Tausug (ISO code tsg) is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Jolo in the southwestern Philippines. It is also found on other nearby islands in the southwestern part of the Philippines and in parts of Sabah, Malaysia, where it is called Suluk. The population of the Tausug in the Philippines is estimated at 900,000 (Gordon 2005) and the year 2000 population estimate of the Suluk in Sabah, Malaysia, is 150,000. The following description is based on the variety spoken on Jolo. ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ text was translated from English into Tausug by Irene Hassan. Previous studies of Tausug phonology include Asmah (1978, 1983) and Hassan, Ashley & Ashley (1994). David Lao, age 62 at the time of the recording, born in Jolo, Philippines, was the reader for the Tausug words in this article. Due to difficult access into the language area, all audio recordings were obtained by Skype transmission.

Fiji's National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan encourages refinements to conservation priorities based on analyses of new information. Here we propose a network of Priority Forests for Conservation based on a synthesis of new studies and data that have become available since legislation of the Action Plan in 2001. For selection of Priority Forests we considered minimum-area requirements for some native species, representation goals for Fiji's habitats and species assemblages, key ecological processes and the practical realities of conservation areas in Fiji. Forty Priority Forests that cover 23% of Fiji's total land area and 58% of Fiji's remaining native forest were identified. The analysis confirms the majority of conservation priority areas previously identified, recommends several new areas, and supports the Government of Fiji's policy goal of protecting 40% of remaining natural forests to achieve the goals of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and sustain ecosystem services for Fijian communities and economies.

There exists no current inventory of how much of the United States is occupied by natural vegetation, nor how much area is covered by particular plant communities. In this study, the potential existing vegetation-cover of the United States was determined by using a computer algorithm that was developed to subtract extant landuse data from the potential natural vegetation. This was done on a county-by-county basis for the 48 conterminous States.

Indonesian is an Austronesian language, closely related to Malay. Malay served as a lingua franca throughout the Malay Archipelago for centuries, and a variant of Malay was adopted as the official language of Indonesia when independence was declared in 1945. The variety described here is sometimes referred to as Standard Indonesian. Its autoglossonym is ‘Bahasa Indonesia’.

The new Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) Public Right Angle Program (RAP) offers the opportunity for researchers to obtain observations with the EUVE imaging telescopes, oriented at right angles to the EUVE spectrometer used for the NASA Guest Observer Program. Scientists may submit proposals electronically through the World Wide Web or e-mail using a template form to list specific targets and present the scientific motivation for the work. The RAP electronic proposal process is streamlined from proposal submission through data delivery and is a prototype for a system to be used for all guest observers during the EUVE extended mission starting in February, 1996.

In the Ampfion diode, an ion beam is extracted from an anode plasma that is being pushed away from the cathode by a rising magnetic field. There is concern that ion heating in the anode plasma sheath may result in a significant ion beam divergence. To investigate this possibility, a comparison of Z pinches, θ pinches, and Ampfion is made. Ampfion sheath scenarios are examined and a simple argument is presented that indicates that an anomalous resistivity should develop. An upper bound estimate of the ion divergence is calculated, and examples are given for PBFA-II parameters. For a small radius diode with a high density anode plasma, it is shown that ion beam divergence due to plasma heating should not be a problem. For a large radius diode with a low density anode plasma, it is shown that ion beam divergence due to plasma heating is a problem, but that an Ampfion filtering mechanism should select a cool portion of the heated ions and help to alleviate this problem.