind the company at the actions of the directors and shareholders. This is known as "piercing the corporate veil". There are numerous cases concerning the "piercing the corporate veil", among which, Jones v Lipman[1] was a typical case. Lipman sold land to Jones by a written contract but refused to complete the sale because of another good deal, instead he offered damages for breach of contract. To put the house out of reach of Jones, he bought a company "off the shelf" and conveyed the house to it. In an action against Lipman and the company, the court granted the specific performance and ruled that "the defendant company is the creature of the first defendant, a device and ...

Learning Team Industry Averages and Financial Ratios Essay

Watch the Industry Averages and Financial Ratios video and use the industry classification from the financial services website to locate the company’s SIC code on the U.S. Department of Labor’s website. Find the industry ratios for the company using the Dun &  Bradstreet ® Key Business Ratios link in the Week 2 Electronic Reserve Readings. If your company’s SIC code does not appear in the dropdown menu, choose another company. Assume the inventory ratio is based on a traditional inventory system, but globalized markets and the supply chain make it critical to adopt lean principles to create a more efficient system. Calculate the 14 ratios (show your calculations) for the company using the two most recent annual financial statements found on the financial information website you used earlier. Be careful not to use quarterly information, and include ratios for both years. Note. You can access a downloadable Ratio Guide PDF by clicking the Help Guide link in the upper-right of the Dun & Bradstreet ® Key Business Ratios window. Compare the ratios for the company you selected with the appropriate industry ratios including profitability, solvency, and efficiency ratios shown on the Dun & Bradstreet ® report. Write a 350-word response about how the company you selected performed compared with the industry. Instructor Notes: Also upload the following: Formula and calculations of your company’s financial ratios for most recent two years (Excel) Dun & Bradstreet financial ratios for your company’s SIC code (exported to Excel) (Please delete the text in yellow-highlight above) Industry Averages and Financial Ratios Paper The purpose of this analysis is for our team to analyze how Amazon.com Inc. performed compared with the industry based on financial ratios. In Attachment 1, our team provides the industry ratios for the company using the Dun & Bradstreet Key Business Ratios. In Attachment 2, we provide the Balance Sheet and Income Statement information for the company’s most recent two years. In Attachment 3, our team calculates the company’s 14 financial ratios. In Attachment 4, we compare the financial ratios with appropriate industry ratios including profitability, solvency, and efficiency ratios. Analysis of Company’s Financial Ratios Compared to Industry’s Financial Ratios Xxxx Provide an analysis of the selected company’s 14 financial ratios compared to the industry’s financial ratios. Compare the most recent two years from D&B industry average to the same two years from your calculated financial ratios. Use the â€Å"Median† from the D&B industry average Remember to select financial ratios related to profitability, solvency, and  efficiency ratios. Note: the analysis includes interpreting the importance of the company’s vs. the industry’s financial ratios. 3 points out of 3 possible points (please do not delete these lines with point scoring) Conclusion References [Insert references here.] Attachment 1 Industry’s ratios from Dun & Bradstreet ® Key Business Ratios Solvency Ratios Solvency ratios measure the financial soundness of a business and how well a company can satisfy its short- and long-term obligations. D&B uses six key financial business ratios to measure a company’s solvency: †¢ Quick Ratio, also called â€Å"acid test† or â€Å"liquid† ratio, considers only cash, marketable securities and accounts receivable because they are considered to be the most liquids forms of current assets. A Quick Ratio less that 1.0 implies â€Å"dependency† on inventory and other current assets to liquidate short-term debt. Cash + Accounts Receivable à · Current Liabilities †¢ Current Ratio is a comparison of current assets to current liabilities, commonly used as a measure of short-run solvency, i.e., the immediate ability of a business to pay its current debts as they come due. Potential creditors use this ratio to measure a company’s liquidity or ability to pay off short-term debts. Current Assets à · Cu rrent Liabilities †¢ Current Liabilities to Net Worth Ratio indicates the amount due creditors within a year as a percentage of the owners or stockholders investment. The smaller the net worth and the larger the liabilities, the less security for creditors. Normally a business starts to have trouble when this relationship exceeds 80%. Current Liabilities à · Net Worth †¢ Current Liabilities to Inventory Ratio shows, as a percentage, the reliance on available inventory for payment of debt (how much a company relies on funds from disposal of unsold inventories to meet its current debt). Current Liabilities à · Inventory †¢ Total Liabilities to New Worth Ratio shows how all of a company’s debt relates to the equity of the owners or stockholders.  The higher this ratio, the less protection there is for the creditors of the business. Total Liabilities à · Net Worth †¢ Fixed Assets to Newt Worth Ratio shows the percentage of assts centered in fixed assets compared to total equity. Generally the higher this percentage is over 75%, the more vulnerable a business becomes to unexpected hazards and climate changes. Fixed Assets à · Net Worth Efficiency Ratios Efficiency ratios measure the quality of a business’ receivables and how efficiently it uses and controls its assets, how effectively the firm is paying suppliers and whether the business is overtrading or undertrading on its equity. D&B uses five key financial business ratios to measure a company’s efficiency: †¢ Collection Period Ratio is helpful in analyzing the collectability of accounts receivable or how fast a business can increase its cash supply. Accounts Receivable à · Sales x 365 Days †¢ Sales to Inventory Ratio provides a yardstick for comparing stock-to-sales ratios of a business with others in the same industry. A high ratio may indicate that sales are being lost because of low inventory and/or customers are buying elsewhere. A low ratio may indicate that inventories are obsolete or stagnant. Annual Net Sale à · Inventory †¢ Assets to Sales Ratio shows how efficiently a business is usingits assets to generate revenue. A high ratio may indicate the business is not aggressive or that its assts are not fully used. A low ratio may indicate a company is selling more than can safely fulfilled by its assets. Total Assets à · Net Sales †¢ Sales to Net Working Capital Ratio shows the number of times working capital turns over annually in relation to net sales. A high turnover rate may indicate that the business relies heavily on credit. Sales à · Net Working Capital †¢ Accounts Payable to Sales Ratio shows how a company pays its suppliers in relation to the sales volume being transacted. A low percentage may indicate a healthy ratio. A high percentage may indicate that the business may be using suppliers to help finance its operation. Accounts Payable à · Net Sales Profitability Ratios Profitability ratios measure how well a company is performing by analyzing how profit was earned relative to sales, total assets and net worth. D&B uses three key financial business ratios to measure a company’s efficiency: †¢ Return on Sales (Profit Margin) Ratio measures the profits after taxes on the year’s sales. The higher the ratio, the better prepared the business is to handle downtrends brought on by adverse conditions. Net Profit After  Taxes à · Net Sales †¢ Return on Assets (ROA) Ratio shows the after tax earnings of assets and is an indicator of how profitable a company is. Return on assets ratio is the key indicator of the profitability of a company. It matches net profits after taxes with the assets used to earn such profits. A high percentage rated indicates the company is well run and has a healthy return on assets. Net Profit After Taxes à · Total Assets †¢ Return on Net Worth Ratio measure the ability of a company’s management to realize an adequate return on the capital invested by the owners in the company. Net Profit After Taxes à · Net Worth Median Median is the value from the midpoint that falls halfway between the Upper and Lower Quartiles. Industry Quartiles Industry Quartiles are static values taken directly from the KBR database tables. The value from the midpoint that falls halfway to the top of the list is selected as the Upper Quartile. The value that is halfway between the median and the bottom of the list is selected as the Lower Quartile.

Domestication History of Squashes (Cucurbita spp)

Domestication History of Squashes (Cucurbita spp) Squash (genus Cucurbita), including squashes, pumpkins, and gourds, is one of the earliest and most important of plants domesticated in the Americas, along with maize and common bean. The genus includes 12-14 species, at least five of which were domesticated independently, long before European contact in South America, Mesoamerica, and Eastern North America. Five Main Species The designation cal BP means, roughly, calendar years ago before the present. Data in this table has been assembled from a variety of available sources, listed in the bibliography for this article. Name Common Name Location Date Progenitor C. pepo spp pepo pumpkins, zucchini Mesoamerica 10,000 cal BP C. pepo. spp fraterna C. moschata butternut squash Mesoamerica or northern South America 10,000 cal BP C. pepo spp fraterna C. pepo spp. ovifera summer squashes, acorns Eastern North America 5000 cal BP C. pepo spp ozarkana C. argyrosperma silver-seeded gourd, green-striped cushaw Mesoamerica 5000 cal BP C. argyrosperma spp sororia C. ficifolia fig-leafed gourd Mesoamerica or Andean South America 5000 cal BP unknown C. maxima buttercup, banana, Lakota, Hubbard, Harrahdale pumpkins South America 4000 cal BP C. maxima spp adreana Why Would Anybody Domesticate Gourds? Wild forms of squashes are harshly bitter to humans and other extant mammals, but there is evidence that they were harmless to mastodons, the extinct form of elephant. Wild squashes carry cucurbitacins, which can be toxic when eaten by smaller bodied mammals, including humans. Large-bodied mammals would need to ingest a huge amount to have an equivalent dose (75-230 whole fruits at once). Interestingly, when the megafauna died off at the end of the last Ice Age, wild Cucurbita declined. The last mammoths in the Americas died off about 10,000 years ago, around the same time squashes were domesticated. See Kistler et al. for a discussion. Archaeological understanding of squash domestication process  has undergone a considerable rethinking: most domestication processes have been found to have taken centuries if not millennia to complete. In comparison, squash domestication was fairly abrupt. Domestication was likely in part the result of human selection for different traits related to edibility, as well as seed size and rind thickness. It has also been suggested that domestication may have been directed by the practicality of dried gourds as containers or fishing weights. Bees and Gourds Evidence suggests that cucurbit ecology is tightly bound up with one of its pollinators, several varieties of an American stingless bee known as Peponapis or the gourd bee. Ecological evidence (Giannini et al.) identified a co-occurrence of specific types of cucurbit with specifics type of Peponapis  in three distinct geographic clusters. Cluster A is in the Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahan deserts (including P. pruinosa); B in the moist forests of the Yucatan peninsula and C in the Sinaloa dry forests. Peponapis bees may well be crucial to understanding the spread of domesticated squash in the Americas, because bees apparently followed the human movement of cultivated squashes into new territories. Lopez-Uribe et al. (2016) studied and identified molecular markers of the bee P. pruinosa in bee populations throughout North America. P. pruinosa today prefers the wild host C. foetidissima, but when that is not available, it relies on domesticated host plants, C. pepo, C. moschata and C. maxima, for pollen. The distribution of these markers suggests that modern squash bee populations are the result of a massive range expansion from out of Mesoamerica into the temperate regions of North America. Their findings suggest that the bee colonized eastern NA after C. pepo was domesticated there, the first and only known case of a pollinators range expanding with the spread of a domesticated plant. South America Microbotanical remains from squash plants such as starch grains and phytoliths, as well as macro-botanical remains such as seeds, pedicles, and rinds, have been found representing C. moschata squash and bottle gourd in numerous sites throughout northern South American and Panama by 10,200-7600 cal BP, underlining their probable South American origins earlier than that. Phytoliths large enough to represent domesticated squash have been found at sites in Ecuador 10,000-7,000 years BP and the Colombian Amazon (9300-8000 BP). Squash seeds of Cucurbita moschata have been recovered from sites in the Nanchoc valley on the lower western slopes of Peru, as were early cotton, peanut, and quinoa. Two squash seeds from the floors of houses were direct-dated, one 10,403–10,163 cal BP and one 8535-8342 cal BP. In the Zaà ±a valley of Peru, C. moschata rinds dated to 10,402-10,253 cal BP, alongside early evidence of cotton, manioc and coca. C. ficifolia was discovered in southern coastal Peru at Paloma, dated between 5900-5740 cal BP; other squash evidence that has not been identified to species include Chilca 1, in southern coastal Peru (5400 cal BP and Los Ajos in southeastern Uruguay, 4800-4540 cal BP. Mesoamerican Squashes The earliest archaeological evidence for C. pepo squash in Mesoamerica comes from excavations carried out during the 1950s and 1960s in five caves in Mexico: Guil Naquitz in Oaxaca state, Coxcatln and San Marco caves in Puebla and Romero’s and Valenzuela’s caves in Tamaulipas. Pepo squash seeds, fruit rind fragments, and stems have been radiocarbon dated to 10,000 years BP, including both direct dating of the seeds and indirect dating of the site levels in which they were found. This analysis allowed also to trace the dispersion of the plant between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago from south to north, specifically, from Oaxaca and southwestern Mexico toward Northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Xihuatoxtla rockshelter, in tropical Guerrero state, contained phytoliths of what may be C. argyrosperma, in association with radiocarbon dated levels of 7920/- 40 RCYBP, indicating that domesticated squash was available between 8990-8610 cal BP. Eastern North America In the United States, early evidence of initial domestication of Pepo squash comes from different sites from the central midwest and the east from Florida to Maine. This was a subspecies of Cucurbita pepo called Cucurbita pepo ovifera and its wild ancestor, the inedible Ozark gourd, is still present in the area. This plant formed part of the dietary complex known as the Eastern North American Neolithic, which also included chenopodium and sunflower. The earliest use of squash is from the Koster site  in Illinois, ca. 8000 years BP; the earliest domesticated squash in the midwest comes from Phillips Spring, Missouri, about 5,000 years ago.   Sources Dillehay TD, Rossen J, Andres TC, and Williams DE. 2007. Preceramic Adoption of Peanut, Squash, and Cotton in Northern Peru. Science 316:1890-1893.Fuller DQ, Denham T, Arroyo-Kalin M, Lucas L, Stevens CJ, Qin L, Allaby RG, and Purugganan MD. 2014. Convergent evolution and parallelism in plant domestication revealed by an expanding archaeological record. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(17):6147-6152.Giannini TC, Lira-Saade R, Ayala R, Saraiva AM, and Alves-dos-Santos I. 2011. Ecological niche similarities of Peponapis bees and non-domesticated Cucurbita species. Ecological Modelling 222(12):2011-2018.Hart JP, Brumbach HJ, and Lusteck R. 2007. Extending the Phytolith Evidence for Early Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) and Squash (Cucurbita sp.) in Central New York. American Antiquity 72(3):563-584.Kistler L, Newsom LA, Ryan TM, Clarke AC, Smith BD, and Perry GH. 2015. Gourds and squashes (Cucurbita spp.) adapted to megafaunal extinction and ecological anachronism through domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(49):15107-15112. Lira R, Eguiarte L, Montes S, Zizumbo-Villarreal D, Marà ­n PC-G, and Quesada M. 2016. Homo sapiens–Cucurbita interaction in Mesoamerica: Domestication, Dissemination, and Diversification. In: Lira R, Casas A, and Blancas J, editors. Ethnobotany of Mexico: Interactions of People and Plants in Mesoamerica. New York, NY: Springer New York. p 389-401.Là ³pez-Uribe MM, Cane JH, Minckley RL, and Danforth BN. 2016. Crop domestication facilitated rapid geographical expansion of a specialist pollinator, the squash bee Peponapis pruinosa. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 283(1833).Patton PE, and Curran S. 2016. Archaic Period Domesticated Plants in the Mid-Ohio Valley: Archaeobotanical Remains from the County Home Site (33at40), Southeastern Ohio. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 41(2):127-158.Piperno DR. 2011. The Origins of Plant Cultivation and Domestication in the New World Tropics: Patterns, Process, and New Developments. Current Anthropolog y 52(S4):S453-S470. Piperno DR. 2016. Phytolith radiocarbon dating in archaeological and paleoecological research: a case study of phytoliths from modern Neotropical plants and a review of the previous dating evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science 68:54-61.Ranere AJ, Piperno DR, Holst I, Dickau R, and Iriarte J. 2009. The cultural and chronological context of early Holocene maize and squash domestication in the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:5014-5018.Sanjur OI, Piperno DR, Andres TC, and Wessel-Beaver L. 2002. Phylogenetic relationships among domesticated and wild species of Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae) inferred from a mitochondrial gene: Implications for crop plant evolution and areas of origin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99(1):535-540.Simon ML. 2011. Evidence for variability among squash seeds from the Hoxie site (11CK4), Illinois. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(9):2079-2093.Smith BD. 2011. The Cultural Context of Plant Domestication in Eastern North America. Current Anthropology 52(S4):S471-S484. Smith BD. 2006. Eastern North America as an independent center of plant domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(33):12223-12228.Zheng Y-H, Alverson AJ, Wang Q-F, and Palmer JD. 2013. Chloroplast phylogeny of Cucurbita: Evolution of the domesticated and wild species. Journal of Systematics and Evolution 51(3):326-334.

Patricia Vickers-Rich - A Profile of the Famous Paleontologist

Patricia Vickers-Rich - A Profile of the Famous Paleontologist Name: Patricia Vickers-Rich Born: 1944 Nationality: Australian; born in the United States Dinosaurs Named: Leaellynasaura, Qantassaurus, Timimus About Patricia Vickers-Rich Sometimes, even globe-trotting paleontologists become associated with the specific geographical areas in which they made their most famous fossil discoveries. Such is the case with Patricia Vickers-Rich, who along with her husband, fellow paleontologist Tom Rich, has become virtually synonymous with Dinosaur Cove. In 1980, the couple explored the remains of  this ancient river channel, studded with bones, on the southern coast of Australiaand soon they began a careful series of excavations, which involved the strategic use of dynamite and sledgehammers. (Vickers-Rich is not a native-born Australian; she was actually born in the United States, and emigrated Down Under in 1976.) Over the next 20 years, Vickers-Rich and her husband made a series of important discoveries, including the small, big-eyed theropod Leaellynasaura (which they named after their daughter) and the mysterious ornithomimid, or bird-mimic dinosaur, Timimus (which they named after their son). When they ran out of children after which to name their fossils, they turned to the corporate institutions of Australia: Qantassaurus was named after Qantas, the Australian national airline, and Atlascopcosaurus after a prominent manufacturer of mining equipment. What makes these finds especially important is that, during the later Mesozoic Era, Australia was located much farther south than it is today and it was therefore much colderso Vickers-Richs dinosaurs are among the few known to have lived in near-Antarctic conditions.