Digits lost or gained? Evidence for pedal evolution in the dwarf salamander complex (Eurycea, Plethodontidae.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Trip Lamb

Full Text Available Change in digit number, particularly digit loss, has occurred repeatedly over the evolutionary history of tetrapods. Although digit loss has been documented among distantly related species of salamanders, it is relatively uncommon in this amphibian order. For example, reduction from five to four toes appears to have evolved just three times in the morphologically and ecologically diverse family Plethodontidae. Here we report a molecular phylogenetic analysis for one of these four-toed lineages--the Eurycea quadridigitata complex (dwarf salamanders--emphasizing relationships to other species in the genus. A multilocus phylogeny reveals that dwarf salamanders are paraphyletic with respect to a complex of five-toed, paedomorphic Eurycea from the Edwards Plateau in Texas. We use this phylogeny to examine evolution of digit number within the dwarf-Edwards Plateau clade, testing contrasting hypotheses of digit loss (parallelism among dwarf salamanders versus digit gain (re-evolution in the Edwards Plateau complex. Bayes factors analysis provides statistical support for a five-toed common ancestor at the dwarf-Edwards node, favoring, slightly, the parallelism hypothesis for digit loss. More importantly, our phylogenetic results pinpoint a rare event in the pedal evolution of plethodontid salamanders.

Perspectives on why digital ecologies matter: combining population genetics and ecologically informed agent-based models with GIS for managing dipteran livestock pests.

Science.gov (United States)

Peck, Steven L

2014-10-01

It is becoming clear that handling the inherent complexity found in ecological systems is an essential task for finding ways to control insect pests of tropical livestock such as tsetse flies, and old and new world screwworms. In particular, challenging multivalent management programs, such as Area Wide Integrated Pest Management (AW-IPM), face daunting problems of complexity at multiple spatial scales, ranging from landscape level processes to those of smaller scales such as the parasite loads of individual animals. Daunting temporal challenges also await resolution, such as matching management time frames to those found on ecological and even evolutionary temporal scales. How does one deal with representing processes with models that involve multiple spatial and temporal scales? Agent-based models (ABM), combined with geographic information systems (GIS), may allow for understanding, predicting and managing pest control efforts in livestock pests. This paper argues that by incorporating digital ecologies in our management efforts clearer and more informed decisions can be made. I also point out the power of these models in making better predictions in order to anticipate the range of outcomes possible or likely. Copyright © 2014 International Atomic Energy Agency 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Digital Textile Printing

OpenAIRE

Moltchanova, Julia

2011-01-01

Rapidly evolving technology of digital printing opens new opportunities on many markets. One of them is the printed fabric market where printing companies as well as clients benefit from new printing methods. This thesis focuses on the digital textile printing technology and its implementation for fabric-on-demand printing service in Finland. The purpose of this project was to study the technology behind digital textile printing, areas of application of this technology, the requirements ...

Evolving the Evolving: Territory, Place and Rewilding in the California Delta

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brett Milligan

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Current planning and legislation in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta call for the large-scale ecological restoration of aquatic and terrestrial habitats. These ecological mandates have emerged in response to the region’s infrastructural transformation and the Delta’s predominant use as the central logistical hub in the state’s vast water conveyance network. Restoration is an attempt to recover what was externalized by the logic and abstractions of this logistical infrastructure. However, based on findings from our research, which examined how people are using restored and naturalized landscapes in the Delta and how these landscapes are currently planned for, we argue that as mitigatory response, restoration planning continues some of the same spatial abstractions and inequities by failing to account for the Delta as an urbanized, cultural and unique place. In interpreting how these conditions have come to be, we give attention to a pluralistic landscape approach and a coevolutionary reading of planning, policy, science and landscapes to discuss the conservation challenges presented by “Delta as an Evolving Place”. We suggest that for rewilding efforts to be successful in the Delta, a range of proactive, opportunistic, grounded and participatory tactics will be required to shift towards a more socio-ecological approach.

Go reconfigure: how fish change shape as they swim and evolve.

Science.gov (United States)

Long, John H; Porter, Marianne E; Root, Robert G; Liew, Chun Wai

2010-12-01

The bodies of fish change shape over propulsive, behavioral, developmental, and evolutionary time scales, a general phenomenon that we call "reconfiguration". Undulatory, postural, and form-reconfiguration can be distinguished, studied independently, and examined in terms of mechanical interactions and evolutionary importance. Using a combination of live, swimming fishes and digital robotic fish that are autonomous and self-propelled, we examined the functional relation between undulatory and postural reconfiguration in forward swimming, backward swimming, and yaw turning. To probe how postural and form reconfiguration interact, the yaw turning of leopard sharks was examined using morphometric and kinematic analyses. To test how undulatory reconfiguration might evolve, the digital robotic fish were subjected to selection for enhanced performance in a simulated ecology in which each individual had to detect and move towards a food source. In addition to the general issue of reconfiguration, these investigations are united by the fact that the dynamics of undulatory and postural reconfigurations are predicted to be determined, in part, by the structural stiffness of the fish's body. Our method defines undulatory reconfiguration as the combined, point-by-point periodic motion of the body, leaving postural reconfiguration as the combined deviations from undulatory reconfiguration. While undulatory reconfiguration appears to be the sole or primary propulsive driver, postural reconfiguration may contribute to propulsion in hagfish and it is correlated with differences in forward, and backward, swimming in lamprey. Form reconfigures over developmental time in leopard sharks in a manner that is consistent with an allometric scaling theory in which structural stiffness of the body is held constant. However, correlation of a form proxy for structural stiffness of the body suggests that body stiffness may scale in order to limit maximum postural reconfiguration during routine

Waianae Ecological Characterization Oahu, Hawaii 2004

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Waianae Ecological Characterization is a digital synthesis of historical and current physical, ecological, and cultural information about the Waianae moku, which...

[Applied ecology: retrospect and prospect].

Science.gov (United States)

He, Xingyuan; Zeng, Dehui

2004-10-01

Applied ecology is evolved into a principal part of modern ecology that rapidly develops. The major stimulus for the development of applied ecology roots in seeking the solutions for the problems of human populations, resources and environments. Through four decades, the science of applied ecology has been becoming a huge group of disciplines. The future for the applied ecology should concern more with human-influenced and managed ecosystems, and acknowledge humans as the components of ecosystems. Nowadays and in future, the top-priorities in applied ecology should include following fields: sustainable ecosystems and biosphere, ecosystem services and ecological design, ecological assessment of genetically modified organisms, ecology of biological invasions, epidemical ecology, ecological forecasting, ecological process and its control. The authors believe that the comprehensive and active research hotspots coupled some new traits would occur around these fields in foreseeable future.

Data protection for the digital age: comprehensive effects of the evolving law of accountability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nina GUMZEJ

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The law of personal data protection has for years been lagging behind technology, which is evolving propulsively and with high speed. A number of new challenges arising from the post-modern digital age have been identified for rights and freedoms of individuals with respect to processing of their personal data and thus a need for adapting the relevant legal-regulatory regime and ensuring a workable and systematic data protection system for the third millennium. After examination of the current legal framework and supporting systems at the level of European Union law, this paper focuses on recently proposed reforms. Proposed new EU legal-regulatory regime towards a potent data protection ecosystem is strongly supported by stricter accountability of those who are responsible for personal data. As one of the core legal principles supporting the new regime, accountability denotes, in a nutshell, a number of legally enforceable duties to implement and verify measures and procedures that can ensure operative and demonstrable data protection compliance. Selected highlights of the proposed accountability measures are therefore examined in this paper and arguments provided for a shift towards organizational data protection management and governance already today.

Dynamics in artifact ecologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bødker, Susanne; Klokmose, Clemens Nylandsted

2012-01-01

We increasingly interact with multiple interactive artifacts with overlapping capabilities during our daily activities. It has previously been shown that the use of an interactive artifact cannot be understood in isolation, but artifacts must be understood as part of an artifact ecology, where...... artifacts influence the use of others. Understanding this interplay becomes more and more essential for interaction design as our artifact ecologies grow. This paper continues a recent discourse on artifact ecologies. Through interviews with iPhone users, we demonstrate that relationships between artifacts...... in artifact ecologies cannot be understood as static, instead they evolve dynamically over time. We provide activity theory-based concepts to explain these dynamics....

Educational Impact of Digital Visualization Tools on Digital Character Production Computer Science Courses

Science.gov (United States)

van Langeveld, Mark Christensen

2009-01-01

Digital character production courses have traditionally been taught in art departments. The digital character production course at the University of Utah is centered, drawing uniformly from art and engineering disciplines. Its design has evolved to include a synergy of computer science, functional art and human anatomy. It gives students an…

Exploring affordances in digital school environments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olesen, Mogens

The paper presents a media ecological understanding of media education and reports from an empirical study on the use of digital media at Ørestad Gymnasium in Copenhagen. An ecological model for e-learning is formed which serves as a guide for understanding how digital media elicit a new...... educational environment. The model highlights four environmental aspects influenced by media: teachers, students, didactical methods and curriculum. Media ecology also implies studying media as species that are competing for our attention and usage. The paper uses this perspective to ask how the students...... choose between and combine different media in their learning activities. These questions are the focus of the empirical study....

Three Essays on Digital Evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Zhewei

2016-01-01

Digital products are rapidly shaping our world into a ubiquitous computing world. Because of its unique characteristics, digital artifacts are generative and highly evolving through the recombination of existing elements as well as by the invention of new elements. In this thesis, I first propose an evolutionary view to examine how digital…

Ecological validity of the five digit test and the oral trails test.

Science.gov (United States)

Paiva, Gabrielle Chequer de Castro; Fialho, Mariana Braga; Costa, Danielle de Souza; Paula, Jonas Jardim de

2016-01-01

Tests evaluating the attentional-executive system are widely used in clinical practice. However, proximity of an objective cognitive test with real-world situations (ecological validity) is not frequently investigated. The present study evaluate the association between measures of the Five Digit Test (FDT) and the Oral Trails Test (OTT) with self-reported cognitive failures in everyday life as measured by the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). Brazilian adults from 18-to-65 years old voluntarily performed the FDT and OTT tests and reported the frequency of cognitive failures in their everyday life through the CFQ. After controlling for the age effect, the measures of controlled attentional processes were associated with cognitive failures, yet the cognitive flexibility of both FDT and OTT accounted for by the majority of variance in most aspects of the CFQ factors. The FDT and the OTT measures were predictive of real-world problems such as cognitive failures in everyday activities/situations.

Within the Mainstream. An Ecocritical Framework for Digital Game History

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Backe, Hans-Joachim

2017-01-01

corpus of digital games through a descriptive matrix for identifying and analyzing the ecological dimension of digital games. It proposes an extension of the ecocritical toolkit by including a more user-centered, ethics-based theoretical framework based on Sicart’s Ethics of Computer Games (2009...... methods for a more historically and generically diverse exploration of ecological thinking vis-à-vis digital games. The majority of discussions of games from an ecocritical perspective has applied concepts and frameworks borrowed from literature and film studies, thus privileging surface semiotics over...... around a small number of games with apparent ecocritical potential, such as Myst (Cyan 1993) or Farmville (Zynga 2009), resulting in a selective, a-historic and therefore distorted discussion of ecology in the diverse medium of digital games. This essay discusses strategies for dealing with a larger...

Dynamic monitoring of landscape patterns and ecological processes

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Landscape patterns and ecological processes have been in long-term research focus in the field of landscape ecology, but how to measure their quantitative relations is still open. This work chooses the Hulunbeier grassland as the study area where ecosystem shows high vulnerability, frequent evolvement of landscape ...

Strategies in the digital printing value system

OpenAIRE

Mejtoft, Thomas

2006-01-01

The research objective of this thesis is to identify corporate strategies and strategic decisions in the digital printing business and to analyze how these have evolved due to the introduction of digital printing. This thesis comprises three separate studies, all based on qualitative case methodology. The first study is focused on digital printing houses and how their business strategies have changed due to their investment in digital printing production equipment. The second study concentrat...

Ecoinformatics: supporting ecology as a data-intensive science

OpenAIRE

Michener, William H.; Jones, Matthew B.

2012-01-01

Ecology is evolving rapidly and increasingly changing into a more open, accountable, interdisciplinary, collaborative and data-intensive science. Discovering, integrating and analyzing massive amounts of heterogeneous data are central to ecology as researchers address complex ques- tions at scales from the gene to the biosphere. Ecoinfor- matics offers tools and approaches for managing ecological data and transforming the data into informa- tion and knowledge. Here, we review the state-of-the...

Real-time evolvable pulse shaper for radiation measurements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lanchares, Juan, E-mail: julandan@dacya.ucm.es [Facultad de Informática, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), C/Prof. José García Santesmases s/n, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Garnica, Oscar, E-mail: ogarnica@dacya.ucm.es [Facultad de Informática, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), C/Prof. José García Santesmases s/n, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Risco-Martín, José L., E-mail: jlrisco@dacya.ucm.es [Facultad de Informática, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), C/Prof. José García Santesmases s/n, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Ignacio Hidalgo, J., E-mail: hidalgo@dacya.ucm.es [Facultad de Informática, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), C/Prof. José García Santesmases s/n, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Regadío, Alberto, E-mail: alberto.regadio@insa.es [Área de Tecnologías Electrónicas, Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid (Spain)

2013-11-01

In the last two decades, recursive algorithms for real-time digital pulse shaping in pulse height measurements have been developed and published in number of articles and textbooks. All these algorithms try to synthesize in real time optimum or near optimum shapes in the presence of noise. Even though some of these shapers can be considered effective designs, some side effects like aging cannot be ignored. We may observe that after sensors degradation, the signal obtained is not valid. In this regard, we present in this paper a novel technique that, based on evolvable hardware concepts, is able to evolve the degenerated shaper into a new design with better performance than the original one under the new sensor features.

Evolving Approaches and Technologies to Enhance the Role of Ecological Modeling in Decision Making

Science.gov (United States)

Eric Gustafson; John Nestler; Louis Gross; Keith M. Reynolds; Daniel Yaussy; Thomas P. Maxwell; Virginia H. Dale

2002-01-01

Understanding the effects of management activities is difficult for natural resource managers and decision makers because ecological systems are highly complex and their behavior is difficult to predict. Furthermore, the empirical studies necessary to illuminate all management questions quickly become logistically complicated and cost prohibitive. Ecological models...

The relative importance of rapid evolution for plant-microbe interactions depends on ecological context.

Science.gov (United States)

Terhorst, Casey P; Lennon, Jay T; Lau, Jennifer A

2014-06-22

Evolution can occur on ecological time-scales, affecting community and ecosystem processes. However, the importance of evolutionary change relative to ecological processes remains largely unknown. Here, we analyse data from a long-term experiment in which we allowed plant populations to evolve for three generations in dry or wet soils and used a reciprocal transplant to compare the ecological effect of drought and the effect of plant evolutionary responses to drought on soil microbial communities and nutrient availability. Plants that evolved under drought tended to support higher bacterial and fungal richness, and increased fungal : bacterial ratios in the soil. Overall, the magnitudes of ecological and evolutionary effects on microbial communities were similar; however, the strength and direction of these effects depended on the context in which they were measured. For example, plants that evolved in dry environments increased bacterial abundance in dry contemporary environments, but decreased bacterial abundance in wet contemporary environments. Our results suggest that interactions between recent evolutionary history and ecological context affect both the direction and magnitude of plant effects on soil microbes. Consequently, an eco-evolutionary perspective is required to fully understand plant-microbe interactions.

Sensory Evolution and Ecology of Early Turtles Revealed by Digital Endocranial Reconstructions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephan Lautenschlager

2018-02-01

Full Text Available In the past few years, new fossil finds and novel methodological approaches have prompted intensive discussions about the phylogenetic affinities of turtles and rekindled the debate on their ecological origin, with very distinct scenarios, such as fossoriality and aquatic habitat occupation, proposed for the earliest stem-turtles. While research has focused largely on the origin of the anapsid skull and unique postcranial anatomy, little is known about the endocranial anatomy of turtles. Here, we provide 3D digital reconstructions and comparative descriptions of the brain, nasal cavity, neurovascular structures and endosseous labyrinth of Proganochelys quenstedti, one of the earliest stem-turtles, as well as other turtle taxa. Our results demonstrate that P. quenstedti retained a simple tube-like brain morphology with poorly differentiated regions and mediocre hearing and vision, but a well-developed olfactory sense. Endocast shape analysis indicates that an increase in size and regionalization of the brain took place in the course of turtle evolution, achieving an endocast diversity comparable to other amniote groups. Based on the new evidence presented herein, we further conclude that P. quenstedti was a highly terrestrial, but most likely not fossorial, taxon.

The portrayal of natural environment in the evolution of the ecological public health paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Coutts, Christopher; Forkink, Annet; Weiner, Jocelyn

2014-01-10

This paper explores the conceptualization of the natural environment in an evolving ecological public health paradigm. The natural environment has long been recognized as essential to supporting life, health, and wellbeing. Our understanding of the relationship between the natural environment and health has steadily evolved from one of an undynamic environment to a more sophisticated understanding of ecological interactions.  This evolution is reflected in a number of ecological public health models which demonstrate the many external and overlapping determinants of human health. Six models are presented here to demonstrate this evolution, each model reflecting an increasingly ecological appreciation for the fundamental role of the natural environment in supporting human health. We conclude that after decades of public health's acceptance of the ecological paradigm, we are only now beginning to assemble knowledge of sophisticated ecological interdependencies and apply this knowledge to the conceptualization and study of the relationship between the natural environment and the determinants of human health.

Transitioning from analog to digital communications: An information security perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Dean, Richard A.

1990-01-01

A summary is given of the government's perspective on evolving digital communications as they affect secure voice users and approaches for operating during a transition period to an all digital world. An integrated architecture and a mobile satellite interface are discussed.

Communicating mathematics in the digital era

CERN Document Server

Borwein, Jonathan; Rodrigues, Jose Francisco

2008-01-01

The digital era has dramatically changed the ways that researchers search, produce, publish, and disseminate their scientific work. These processes are still rapidly evolving due to improvements in information science, new achievements in computer science technologies, and initiatives such as DML and open access journals, digitization projects, scientific reference catalogs, and digital repositories. These changes have prompted many mathematicians to play an active part in the developments of the digital era, and have led mathematicians to promote and discuss new ideas with colleagues from other fields, such as technology developers and publishers. This book is a collection of contributions by key leaders in the field, offering the paradigms and mechanisms for producing, searching, and exploiting scientific and technical scholarship in mathematics in the digital era.

Reverse Ecology: from systems to environments and back.

Science.gov (United States)

Levy, Roie; Borenstein, Elhanan

2012-01-01

The structure of complex biological systems reflects not only their function but also the environments in which they evolved and are adapted to. Reverse Ecology-an emerging new frontier in Evolutionary Systems Biology-aims to extract this information and to obtain novel insights into an organism's ecology. The Reverse Ecology framework facilitates the translation of high-throughput genomic data into large-scale ecological data, and has the potential to transform ecology into a high-throughput field. In this chapter, we describe some of the pioneering work in Reverse Ecology, demonstrating how system-level analysis of complex biological networks can be used to predict the natural habitats of poorly characterized microbial species, their interactions with other species, and universal patterns governing the adaptation of organisms to their environments. We further present several studies that applied Reverse Ecology to elucidate various aspects of microbial ecology, and lay out exciting future directions and potential future applications in biotechnology, biomedicine, and ecological engineering.

US EPA Digital Science: An Evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Ziegler, C. R.; Burch, K.; Laniak, G.; Vega, A.; Harten, P.; Kremer, J.; Brookes, A.; Yuen, A.; Subramanian, B.

2015-12-01

The United States Environmental Protection Agency's (US EPA) digital science "enterprise" plays a critical role in US EPA's efforts to achieve its mission to protect human health and the environment. This enterprise is an evolving cross-disciplinary research and development construct, with social and institutional dimensions. It has an active development community and produces a portfolio of digital science products including decision support tools, data repositories, Web interfaces, and more. Earth sciences and sustainable development organizations from around the world - including US government agencies - have achieved various levels of success in taking advantage of the rapidly-evolving digital age. Efficiency, transparency and ability to innovate are tied to an organization's digital maturity and related social characteristics. Concepts like participatory web, data and software interoperability, global technology transfer, ontological harmonization, big data, scaling, re-use and open science are no longer "new and emerging." They have emerged and - in some cases - are tied to US government directives. We assess maturity, describe future scenarios, discuss new initiatives and outline steps for better leveraging the information age to more effectively and efficiently achieve US EPA's mission. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the organizations for which they work and/or represent.

FY1995 evolvable hardware chip; 1995 nendo shinkasuru hardware chip

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-03-01

This project aims at the development of 'Evolvable Hardware' (EHW) which can adapt its hardware structure to the environment to attain better hardware performance, under the control of genetic algorithms. EHW is a key technology to explore the new application area requiring real-time performance and on-line adaptation. 1. Development of EHW-LSI for function level hardware evolution, which includes 15 DSPs in one chip. 2. Application of the EHW to the practical industrial applications such as data compression, ATM control, digital mobile communication. 3. Two patents : (1) the architecture and the processing method for programmable EHW-LSI. (2) The method of data compression for loss-less data, using EHW. 4. The first international conference for evolvable hardware was held by authors: Intl. Conf. on Evolvable Systems (ICES96). It was determined at ICES96 that ICES will be held every two years between Japan and Europe. So the new society has been established by us. (NEDO)

FY1995 evolvable hardware chip; 1995 nendo shinkasuru hardware chip

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-03-01

This project aims at the development of 'Evolvable Hardware' (EHW) which can adapt its hardware structure to the environment to attain better hardware performance, under the control of genetic algorithms. EHW is a key technology to explore the new application area requiring real-time performance and on-line adaptation. 1. Development of EHW-LSI for function level hardware evolution, which includes 15 DSPs in one chip. 2. Application of the EHW to the practical industrial applications such as data compression, ATM control, digital mobile communication. 3. Two patents : (1) the architecture and the processing method for programmable EHW-LSI. (2) The method of data compression for loss-less data, using EHW. 4. The first international conference for evolvable hardware was held by authors: Intl. Conf. on Evolvable Systems (ICES96). It was determined at ICES96 that ICES will be held every two years between Japan and Europe. So the new society has been established by us. (NEDO)

Scientific Digital Libraries, Interoperability, and Ontologies

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, J. Steven; Crichton, Daniel J.; Mattmann, Chris A.

2009-01-01

Scientific digital libraries serve complex and evolving research communities. Justifications for the development of scientific digital libraries include the desire to preserve science data and the promises of information interconnectedness, correlative science, and system interoperability. Shared ontologies are fundamental to fulfilling these promises. We present a tool framework, some informal principles, and several case studies where shared ontologies are used to guide the implementation of scientific digital libraries. The tool framework, based on an ontology modeling tool, was configured to develop, manage, and keep shared ontologies relevant within changing domains and to promote the interoperability, interconnectedness, and correlation desired by scientists.

Digital health technology and diabetes management.

Science.gov (United States)

Cahn, Avivit; Akirov, Amit; Raz, Itamar

2018-01-01

Diabetes care is largely dependent on patient self-management and empowerment, given that patients with diabetes must make numerous daily decisions as to what to eat, when to exercise, and determine their insulin dose and timing if required. In addition, patients and providers are generating vast amounts of data from many sources, including electronic medical records, insulin pumps, sensors, glucometers, and other wearables, as well as evolving genomic, proteomic, metabolomics, and microbiomic data. Multiple digital tools and apps have been developed to assist patients to choose wisely, and to enhance their compliance by using motivational tools and incorporating incentives from social media and gaming techniques. Healthcare teams (HCTs) and health administrators benefit from digital developments that sift through the enormous amounts of patient-generated data. Data are acquired, integrated, analyzed, and presented in a self-explanatory manner, highlighting important trends and items that require attention. The use of decision support systems may propose data-driven actions that, for the most, require final approval by the patient or physician before execution and, once implemented, may improve patient outcomes. The digital diabetes clinic aims to incorporate all digital patient data and provide individually tailored virtual or face-to-face visits to those persons who need them most. Digital diabetes care has demonstrated only modest HbA1c reduction in multiple studies and borderline cost-effectiveness, although patient satisfaction appears to be increased. Better understanding of the barriers to digital diabetes care and identification of unmet needs may yield improved utilization of this evolving technology in a safe, effective, and cost-saving manner. © 2017 Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Digital imaging in dentistry.

Science.gov (United States)

Essen, S Donovan

2011-01-01

Information technology is vital to operations, marketing, accounting, finance and administration. One of the most exciting and quickly evolving technologies in the modern dental office is digital applications. The dentist is often the business manager, information technology officer and strategic planning chief for his small business. The information systems triangle applies directly to this critical manager supported by properly trained ancillary staff and good equipment. With emerging technology driving all medical disciplines and the rapid pace at which it emerges, it is vital for the contemporary practitioner to keep abreast of the newest information technology developments. This article compares the strategic and operational advantages of digital applications, specifically imaging. The focus of this paper will be on digital radiography (DR), 3D computerized tomography, digital photography and digitally-driven CAD/CAM to what are now considered obsolescing modalities and contemplates what may arrive in the future. It is the purpose of this essay to succinctly evaluate the decisions involved in the role, application and implications of employing this tool in the dental environment

Digital tissue and what it may reveal about the brain.

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Josh L; Lichtman, Jeff W

2017-10-30

Imaging as a means of scientific data storage has evolved rapidly over the past century from hand drawings, to photography, to digital images. Only recently can sufficiently large datasets be acquired, stored, and processed such that tissue digitization can actually reveal more than direct observation of tissue. One field where this transformation is occurring is connectomics: the mapping of neural connections in large volumes of digitized brain tissue.

The art of digital video

CERN Document Server

Watkinson, John

2013-01-01

The industry ""bible"" is back and it's better than ever. The Art of Digital Video has served as the ultimate reference guide for those working with digital video for generations. Now this classic has been revised and re-written by international consultant and industry leader John Watkinson to include important technical updates on this ever-evolving topic. The format has also been improved to include optional sections that provide additional information that you can choose to skip or investigate further, depending on your interests and comfort level with the s

Classifying the evolutionary and ecological features of neoplasms

Science.gov (United States)

Maley, Carlo C.; Aktipis, Athena; Graham, Trevor A.; Sottoriva, Andrea; Boddy, Amy M.; Janiszewska, Michalina; Silva, Ariosto S.; Gerlinger, Marco; Yuan, Yinyin; Pienta, Kenneth J.; Anderson, Karen S.; Gatenby, Robert; Swanton, Charles; Posada, David; Wu, Chung-I; Schiffman, Joshua D.; Hwang, E. Shelley; Polyak, Kornelia; Anderson, Alexander R. A.; Brown, Joel S.; Greaves, Mel; Shibata, Darryl

2018-01-01

Neoplasms change over time through a process of cell-level evolution, driven by genetic and epigenetic alterations. However, the ecology of the microenvironment of a neoplastic cell determines which changes provide adaptive benefits. There is widespread recognition of the importance of these evolutionary and ecological processes in cancer, but to date, no system has been proposed for drawing clinically relevant distinctions between how different tumours are evolving. On the basis of a consensus conference of experts in the fields of cancer evolution and cancer ecology, we propose a framework for classifying tumours that is based on four relevant components. These are the diversity of neoplastic cells (intratumoural heterogeneity) and changes over time in that diversity, which make up an evolutionary index (Evo-index), as well as the hazards to neoplastic cell survival and the resources available to neoplastic cells, which make up an ecological index (Eco-index). We review evidence demonstrating the importance of each of these factors and describe multiple methods that can be used to measure them. Development of this classification system holds promise for enabling clinicians to personalize optimal interventions based on the evolvability of the patient’s tumour. The Evo- and Eco-indices provide a common lexicon for communicating about how neoplasms change in response to interventions, with potential implications for clinical trials, personalized medicine and basic cancer research. PMID:28912577

A dialectical take on artifact ecologies and the physical - digital divide

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bødker, Susanne; Klokmose, Clemens Nylandsted

In this position paper, we will present and discuss our understanding of artifact ecologies as we have developed it, rooted in activity theoretical HCI and dialectical thinking . Our basis is in the Human-Artifact Model, as well as well as cases where we have worked with artifact ecologies...

Can Evolution Supply What Ecology Demands?

Science.gov (United States)

Kokko, Hanna; Chaturvedi, Anurag; Croll, Daniel; Fischer, Martin C; Guillaume, Frédéric; Karrenberg, Sophie; Kerr, Ben; Rolshausen, Gregor; Stapley, Jessica

2017-03-01

A simplistic view of the adaptive process pictures a hillside along which a population can climb: when ecological 'demands' change, evolution 'supplies' the variation needed for the population to climb to a new peak. Evolutionary ecologists point out that this simplistic view can be incomplete because the fitness landscape changes dynamically as the population evolves. Geneticists meanwhile have identified complexities relating to the nature of genetic variation and its architecture, and the importance of epigenetic variation is under debate. In this review, we highlight how complexity in both ecological 'demands' and the evolutionary 'supply' influences organisms' ability to climb fitness landscapes that themselves change dynamically as evolution proceeds, and encourage new synthetic effort across research disciplines towards ecologically realistic studies of adaptation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The interaction between digital marketing communication and customer loyalty

OpenAIRE

Merisavo, Marko

2008-01-01

Digital channels and information technology are changing the way that companies communicate and maintain relationships with their customers. The Internet, email, mobile phones, digital TV, and other evolving channels offer opportunities for frequent, costeffective, personalized, and interactive communication between the company and their customers. In addition to traditional offers and persuasion, customers can be provided with relational communication like newsletters, usage tips, maintenanc...

Ecological restoration should be redefined for the twenty-first century.

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, David M

2017-09-24

Forty years ago, ecological restoration was conceptualized through a natural science lens. Today, ecological restoration has evolved into a social and scientific concept. The duality of ecological restoration is acknowledged in guidance documents on the subject but is not apparent in its definition. Current definitions reflect our views about what ecological restoration does but not why we do it. This viewpoint does not give appropriate credit to contributions from social sciences, nor does it provide compelling goals for people with different motivating rationales to engage in or support restoration. In this study, I give a concise history of the conceptualization and definition of ecological restoration, and I propose an alternative definition and corresponding viewpoint on restoration goal-setting to meet twenty-first century scientific and public inquiry.

Metamorphosis Is Ancestral for Crown Euarthropods, and Evolved in the Cambrian or Earlier.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolfe, Joanna M

2017-09-01

Macroevolutionary developmental biology employs fossilized ontogenetic data and phylogenetic comparative methods to probe the evolution of development at ancient nodes. Despite the prevalence of ecologically differentiated larval forms in marine invertebrates, it has been frequently presumed that the ancestors of arthropods were direct developers, and that metamorphosis may not have evolved until the Ordovician or later. Using fossils and new dated phylogenies, I infer that metamorphosis was likely ancestral for crown arthropods, contradicting this assumption. Based on a published morphological dataset encompassing 217 exceptionally preserved fossil and 96 extant taxa, fossils were directly incorporated into both the topology and age estimates, as in "tip dating" analyses. Using data from post-embryonic fossils representing 25 species throughout stem and crown arthropod lineages (as well as most of the 96 extant taxa), characters for metamorphosis were assigned based on inferred ecological changes in development (e.g., changes in habitat and adaptive landscape). Under all phylogenetic hypotheses, metamorphosis was supported as most likely ancestral to both ecdysozoans and euarthropods. Care must be taken to account for potential drastic post-embryonic morphological changes in evolutionary analyses. Many stem group euarthrpods may have had ecologically differentiated larval stages that did not preserve in the fossil record. Moreover, a complex life cycle and planktonic ecology may have evolved in the Ediacaran or earlier, and may have typified the pre-Cambrian explosion "wormworld" prior to the origin of crown group euarthropods. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Location of Digital Ethnography

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Dana M. Walker

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Qualitative researchers interested in digitally-located social and cultural practices have struggled with ways in which to design studies that can account for the digital aspect of cultural practices while also taking into account that those digital practices do not exist as separate (or separable in terms of our research from other social and cultural practices. As such, one of the primary and ongoing challenges facing internet-based ethnographic research is the question of how to construct the location of a project when the sites, technologically-mediated practices, and people we study exist and flow through a wider information ecology that is neither fixed nor can easily be located as “online” or “offline.” This is as much a methodological challenge as a theoretical one. If one accepts that a rigid distinction between online and offline makes little theoretical sense, then drawing a methodological line between online and offline only reifies such a dualism. While there is a developing body of internet-related ethnographic literature which is attempting to take into account the fluid nature of our information ecology (e.g. Burrell, 2009, Leander and McKim, 2003, Hine, 2007, we continue to operate on shifting ground. This article uses the case of my own work on city-specific discussion forums in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to highlight the complexities of locating digital ethnographic work and also argue for the necessity of accounting for both movement and placed-ness.

Ecoinformatics: supporting ecology as a data-intensive science.

Science.gov (United States)

Michener, William K; Jones, Matthew B

2012-02-01

Ecology is evolving rapidly and increasingly changing into a more open, accountable, interdisciplinary, collaborative and data-intensive science. Discovering, integrating and analyzing massive amounts of heterogeneous data are central to ecology as researchers address complex questions at scales from the gene to the biosphere. Ecoinformatics offers tools and approaches for managing ecological data and transforming the data into information and knowledge. Here, we review the state-of-the-art and recent advances in ecoinformatics that can benefit ecologists and environmental scientists as they tackle increasingly challenging questions that require voluminous amounts of data across disciplines and scales of space and time. We also highlight the challenges and opportunities that remain. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

SUSTAINABILITY OF DIGITAL PUBLIC SPACES

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Matej Hudák

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Modern digital public spaces are evolving from being mostly the provider of ICT and internet connection to institutions that provide complex range of services and support for the community. With this shift in their focus new challenges are emerging, among others their sustainability.Methodology/Approach: We build on and extend the methodology of Digital Cooperatives project. Within this project, survey on 59 digital public spaces from 12 EU countries was conducted. These digital public spaces were examined in 21 areas, some of them relating to their sustainability. We further analyse the sustainability issue of these digital public spaces.Findings: We identified three main issues affecting sustainability of digital public spaces – budgeting, services and community. Digital public spaces mostly rely on public funding and have limited diversification of their funds, which increases a risk when one source of funding drops out. They also have to build a strong community of users, supporters, which will make use of their capacities and helps co-create new services and thus strengthen and improve the community itself.Originality/Value of paper: Research in this paper is based on the collection of best practices from various EU countries in the field of digital public spaces. Recommendations based on these practices could help the creation of new, and in current digital public spaces.

A Historical Perspective on Student Affairs Professionals' Use of Digital Technology

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Cabellon, Edmund T.; Payne-Kirchmeier, Julie

2016-01-01

This chapter provides a historical perspective of student affairs professionals' use of digital and social technologies in their work on college campuses. The purpose of the chapter is to describe how digital technology tools have evolved since 2005, demonstrate how student affairs technology shifted and changed during this time, and shape student…

Ecological approach in constructing residential areas

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Bogdanović Ružica

2004-01-01

Full Text Available As a concept sustainable development has evolved over the past two decades from a concept closely associated with the biophysical environment to become much more complex, embracing social, cultural, economic political and esthetic phenomenon, which are invariably in mutual interaction, so they influence sustainability of natural environment. The very notion of "sustainable" we are meeting today in almost all significance areas of human activities. Contemporary planning, projecting and building techniques undoubtedly implied integration of goals of environmental prevention with goals of socio-economic development, all with respecting the esthetic standards. This paper represents experience from foreign praxis. Project defines and resolves objectives from social, economical, morphological and ecological aspects. Most important is aspect of Ecological Optimisation, which consists of main components: energy use optimization, water concept, exemplary waste management concept and ecological soil management.

PREMISE PENTRU DEZVOLTAREA MARKETINGULUI ECOLOGIC ÎN ORGANIZAŢII

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Avia Carmen Morar

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Assumptions for Development in Ecological Marketing OrganizationsEcological marketing transforms traditional marketing methods and discipline for the useof entrepreneurs in green markets and contributes to teaching established companies aboutcorporate social responsibility and green marketing. It advocates going beyond branding tounderstanding better evolving markets, perceiving customers’ needs, identifying theirvalues, emotions and buying behavior. Ecological marketing supports customers’ hope formaking a sustainable, restorative relationship with their communities and the earth. Thepaper argues that companies that develop new and improved products and services givingdue consideration to environmental impacts can gain access to new markets, substantiallyincrease profits, and enjoy a competitive advantage over those marketing nonenvironmentallyresponsible alternatives

Telling science stories in an evolving digital media ecosystem: from communication to conversation and confrontation

OpenAIRE

Holliman, Richard

2011-01-01

The globalised digital media ecosystem can be characterised as both dynamic and disruptive. Developments in digital technologies relate closely to emerging social practices. In turn these are influencing, and are influenced by, the political economy of professional media and user-generated content, and the introduction of political and institutional governance and policies. Together this wider context provides opportunities and challenges for science communication practitioners and researcher...

The ecological rationality of state-dependent valuation.

Science.gov (United States)

McNamara, J M; Trimmer, P C; Houston, A I

2012-01-01

Laboratory studies on a range of animals have identified a bias that seems to violate basic principles of rational behavior: a preference is shown for feeding options that previously provided food when reserves were low, even though another option had been found to give the same reward with less delay. The bias presents a challenge to normative models of decision making (which only take account of expected rewards and the state of the animal at the decision time). To understand the behavior, we take a broad ecological perspective and consider how valuation mechanisms evolve when the best action depends upon the environment being faced. We show that in a changing and uncertain environment, state-dependent valuation can be favored by natural selection: Individuals should allow their hunger to affect learning for future decisions. The valuation mechanism that typically evolves produces the kind of behavior seen in standard laboratory tests. By providing an insight into why learning should be affected by the state of an individual, we provide a basis for understanding psychological principles in terms of an animal's ecology.

Professional Ethics for Digital Age Psychiatry: Boundaries, Privacy, and Communication.

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Sabin, James E; Harland, Jonathan Clark

2017-09-01

Internet and social media use continue to expand rapidly. Many patients and psychiatrists are bringing digital technologies into the treatment process, but relatively little attention has been paid to the ethical challenges in doing this. This review presents ethical guidelines for psychiatry in the digital age. Surveys demonstrate that patients are eager to make digital technologies part of their treatment. Substantial numbers search for professional and personal information about their therapists. Attitudes among psychiatrists about using digital technologies with patients range from dread to enthusiastic adoption. Digital technologies create four major ethical challenges for psychiatry: managing clinical boundaries; maintaining privacy and confidentiality; establishing realistic expectations regarding digital communications; and upholding professional ideals. Traditional ethical expectations are valid for the evolving digital arena, but guidance must be adapted for actual application in practice.

Digital Competence--An Emergent Boundary Concept for Policy and Educational Research

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Ilomäki, Liisa; Paavola, Sami; Lakkala, Minna; Kantosalo, Anna

2016-01-01

Digital competence is an evolving concept related to the development of digital technology and the political aims and expectations of citizenship in a knowledge society. It is regarded as a core competence in policy papers; in educational research it is not yet a standardized concept. We suggest that it is a useful boundary concept, which can be…

REVIEW: The evolving linkage between conservation science and practice at The Nature Conservancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Kareiva, Peter; Groves, Craig; Marvier, Michelle

2014-10-01

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) was founded by ecologists as a United States land trust to purchase parcels of habitat for the purpose of scientific study. It has evolved into a global organization working in 35 countries 'to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends'. TNC is now the world 's largest conservation non-governmental organization (NGO), an early adopter of advances in ecological theory and a producer of new science as a result of practising conservation.The Nature Conservancy 's initial scientific innovation was the use of distributional data for rare species and ecological communities to systematically target lands for conservation. This innovation later evolved into a more rigorous approach known as 'Conservation by Design' that contained elements of systematic conservation planning, strategic planning and monitoring and evaluation.The next scientific transition at TNC was a move to landscape-scale projects, motivated by ideas from landscape ecology. Because the scale at which land could be set aside in areas untouched by humans fell far short of the spatial scale demanded by conservation, TNC became involved with best management practices for forestry, grazing, agriculture, hydropower and other land uses.A third scientific innovation at TNC came with the pursuit of multiobjective planning that accounts for economic and resource needs in the same plans that seek to protect biodiversity.The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment prompted TNC to become increasingly concerned with ecosystem services and the material risk to people posed by ecosystem deterioration.Finally, because conservation depends heavily upon negotiation, TNC has recently recruited social scientists, economists and communication experts. One aspect still missing, however, is a solid scientific understanding of thresholds that should be averted. Synthesis and applications . Over its 60-plus year history, scientific advances have informed The Nature Conservancy (TNC) 's actions

A Digital Library Example in the Digital Age: İstanbul Bilgi University Library and e-Resources

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Banu Elçi

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This article describes the ongoing of the traditional library and service concept alteration to the library and service concept of the digital age and refers to an instance as İstanbul Bilgi University Library and e-Resources that pioneers technological advances and digital applications to be integrated into the library field. In this sense it involves services, developments, applications and projects provided by Bilgi Libraries.This article also accounts for a number of works which integrated digital resources and applications and social network interactions of the internet and the web of the digital age and how they are adjusted to the library area.In this context, it refers to an evolvement of a different approach of libraries and enhacements diverged from customary and adopted library service concepts and reveals through the medium of samples from İstanbul Bilgi University Library and e-Resources.

Integrated ecological-economic fisheries models-Evaluation, review and challenges for implementation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nielsen, J.R.; Thunberg, Eric; Holland, Daniel S.; Schmidt, Jorn O.; Fulton, Elizabeth A.; Bastardie, Francois; Punt, Andre E.; Allen, Icarus; Bartelings, Heleen; Bertignac, Michel; Groeneveld, Rolf A.; Hamon, Katell G.; Dijk, van Diana

2018-01-01

Marine ecosystems evolve under many interconnected and area-specific pressures. To fulfil society's intensifying and diversifying needs while ensuring ecologically sustainable development, more effective marine spatial planning and broader-scope management of marine resources is necessary.

Paradoxes of Innovation in French Digital Comics

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Julien Baudry

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The word ‘innovative’ and its lexical field of novelty are often used to market digital comics. This obsession with everything new implies a specific link to the past. Anything which breaks with prior methods or forms of graphic creation becomes innovative. However, the formal evolution of French digital comics does not match with this linear pattern of innovation. This paper presents an analysis of the idea of innovation in relation to the long-term history of French digital comics creation. Whilst the technical means of graphic creation have improved since the 1980s, does that necessarily mean that the form and aesthetics of digital comics have evolved simultaneously? What is the role played by traditional printed comics in the aesthetic evolution of digital comics? Starting with the 1990s, it is not the potentiality but the reality of technological innovation that we will try to understand through time.

Academic Medical Centers as digital health catalysts.

Science.gov (United States)

DePasse, Jacqueline W; Chen, Connie E; Sawyer, Aenor; Jethwani, Kamal; Sim, Ida

2014-09-01

Emerging digital technologies offer enormous potential to improve quality, reduce cost, and increase patient-centeredness in healthcare. Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) play a key role in advancing medical care through cutting-edge medical research, yet traditional models for invention, validation and commercialization at AMCs have been designed around biomedical initiatives, and are less well suited for new digital health technologies. Recently, two large bi-coastal Academic Medical Centers, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) through the Center for Digital Health Innovation (CDHI) and Partners Healthcare through the Center for Connected Health (CCH) have launched centers focused on digital health innovation. These centers show great promise but are also subject to significant financial, organizational, and visionary challenges. We explore these AMC initiatives, which share the following characteristics: a focus on academic research methodology; integration of digital technology in educational programming; evolving models to support "clinician innovators"; strategic academic-industry collaboration and emergence of novel revenue models. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Ecological generalism facilitates the evolution of sociality in snapping shrimps.

Science.gov (United States)

Brooks, Katherine C; Maia, Rafael; Duffy, J Emmett; Hultgren, Kristin M; Rubenstein, Dustin R

2017-12-01

Evidence from insects and vertebrates suggests that cooperation may have enabled species to expand their niches, becoming ecological generalists and dominating the ecosystems in which they occur. Consistent with this idea, eusocial species of sponge-dwelling Synalpheus shrimps from Belize are ecological generalists with a broader host breadth and higher abundance than non-eusocial species. We evaluate whether sociality promotes ecological generalism (social conquest hypothesis) or whether ecological generalism facilitates the transition to sociality (social transition hypothesis) in 38 Synalpheus shrimp species. We find that sociality evolves primarily from host generalists, and almost exclusively so for transitions to eusociality. Additionally, sponge volume is more important for explaining social transitions towards communal breeding than to eusociality, suggesting that different ecological factors may influence the independent evolutionary origins of sociality in Synalpheus shrimps. Ultimately, our results are consistent with the social transition hypothesis and the idea that ecological generalism facilitates the transition to sociality. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.

The Conceptualization of Digitally Networked Participation

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Yannis Theocharis

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The conceptualization and measurement of political participation has been an issue vibrantly debated for more than 50 years. The arrival of digital media came to add important parameters to the debate complicating matters further. Digital media have added inexhaustive creative and nonpolitical ways to engage in social and political life that not only often appear to form the basis of political participation but also, in a plethora of everyday contexts, seem to become embedded into what eventually evolves to become a politically meaningful act. This article argues that digitally networked participation—and its manifestations—is a form of political participation and should be conceptualized, identified, and measured as one. Relying on recent conceptual and empirical work, it shows how various common manifestations of digitally networked participation conform to minimalist, targeted, and motivational definitions of political participation. Finally, tackling common misconceptions about the value of such acts, this article argues that nonpolitical forms of digitally networked participation can occasionally be far more impactful than forms of participation commonly accepted as political. This article concludes by recommending the systematic development of measures for digitally networked participation and its formal integration in the study of political participation.

Social networks: Evolving graphs with memory dependent edges

Science.gov (United States)

Grindrod, Peter; Parsons, Mark

2011-10-01

The plethora of digital communication technologies, and their mass take up, has resulted in a wealth of interest in social network data collection and analysis in recent years. Within many such networks the interactions are transient: thus those networks evolve over time. In this paper we introduce a class of models for such networks using evolving graphs with memory dependent edges, which may appear and disappear according to their recent history. We consider time discrete and time continuous variants of the model. We consider the long term asymptotic behaviour as a function of parameters controlling the memory dependence. In particular we show that such networks may continue evolving forever, or else may quench and become static (containing immortal and/or extinct edges). This depends on the existence or otherwise of certain infinite products and series involving age dependent model parameters. We show how to differentiate between the alternatives based on a finite set of observations. To test these ideas we show how model parameters may be calibrated based on limited samples of time dependent data, and we apply these concepts to three real networks: summary data on mobile phone use from a developing region; online social-business network data from China; and disaggregated mobile phone communications data from a reality mining experiment in the US. In each case we show that there is evidence for memory dependent dynamics, such as that embodied within the class of models proposed here.

Evolving Information Ecologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nicolajsen, Hanne Westh; Bansler, Jørgen P.

2009-01-01

This chapter examines how people in organizations appropriate new computer-based media, that is, how they adopt, reconfigure, and integrate advanced communication technologies such as groupware or desktop conferencing systems into their work practice. The chapter presents and analyzes findings from...

Math for the digital factory

CERN Document Server

Hömberg, Dietmar; Landry, Chantal

2017-01-01

This volume provides a unique collection of mathematical tools and industrial case studies in digital manufacturing. It addresses various topics, ranging from models of single production technologies, production lines, logistics and workflows to models and optimization strategies for energy consumption in production. The digital factory represents a network of digital models and simulation and 3D visualization methods for the holistic planning, realization, control and ongoing improvement of all factory processes related to a specific product. In the past ten years, all industrialized countries have launched initiatives to realize this vision, sometimes also referred to as Industry 4.0 (in Europe) or Smart Manufacturing (in the United States). Its main goals are • reconfigurable, adaptive and evolving factories capable of small-scale production • high-performance production, combining flexibility, productivity, precision and zero defects • energy and resource efficiency in manufacturing None of these...

Data science and digital society

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Chen Cathy Yi-Hsuan

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Data Science looks at raw numbers and informational objects created by different disciplines. The Digital Society creates information and numbers from many scientific disciplines. The amassment of data though makes is hard to find structures and requires a skill full analysis of this massive raw material. The thoughts presented here on DS2 - Data Science & Digital Society analyze these challenges and offers ways to handle the questions arising in this evolving context. We propose three levels of analysis and lay out how one can react to the challenges that come about. Concrete examples concern Credit default swaps, Dynamic Topic modeling, Crypto currencies and above all the quantitative analysis of real data in a DS2 context.

Developing digital vegetation for central hardwood forest types: A case study from Leslie County, KY

Science.gov (United States)

Bo Song; Wei-lun Tsai; Chiao-ying Chou; Thomas M. Williams; William Conner; Brian J. Williams

2011-01-01

Digital vegetation is the computerized representation, with either virtual images or animations, of vegetation types and conditions based on current measurements or ecological models. Digital vegetation can be useful in evaluating past, present, or future land use; changes in vegetation linked to climate change; or restoration efforts. Digital vegetation can be...

An Investigation of Digital Payment Platform Designs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kazan, Erol; Damsgaard, Jan

2014-01-01

This paper focuses on the triumph march of mobile phones that currently are annexing music players, navigation devices, and cameras as separate physical objects. The next target is set on payment. Through synthesizing available literature, we construct a framework for studying digital payment...... platforms that combines platform, technology and business design aspects. The framework is applied to conduct a comparative case study of digital payment platforms. Four types of market actors are considered: banks, mobile network operators, merchants, and startups, which are incumbents and disrupters....... By hosting third-party services, payment instruments are evolving from single-purpose to multi-functional ones. Our research extends existing payment literature from the MSP perspective to emphasize certain digital payment platform components, which impact strategies and complementary products....

Evolutionary ecology of virus emergence.

Science.gov (United States)

Dennehy, John J

2017-02-01

The cross-species transmission of viruses into new host populations, termed virus emergence, is a significant issue in public health, agriculture, wildlife management, and related fields. Virus emergence requires overlap between host populations, alterations in virus genetics to permit infection of new hosts, and adaptation to novel hosts such that between-host transmission is sustainable, all of which are the purview of the fields of ecology and evolution. A firm understanding of the ecology of viruses and how they evolve is required for understanding how and why viruses emerge. In this paper, I address the evolutionary mechanisms of virus emergence and how they relate to virus ecology. I argue that, while virus acquisition of the ability to infect new hosts is not difficult, limited evolutionary trajectories to sustained virus between-host transmission and the combined effects of mutational meltdown, bottlenecking, demographic stochasticity, density dependence, and genetic erosion in ecological sinks limit most emergence events to dead-end spillover infections. Despite the relative rarity of pandemic emerging viruses, the potential of viruses to search evolutionary space and find means to spread epidemically and the consequences of pandemic viruses that do emerge necessitate sustained attention to virus research, surveillance, prophylaxis, and treatment. © 2016 New York Academy of Sciences.

Rates of ecological divergence and body size evolution are correlated with species diversification in scaly tree ferns

Science.gov (United States)

Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago; Barrera-Redondo, Josué; Eguiarte, Luis E.

2016-01-01

Variation in species richness across regions and between different groups of organisms is a major feature of evolution. Several factors have been proposed to explain these differences, including heterogeneity in the rates of species diversification and the age of clades. It has been frequently assumed that rapid rates of diversification are coupled to high rates of ecological and morphological evolution, leading to a prediction that remains poorly explored for most species: the positive association between ecological niche divergence, morphological evolution and species diversification. We combined a time-calibrated phylogeny with distribution, ecological and body size data for scaly tree ferns (Cyatheaceae) to test whether rates of species diversification are predicted by the rates at which clades have evolved distinct ecological niches and body sizes. We found that rates of species diversification are positively correlated with rates of ecological and morphological evolution, with rapidly diversifying clades also showing rapidly evolving ecological niches and body sizes. Our results show that rapid diversification of scaly tree ferns is associated with the evolution of species with comparable morphologies that diversified into similar, yet distinct, environments. This suggests parallel evolutionary pathways opening in different tropical regions whenever ecological and geographical opportunities arise. Accordingly, rates of ecological niche and body size evolution are relevant to explain the current patterns of species richness in this ‘ancient’ fern lineage across the tropics. PMID:27412279

Rates of ecological divergence and body size evolution are correlated with species diversification in scaly tree ferns.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago; Barrera-Redondo, Josué; Eguiarte, Luis E

2016-07-13

Variation in species richness across regions and between different groups of organisms is a major feature of evolution. Several factors have been proposed to explain these differences, including heterogeneity in the rates of species diversification and the age of clades. It has been frequently assumed that rapid rates of diversification are coupled to high rates of ecological and morphological evolution, leading to a prediction that remains poorly explored for most species: the positive association between ecological niche divergence, morphological evolution and species diversification. We combined a time-calibrated phylogeny with distribution, ecological and body size data for scaly tree ferns (Cyatheaceae) to test whether rates of species diversification are predicted by the rates at which clades have evolved distinct ecological niches and body sizes. We found that rates of species diversification are positively correlated with rates of ecological and morphological evolution, with rapidly diversifying clades also showing rapidly evolving ecological niches and body sizes. Our results show that rapid diversification of scaly tree ferns is associated with the evolution of species with comparable morphologies that diversified into similar, yet distinct, environments. This suggests parallel evolutionary pathways opening in different tropical regions whenever ecological and geographical opportunities arise. Accordingly, rates of ecological niche and body size evolution are relevant to explain the current patterns of species richness in this 'ancient' fern lineage across the tropics. © 2016 The Author(s).

News from the Library: Digital signage: what is it?

CERN Multimedia

2012-01-01

As you might know, "digital signage" is a form of electronic display that shows information, advertising and other messages in both public and private environments.   If you visited the Library lately, you probably discovered that something has changed in the way we inform library users of how our collections and services are evolving. A screen has now replaced the traditional shelf or showcase where libraries usually display new book acquisitions. This new digital showcase dynamically displays new book and ebook acquisitions in the Library, new titles available in the Bookshop, and most downloaded ebooks. The same content will be soon displayed also on the CERN digital signage network.

Evolvable synthetic neural system

Science.gov (United States)

Curtis, Steven A. (Inventor)

2009-01-01

An evolvable synthetic neural system includes an evolvable neural interface operably coupled to at least one neural basis function. Each neural basis function includes an evolvable neural interface operably coupled to a heuristic neural system to perform high-level functions and an autonomic neural system to perform low-level functions. In some embodiments, the evolvable synthetic neural system is operably coupled to one or more evolvable synthetic neural systems in a hierarchy.

Digital Earth - A sustainable Earth

Science.gov (United States)

Mahavir

2014-02-01

All life, particularly human, cannot be sustainable, unless complimented with shelter, poverty reduction, provision of basic infrastructure and services, equal opportunities and social justice. Yet, in the context of cities, it is believed that they can accommodate more and more people, endlessly, regardless to their carrying capacity and increasing ecological footprint. The 'inclusion', for bringing more and more people in the purview of development is often limited to social and economic inclusion rather than spatial and ecological inclusion. Economic investment decisions are also not always supported with spatial planning decisions. Most planning for a sustainable Earth, be at a level of rural settlement, city, region, national or Global, fail on the capacity and capability fronts. In India, for example, out of some 8,000 towns and cities, Master Plans exist for only about 1,800. A chapter on sustainability or environment is neither statutorily compulsory nor a norm for these Master Plans. Geospatial technologies including Remote Sensing, GIS, Indian National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), Indian National Urban Information Systems (NUIS), Indian Environmental Information System (ENVIS), and Indian National GIS (NGIS), etc. have potential to map, analyse, visualize and take sustainable developmental decisions based on participatory social, economic and social inclusion. Sustainable Earth, at all scales, is a logical and natural outcome of a digitally mapped, conceived and planned Earth. Digital Earth, in fact, itself offers a platform to dovetail the ecological, social and economic considerations in transforming it into a sustainable Earth.

Astronomy in the Digital Universe

Science.gov (United States)

Haisch, Bernard M.; Lindblom, J.; Terzian, Y.

2006-12-01

The Digital Universe is an Internet project whose mission is to provide free, accurate, unbiased information covering all aspects of human knowledge, and to inspire humans to learn, make use of, and expand this knowledge. It is planned to be a decades long effort, inspired by the Encyclopedia Galactica concept popularized by Carl Sagan, and is being developed by the non-profit Digital Universe Foundation. A worldwide network of experts is responsible for selecting content featured within the Digital Universe. The first publicly available content is the Encyclopedia of Earth, a Boston University project headed by Prof. Cutler Cleveland, which will be part of the Earth Portal. The second major content area will be an analogous Encyclopedia of the Cosmos to be part of the Cosmos Portal. It is anticipated that this will evolve into a major resource for astronomy education. Authors and topic editors are now being recruited for the Encyclopedia of the Cosmos.

FCJ-121 Transversalising the Ecological Turn: Four Components of Felix Guattari’s Ecosophical Perspective

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John Tinnell

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Many humanities scholars are working to transform their disciplines in response to new conditions and problems emerging in the twenty-first century. Arguably, two of the most important forces affecting contemporary global culture are the growing awareness of the ecological crisis and the proliferation of digital media. This essay endeavors to develop Felix Guattari’s “unfinished” concept of ecosophy into a theoretical framework for constructing productive syntheses between the ecological and the digital. In general, the essay first articulates ecosophical models of individual and collective subjectivity, and then argues that the best way to sustain ecosophical identity experience is to invent “post-media” practices, which harness the networked infrastructure of digital media such that specific pedagogical engagements with the technology effectively maximise the user’s capacity to affect and be affected by immanent forces in the world. In addition, this Guattarian rethinking of the ecological turn concurrently challenges the philosophical basis of the pedagogy of Nature appreciation that has characterised the eco-humanities landscape since the 1970s. The essay’s conclusions gesture toward a transversal eco-humanities, which would be rhizomatically rooted in Guattari’s preference for autopoiesis and becoming-other (via new media, rather than a static allegiance to the ideals of “Self-realisation” postulated by the deep ecology movement.

Introduction. Antarctic ecology: from genes to ecosystems. Part 2. Evolution, diversity and functional ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, Alex D; Murphy, Eugene J; Johnston, Nadine M; Clarke, Andrew

2007-12-29

The Antarctic biota has evolved over the last 100 million years in increasingly isolated and cold conditions. As a result, Antarctic species, from micro-organisms to vertebrates, have adapted to life at extremely low temperatures, including changes in the genome, physiology and ecological traits such as life history. Coupled with cycles of glaciation that have promoted speciation in the Antarctic, this has led to a unique biota in terms of biogeography, patterns of species distribution and endemism. Specialization in the Antarctic biota has led to trade-offs in many ecologically important functions and Antarctic species may have a limited capacity to adapt to present climate change. These include the direct effects of changes in environmental parameters and indirect effects of increased competition and predation resulting from altered life histories of Antarctic species and the impacts of invasive species. Ultimately, climate change may alter the responses of Antarctic ecosystems to harvesting from humans. The unique adaptations of Antarctic species mean that they provide unique models of molecular evolution in natural populations. The simplicity of Antarctic communities, especially from terrestrial systems, makes them ideal to investigate the ecological implications of climate change, which are difficult to identify in more complex systems.

Genesis and Evolution of Digital Payment Platforms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hjelholt, Morten; Damsgaard, Jan

2012-01-01

Payment transactions through the use of physical coins, bank notes or credit cards have for centuries been the standard formats of exchanging money. Recently online and mobile digital payment platforms has entered the stage as contenders to this position and possibly could penetrate societies...... thoroughly and substitute current payment standards in the decades to come. This paper portrays how digital payment paltforms evolve in socio-technical niches and how various technological platforms aim for institutional attention in their attempt to challenge earlier platforms and standards. The paper...... applies a co-evolutionary multilevel perspective to model the interplay and processes between technology and society wherein digital payment platforms potentially will substitute other payment platforms just like the credit card negated the check. On this basis this paper formulate a multilevel conceptual...

Ecological specialization and morphological diversification in Greater Antillean boas.

Science.gov (United States)

Reynolds, R Graham; Collar, David C; Pasachnik, Stesha A; Niemiller, Matthew L; Puente-Rolón, Alberto R; Revell, Liam J

2016-08-01

Colonization of islands can dramatically influence the evolutionary trajectories of organisms, with both deterministic and stochastic processes driving adaptation and diversification. Some island colonists evolve extremely large or small body sizes, presumably in response to unique ecological circumstances present on islands. One example of this phenomenon, the Greater Antillean boas, includes both small (<90 cm) and large (4 m) species occurring on the Greater Antilles and Bahamas, with some islands supporting pairs or trios of body-size divergent species. These boas have been shown to comprise a monophyletic radiation arising from a Miocene dispersal event to the Greater Antilles, though it is not known whether co-occurrence of small and large species is a result of dispersal or in situ evolution. Here, we provide the first comprehensive species phylogeny for this clade combined with morphometric and ecological data to show that small body size evolved repeatedly on separate islands in association with specialization in substrate use. Our results further suggest that microhabitat specialization is linked to increased rates of head shape diversification among specialists. Our findings show that ecological specialization following island colonization promotes morphological diversity through deterministic body size evolution and cranial morphological diversification that is contingent on island- and species-specific factors. © 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

Towards A Framework of Digital Payment Platform Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kazan, Erol; Damsgaard, Jan

This paper focuses on the triumph march of mobile phones that currently are annexing music players, navigation devices, and cameras as separate physical objects. The next target is set on payment. Through synthesizing available literature, we construct a framework for studying digital payment...... platforms that combines platform, technology and business design aspects. The framework is applied to conduct a comparative case study of digital payment platforms. Four types of market actors are considered: banks, mobile network operators, merchants, and startups, which are incumbents and disrupters....... By hosting third-party services, payment instruments are evolving from single-purpose to multi-functional ones. Our research extends existing payment literature from the MSP perspective to emphasize certain digital payment platform components, which impact strategies and complementary products....

Multimodal signalling in estrildid finches: song, dance and colour are associated with different ecological and life-history traits.

Science.gov (United States)

Gomes, A C R; Funghi, C; Soma, M; Sorenson, M D; Cardoso, G C

2017-07-01

Sexual traits (e.g. visual ornaments, acoustic signals, courtship behaviour) are often displayed together as multimodal signals. Some hypotheses predict joint evolution of different sexual signals (e.g. to increase the efficiency of communication) or that different signals trade off with each other (e.g. due to limited resources). Alternatively, multiple signals may evolve independently for different functions, or to communicate different information (multiple message hypothesis). We evaluated these hypotheses with a comparative study in the family Estrildidae, one of the largest songbird radiations, and one that includes many model species for research in sexual selection and communication. We found little evidence for either joint evolution or trade-offs between song and colour ornamentation. Some negative correlations between dance repertoire and song traits may suggest a functional compromise, but generally courtship dance also evolved independently from other signals. Instead of correlated evolution, we found that song, dance and colour are each related to different socio-ecological traits. Song complexity evolved together with ecological generalism, song performance with investment in reproduction, dance with commonness and habitat type, whereas colour ornamentation was shown previously to correlate mostly with gregariousness. We conclude that multimodal signals evolve in response to various socio-ecological traits, suggesting the accumulation of distinct signalling functions. © 2017 European Society For Evolutionary Biology. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2017 European Society For Evolutionary Biology.

Predator confusion is sufficient to evolve swarming behaviour.

Science.gov (United States)

Olson, Randal S; Hintze, Arend; Dyer, Fred C; Knoester, David B; Adami, Christoph

2013-08-06

Swarming behaviours in animals have been extensively studied owing to their implications for the evolution of cooperation, social cognition and predator-prey dynamics. An important goal of these studies is discerning which evolutionary pressures favour the formation of swarms. One hypothesis is that swarms arise because the presence of multiple moving prey in swarms causes confusion for attacking predators, but it remains unclear how important this selective force is. Using an evolutionary model of a predator-prey system, we show that predator confusion provides a sufficient selection pressure to evolve swarming behaviour in prey. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the evolutionary effect of predator confusion on prey could in turn exert pressure on the structure of the predator's visual field, favouring the frontally oriented, high-resolution visual systems commonly observed in predators that feed on swarming animals. Finally, we provide evidence that when prey evolve swarming in response to predator confusion, there is a change in the shape of the functional response curve describing the predator's consumption rate as prey density increases. Thus, we show that a relatively simple perceptual constraint--predator confusion--could have pervasive evolutionary effects on prey behaviour, predator sensory mechanisms and the ecological interactions between predators and prey.

Evolving to the edge of chaos: Chance or necessity?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rai, Vikas; Upadhyay, Ranjit Kumar

2006-01-01

We show that ecological systems evolve to edges of chaos (EOC). This has been demonstrated by analyzing three diverse model ecosystems using numerical simulations in combination with analytical procedures. It has been found that all these systems reside on EOC and display short-term recurrent chaos (strc). The first two are non-linear food chains and the third one is a linear food chain. The dynamics of first two is dictated by deterministic changes in system parameters. In contrast to this, dynamics of the third model system (the linear food chain) is governed by both deterministic changes in system parameters as well as exogenous stochastic perturbations (unforeseen changes in initial conditions) of these dynamical systems

Digital stethoscope: technology update

Science.gov (United States)

Swarup, Supreeya; Makaryus, Amgad N

2018-01-01

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is recognized as the leading cause of mortality throughout the world. About one-third of global mortality is attributable to CVD. In addition to clinical presentation, specific clinical exam findings can assist in treating and preventing CVD. CVD may initially manifest as pulmonary pathology, and thus, accurate cardiopulmonary auscultation is paramount to establishing accurate diagnosis. One of the most powerful tools available to physicians is the stethoscope. The stethoscope first emerged in the year 1818, invented by a French physician, René Laennec. Since then, the initial modest monaural wooden tube has evolved into a sophisticated digital device. This paper provides an analysis of the evolution of the stethoscope as well as highlights the advancement made by the modern digital stethoscope including the application of this tool in advancing care for patients suffering from CVD. PMID:29379321

Wild Origins: The Evolving Nature of Animal Behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Flores, Ifigenia

For billions of years, evolution has been the driving force behind the incredible range of biodiversity on our planet. Wild Origins is a concept plan for an exhibition at the National Zoo that uses case studies of animal behavior to explain the theory of evolution. Behaviors evolve, just as physical forms do. Understanding natural selection can help us interpret animal behavior and vice-versa. A living collection, digital media, interactives, fossils, and photographs will relay stories of social behavior, sex, navigation and migration, foraging, domestication, and relationships between different species. The informal learning opportunities visitors are offered at the zoo will create a connection with the exhibition's teaching points. Visitors will leave with an understanding and sense of wonder at the evolutionary view of life.

Analysis of motility in multicellular Chlamydomonas reinhardtii evolved under predation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Margrethe Boyd

Full Text Available The advent of multicellularity was a watershed event in the history of life, yet the transition from unicellularity to multicellularity is not well understood. Multicellularity opens up opportunities for innovations in intercellular communication, cooperation, and specialization, which can provide selective advantages under certain ecological conditions. The unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has never had a multicellular ancestor yet it is closely related to the volvocine algae, a clade containing taxa that range from simple unicells to large, specialized multicellular colonies. Simple multicellular structures have been observed to evolve in C. reinhardtii in response to predation or to settling rate-based selection. Structures formed in response to predation consist of individual cells confined within a shared transparent extracellular matrix. Evolved isolates form such structures obligately under culture conditions in which their wild type ancestors do not, indicating that newly-evolved multicellularity is heritable. C. reinhardtii is capable of photosynthesis, and possesses an eyespot and two flagella with which it moves towards or away from light in order to optimize input of radiant energy. Motility contributes to C. reinhardtii fitness because it allows cells or colonies to achieve this optimum. Utilizing phototaxis to assay motility, we determined that newly evolved multicellular strains do not exhibit significant directional movement, even though the flagellae of their constituent unicells are present and active. In C. reinhardtii the first steps towards multicellularity in response to predation appear to result in a trade-off between motility and differential survivorship, a trade-off that must be overcome by further genetic change to ensure long-term success of the new multicellular organism.

Urbanization and stream ecology: Diverse mechanisms of change

Science.gov (United States)

Roy, Allison; Capps, Krista A.; El-Sabaawi, Rana W.; Jones, Krista L.; Parr, Thomas B.; Ramirez, Alonso; Smith, Robert F.; Walsh, Christopher J.; Wenger, Seth J.

2016-01-01

The field of urban stream ecology has evolved rapidly in the last 3 decades, and it now includes natural scientists from numerous disciplines working with social scientists, landscape planners and designers, and land and water managers to address complex, socioecological problems that have manifested in urban landscapes. Over the last decade, stream ecologists have met 3 times at the Symposium on Urbanization and Stream Ecology (SUSE) to discuss current research, identify knowledge gaps, and promote future research collaborations. The papers in this special series on urbanization and stream ecology include both primary research studies and conceptual synthesis papers spurred from discussions at SUSE in May 2014. The themes of the meeting are reflected in the papers in this series emphasizing global differences in mechanisms and responses of stream ecosystems to urbanization and management solutions in diverse urban streams. Our hope is that this series will encourage continued interdisciplinary and collaborative research to increase the global understanding of urban stream ecology toward stream protection and restoration in urban landscapes.

The Metacity: A Conceptual Framework for Integrating Ecology and Urban Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. T. A. Pickett

2011-10-01

Full Text Available We introduce the term metacity as a conceptual framework that can be shared by ecologists and designers and applied across the wide variety of urban habitats found around the world. While the term metacity was introduced by UN-HABITAT to designate hyper cities of over twenty million people, for us it is not limited to large urban agglomerations, but rather refers to the proliferation of new forms of urbanization, each with distinct ecological and social attributes. These various urban configurations when combined with new digital sensing, communication and social networking technologies constitute a virtual meta-infrastructure, present in all cities today. This new metacity has the potential to integrate new activist forms of ecological and urban design research and practice in making the transition from sanitary to sustainable city models globally. The city of Baltimore, Maryland will be used both as a site to illustrate these recent urban trends, and also as an example of the integration of ecology and urban design pursued by the two authors over the past seven years [1,2]. Metacity theory is drawn from both an architectural analysis of contemporary forms of urbanism, new forms of digital monitoring and communication technologies, as well as metapopulation and metacommunity theories in ecology. We seek to provide tools and lessons from our experiences for realizing an integrated metacity approach to achieving social sustainability and ecological resilience on an increasingly urbanized planet.

[Impact of digital technology on clinical practices: perspectives from surgery].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Y; Liu, X J

2016-04-09

Digital medical technologies or computer aided medical procedures, refer to imaging, 3D reconstruction, virtual design, 3D printing, navigation guided surgery and robotic assisted surgery techniques. These techniques are integrated into conventional surgical procedures to create new clinical protocols that are known as "digital surgical techniques". Conventional health care is characterized by subjective experiences, while digital medical technologies bring quantifiable information, transferable data, repeatable methods and predictable outcomes into clinical practices. Being integrated into clinical practice, digital techniques facilitate surgical care by improving outcomes and reducing risks. Digital techniques are becoming increasingly popular in trauma surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, imaging and anatomic sciences. Robotic assisted surgery is also evolving and being applied in general surgery, cardiovascular surgery and orthopedic surgery. Rapid development of digital medical technologies is changing healthcare and clinical practices. It is therefore important for all clinicians to purposefully adapt to these technologies and improve their clinical outcomes.

Digital Curricula Evolving

Science.gov (United States)

Education Week, 2013

2013-01-01

This special report is the latest installment in an ongoing series about how online education is changing teaching and learning and the development of curricula. It was produced with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This paper contains the following articles: (1) Changing the Role of K-12…

What Qualifications and Skills Are Important for Digital Librarian Positions in Academic Libraries? A Job Advertisement Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Youngok; Rasmussen, Edie

2009-01-01

As academic library functions and activities continue to evolve, libraries have broadened the traditional library model, which focuses on management of physical resources and activities, to include a digital library model, transforming resources and services into digital formats to support teaching, learning, and research. This transition has…

IEEE Xplore® Digital Library - Evolving to Meet YOUR Changing Needs

OpenAIRE

2014-01-01

Представлена презентация доклада "Использование платформы IEEE Digital Library: уникальные научные публикации в области электроники, радиосвязи, вычислительной техники, информационных технологий, энергетики, машиностроения, физики, химии, геологии, нанотехнологий" Эстер Лукаш, специалиста по обучению IEEE (Германия), на семинаре «Использование платформы IEEE Digital Library», прошедшем 02 октября 2014 года в УрФУ, на английском языке....

Digital Media Use in Families: Theories and Strategies for Intervention.

Science.gov (United States)

Dalope, Kristin A; Woods, Leonard J

2018-04-01

Family dynamics are increasingly being influenced by digital media. Three frameworks are described to help clinicians to understand and respond to this influence. First, a social-ecological framework shows how media has both a direct and indirect impact on individuals, relationships, communities, and society. Next, family systems theory is introduced to demonstrate digital media-related interactions within families. Finally, a developmental framework explores the role of digital media in shaping parenting. These theories are then integrated into practical strategies that clinicians can use, including recommendations and resources from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Modeling misidentification errors in capture-recapture studies using photographic identification of evolving marks

Science.gov (United States)

Yoshizaki, J.; Pollock, K.H.; Brownie, C.; Webster, R.A.

2009-01-01

Misidentification of animals is potentially important when naturally existing features (natural tags) are used to identify individual animals in a capture-recapture study. Photographic identification (photoID) typically uses photographic images of animals' naturally existing features as tags (photographic tags) and is subject to two main causes of identification errors: those related to quality of photographs (non-evolving natural tags) and those related to changes in natural marks (evolving natural tags). The conventional methods for analysis of capture-recapture data do not account for identification errors, and to do so requires a detailed understanding of the misidentification mechanism. Focusing on the situation where errors are due to evolving natural tags, we propose a misidentification mechanism and outline a framework for modeling the effect of misidentification in closed population studies. We introduce methods for estimating population size based on this model. Using a simulation study, we show that conventional estimators can seriously overestimate population size when errors due to misidentification are ignored, and that, in comparison, our new estimators have better properties except in cases with low capture probabilities (<0.2) or low misidentification rates (<2.5%). ?? 2009 by the Ecological Society of America.

Climate in Context - How partnerships evolve in regions

Science.gov (United States)

Parris, A. S.

2014-12-01

In 2015, NOAA's RISA program will celebrate its 20th year of exploration in the development of usable climate information. In the mid-1990s, a vision emerged to develop interdisciplinary research efforts at the regional scale for several important reasons. Recognizable climate patterns, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), emerge at the regional level where our understanding of observations and models coalesce. Critical resources for society are managed in a context of regional systems, such as water supply and human populations. Multiple scales of governance (local, state, and federal) with complex institutional relationships can be examined across a region. Climate information (i.e. data, science, research etc) developed within these contexts has greater potential for use. All of this work rests on a foundation of iterative engagement between scientists and decision makers. Throughout these interactions, RISAs have navigated diverse politics, extreme events and disasters, socio-economic and ecological disruptions, and advances in both science and technology. Our understanding of information needs is evolving into a richer understanding of complex institutional, legal, political, and cultural contexts within which people can use science to make informed decisions. The outcome of RISA work includes both cases where climate information was used in decisions and cases where capacity for using climate information and making climate resilient decisions has increased over time. In addition to balancing supply and demand of scientific information, RISAs are engaged in a social process of reconciling climate information use with important drivers of society. Because partnerships are critical for sustained engagement, and because engagement is critically important to the use of science, the rapid development of new capacity in regionally-based science programs focused on providing climate decision support is both needed and challenging. New actors can bolster

The importance of ecological costs for the evolution of plant defense against herbivory.

Science.gov (United States)

van Velzen, Ellen; Etienne, Rampal S

2015-05-07

Plant defense against herbivory comes at a cost, which can be either direct (reducing resources available for growth and reproduction) or indirect (through reducing ecological performance, for example intraspecific competitiveness). While direct costs have been well studied in theoretical models, ecological costs have received almost no attention. In this study we compare models with a direct trade-off (reduced growth rate) to models with an ecological trade-off (reduced competitive ability), using a combination of adaptive dynamics and simulations. In addition, we study the dependence of the level of defense that can evolve on the type of defense (directly by reducing consumption, or indirectly by inducing herbivore mortality (toxicity)), and on the type of herbivore against which the plant is defending itself (generalists or specialists). We find three major results: First, for both direct and ecological costs, defense only evolves if the benefit to the plant is direct (through reducing consumption). Second, the type of cost has a major effect on the evolutionary dynamics: direct costs always lead to a single optimal strategy against herbivores, but ecological costs can lead to branching and the coexistence of non-defending and defending plants; however, coexistence is only possible when defending against generalist herbivores. Finally, we find that fast-growing plants invest less than slow-growing plants when defending against generalist herbivores, as predicted by the Resource Availability Hypothesis, but invest more than slow-growing plants when defending against specialists. Our results clearly show that assumptions about ecological interactions are crucial for understanding the evolution of defense against herbivores. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Digital Earth – A sustainable Earth

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mahavir

2014-01-01

All life, particularly human, cannot be sustainable, unless complimented with shelter, poverty reduction, provision of basic infrastructure and services, equal opportunities and social justice. Yet, in the context of cities, it is believed that they can accommodate more and more people, endlessly, regardless to their carrying capacity and increasing ecological footprint. The 'inclusion', for bringing more and more people in the purview of development is often limited to social and economic inclusion rather than spatial and ecological inclusion. Economic investment decisions are also not always supported with spatial planning decisions. Most planning for a sustainable Earth, be at a level of rural settlement, city, region, national or Global, fail on the capacity and capability fronts. In India, for example, out of some 8,000 towns and cities, Master Plans exist for only about 1,800. A chapter on sustainability or environment is neither statutorily compulsory nor a norm for these Master Plans. Geospatial technologies including Remote Sensing, GIS, Indian National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), Indian National Urban Information Systems (NUIS), Indian Environmental Information System (ENVIS), and Indian National GIS (NGIS), etc. have potential to map, analyse, visualize and take sustainable developmental decisions based on participatory social, economic and social inclusion. Sustainable Earth, at all scales, is a logical and natural outcome of a digitally mapped, conceived and planned Earth. Digital Earth, in fact, itself offers a platform to dovetail the ecological, social and economic considerations in transforming it into a sustainable Earth

Ecological and evolutionary effects of stickleback on community structure.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simone Des Roches

Full Text Available Species' ecology and evolution can have strong effects on communities. Both may change concurrently when species colonize a new ecosystem. We know little, however, about the combined effects of ecological and evolutionary change on community structure. We simultaneously examined the effects of top-predator ecology and evolution on freshwater community parameters using recently evolved generalist and specialist ecotypes of three-spine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus. We used a mesocosm experiment to directly examine the effects of ecological (fish presence and density and evolutionary (phenotypic diversity and specialization factors on community structure at lower trophic levels. We evaluated zooplankton biomass and composition, periphyton and phytoplankton chlorophyll-a concentration, and net primary production among treatments containing different densities and diversities of stickleback. Our results showed that both ecological and evolutionary differences in the top-predator affect different aspects of community structure and composition. Community structure, specifically the abundance of organisms at each trophic level, was affected by stickleback presence and density, whereas composition of zooplankton was influenced by stickleback diversity and specialization. Primary productivity, in terms of chlorophyll-a concentration and net primary production was affected by ecological but not evolutionary factors. Our results stress the importance of concurrently evaluating both changes in density and phenotypic diversity on the structure and composition of communities.

Integrated ecological-economic fisheries models - evaluation, review and challenges for implementation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, J. Rasmus; Thunberg, Eric; Holland, Daniel S.

2018-01-01

and comparative evaluation of 35 IESFM´s applied to marine fisheries and marine ecosystem resources to identify the characteristics that determine their usefulness, effectiveness and implementation. The focus is on fully integrated models that allow for feedbacks between ecological and human processes though......Marine ecosystems evolve under many interconnected and area-specific pressures. In order to fulfill society's intensifying and diversifying needs whilst ensuring ecologically sustainable development, more effective marine spatial planning and broader-scope management of marine resources...... is necessary. Integrated ecological–socioeconomic fisheries models (IESFM) of marine systems are nee¬ded to evaluate impacts and sustainability of potential management actions and understand, and anti¬ci¬pate ecological, economic, and social dynamics at a range of scales from local to national and regional...

Holistic and Ecological Approaches in Talent Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henriksen, Kristoffer

the somewhat opposing talent discovery and development approaches by focusing on how an environment manages the balance between these two, and how this balance becomes a part of the environment’s identity. Ecological perspectives on talent development hold rich insights for developing theories, research......Research on athletic talent has evolved from talent detection to talent development with both perspectives focusing on an individual athlete. This individual focus has been mirrored in the applied work of the sport psychology practitioner in youth competitive sport who has primarily focused...... on equipping individual athletes with the psychosocial skills required in a sport career. In contrast, the holistic ecological approach (HEA) to talent development in sport (Henriksen, Stambulova & Roessler, 2010) acknowledges the role of the overall environment in athletes’ development. The HEA integrates...

Old citizens, new logics: Digital literacy and elderly citizens in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stald, Gitte Bang

2016-01-01

and The Danage Association. Theoretically, the article discusses definitions of digital literacy respectively digital citizenship; and it draws on theories on mediatization, media ecologies, and digital governance. REFERENCES (selected) Borchorst, D.S. et al (2016). ”Digitalisering af ældre menneskers hverdag......Old citizens, new logics: Digital literacy and elderly citizens in Denmark Many my age have problems with IT. We are now reasonably informed and we have had computers for many years but our competences are still not tiptop and that is definitely a problem. This 79-year old man talks about...... the challenges he encounters with mastering IT in general and NemID in particular. NemID is the Danish, digital system for interaction between public institutions and citizens. The system was implemented by law in December 2015. The paper focuses on the relation between age, digitization, and citizen self...

Digital radiographic assessment of coronary flow reserve

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vogel, R.A.

1985-01-01

A method for measuring relative changes in regional blood flow using digital radiographic enhancement of selective coronary arteriography. Coronary flow reserve is measured in individual arterial distributions using the washin ratio of contrast appearance time under baseline and hyperemic conditions. Information is quantitatively presented in functional (parametric) image format. These images, termed contrast medium appearance pictures (CMAP), depict the transit of contrast through the arterial, myocardial and early venous stages. This process can be divided into three general phases: data acquisition, CMAP formation and CMAP analysis. The technique has evolved over its development period from a cine film-based technology which required substantial processing time to a real-time digital radiographic technique

A comparison of hardware description languages. [describing digital systems structure and behavior to a computer

Science.gov (United States)

Shiva, S. G.

1978-01-01

Several high level languages which evolved over the past few years for describing and simulating the structure and behavior of digital systems, on digital computers are assessed. The characteristics of the four prominent languages (CDL, DDL, AHPL, ISP) are summarized. A criterion for selecting a suitable hardware description language for use in an automatic integrated circuit design environment is provided.

Flipping the Class: A New Media Pedagogy

Science.gov (United States)

Arduser, Lora

2016-01-01

Business communication evolves and adapts to suit the times, and today's workplace documents are increasingly multimodal. Therefore, business and professional communication specialists need to adapt to a new media workplace ecology--one that requires proficiencies with technologies such as video production, digital animation, and sound. Business…

Plant Insecticidal Toxins in Ecological Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sébastien Ibanez

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Plant secondary metabolites play a key role in plant-insect interactions, whether constitutive or induced, C- or N-based. Anti-herbivore defences against insects can act as repellents, deterrents, growth inhibitors or cause direct mortality. In turn, insects have evolved a variety of strategies to act against plant toxins, e.g., avoidance, excretion, sequestration and degradation of the toxin, eventually leading to a co-evolutionary arms race between insects and plants and to co-diversification. Anti-herbivore defences also negatively impact mutualistic partners, possibly leading to an ecological cost of toxin production. However, in other cases toxins can also be used by plants involved in mutualistic interactions to exclude inadequate partners and to modify the cost/benefit ratio of mutualism to their advantage. When considering the whole community, toxins have an effect at many trophic levels. Aposematic insects sequester toxins to defend themselves against predators. Depending on the ecological context, toxins can either increase insects’ vulnerability to parasitoids and entomopathogens or protect them, eventually leading to self-medication. We conclude that studying the community-level impacts of plant toxins can provide new insights into the synthesis between community and evolutionary ecology.

Plant insecticidal toxins in ecological networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Ibanez, Sébastien; Gallet, Christiane; Després, Laurence

2012-04-01

Plant secondary metabolites play a key role in plant-insect interactions, whether constitutive or induced, C- or N-based. Anti-herbivore defences against insects can act as repellents, deterrents, growth inhibitors or cause direct mortality. In turn, insects have evolved a variety of strategies to act against plant toxins, e.g., avoidance, excretion, sequestration and degradation of the toxin, eventually leading to a co-evolutionary arms race between insects and plants and to co-diversification. Anti-herbivore defences also negatively impact mutualistic partners, possibly leading to an ecological cost of toxin production. However, in other cases toxins can also be used by plants involved in mutualistic interactions to exclude inadequate partners and to modify the cost/benefit ratio of mutualism to their advantage. When considering the whole community, toxins have an effect at many trophic levels. Aposematic insects sequester toxins to defend themselves against predators. Depending on the ecological context, toxins can either increase insects' vulnerability to parasitoids and entomopathogens or protect them, eventually leading to self-medication. We conclude that studying the community-level impacts of plant toxins can provide new insights into the synthesis between community and evolutionary ecology.

Curriculum-based neurosurgery digital library.

Science.gov (United States)

Langevin, Jean-Philippe; Dang, Thai; Kon, David; Sapo, Monica; Batzdorf, Ulrich; Martin, Neil

2010-11-01

Recent work-hour restrictions and the constantly evolving body of knowledge are challenging the current ways of teaching neurosurgery residents. To develop a curriculum-based digital library of multimedia content to face the challenges in neurosurgery education. We used the residency program curriculum developed by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons to structure the library and Microsoft Sharepoint as the user interface. This project led to the creation of a user-friendly and searchable digital library that could be accessed remotely and throughout the hospital, including the operating rooms. The electronic format allows standardization of the content and transformation of the operating room into a classroom. This in turn facilitates the implementation of a curriculum within the training program and improves teaching efficiency. Future work will focus on evaluating the efficacy of the library as a teaching tool for residents.

Digital analysis of air photography for sustainable forest management; Digital flygbildsteknik foer uthaallig skogsskoetsel

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ekstrand, Sam; Loefmark, Magnus; Johansson, Desiree

2001-02-01

The objective of this project was to develop methods for estimation of forest stand variables using digital analysis of near infrared air photography. Near Infrared air photography covering an area 200 km northwest of Stockholm was scanned and ortho rectified. Methods for digital classification, normalisation of view angle effects and estimation of parameters such as timber volume, stand density, crown coverage, species composition, defoliation and number of dead or dying trees have been developed. Major results were that the functions for normalisation on view angle effects on tree size as viewed from the focal point strongly improved the stand estimates. Timber volume, stand density, species composition as well as the ecological variables were estimated with accuracies comparable to those of subjective field inventory methods. In spite of the photography being of high quality, differences in colour between flight lines gave problems with separation of pine and spruce. This may be solved using post-classification manual editing, but will cause an increase in costs. In the future, digital cameras or calibration lamps within the photograph could further reduce this problem.

Dissonance and Neutralization of Subscription Streaming Era Digital Music Piracy : An Initial Exploration

OpenAIRE

Riekkinen, Janne

2016-01-01

Both legal and illegal forms of digital music consumption continue to evolve with wider adoption of subscription streaming services. With this paper, we aim to extend theory on digital music piracy by showing that the rising controversy and diminishing acceptance of illegal forms of consumption call for new theoretical components and interactions. We introduce a model that integrates insights from neutralization and cognitive dissonance theories. As an initial empirical test of th...

RE-EXAMINING HIGH ABUNDANCE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY MASS-METALLICITY OUTLIERS: HIGH N/O, EVOLVED WOLF-RAYET GALAXIES?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berg, Danielle A.; Skillman, Evan D.; Marble, Andrew R.

2011-01-01

We present new MMT spectroscopic observations of four dwarf galaxies representative of a larger sample observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and identified by Peeples et al. as low-mass, high oxygen abundance outliers from the mass-metallicity relation. Peeples showed that these four objects (with metallicity estimates of 8.5 ≤ 12 + log(O/H) ≤ 8.8) have oxygen abundance offsets of 0.4-0.6 dex from the M B luminosity-metallicity relation. Our new observations extend the wavelength coverage to include the [O II] λλ3726, 3729 doublet, which adds leverage in oxygen abundance estimates and allows measurements of N/O ratios. All four spectra are low excitation, with relatively high N/O ratios (N/O ∼> 0.10), each of which tend to bias estimates based on strong emission lines toward high oxygen abundances. These spectra all fall in a regime where the 'standard' strong-line methods for metallicity determinations are not well calibrated either empirically or by photoionization modeling. By comparing our spectra directly to photoionization models, we estimate oxygen abundances in the range of 7.9 ≤ 12 + log (O/H) ≤ 8.4, consistent with the scatter of the mass-metallicity relation. We discuss the physical nature of these galaxies that leads to their unusual spectra (and previous classification as outliers), finding their low excitation, elevated N/O, and strong Balmer absorption are consistent with the properties expected from galaxies evolving past the 'Wolf-Rayet galaxy' phase. We compare our results to the 'main' sample of Peeples and conclude that they are outliers primarily due to enrichment of nitrogen relative to oxygen and not due to unusually high oxygen abundances for their masses or luminosities.

Can you sequence ecology? Metagenomics of adaptive diversification.

Science.gov (United States)

Marx, Christopher J

2013-01-01

Few areas of science have benefited more from the expansion in sequencing capability than the study of microbial communities. Can sequence data, besides providing hypotheses of the functions the members possess, detect the evolutionary and ecological processes that are occurring? For example, can we determine if a species is adapting to one niche, or if it is diversifying into multiple specialists that inhabit distinct niches? Fortunately, adaptation of populations in the laboratory can serve as a model to test our ability to make such inferences about evolution and ecology from sequencing. Even adaptation to a single niche can give rise to complex temporal dynamics due to the transient presence of multiple competing lineages. If there are multiple niches, this complexity is augmented by segmentation of the population into multiple specialists that can each continue to evolve within their own niche. For a known example of parallel diversification that occurred in the laboratory, sequencing data gave surprisingly few obvious, unambiguous signs of the ecological complexity present. Whereas experimental systems are open to direct experimentation to test hypotheses of selection or ecological interaction, the difficulty in "seeing ecology" from sequencing for even such a simple system suggests translation to communities like the human microbiome will be quite challenging. This will require both improved empirical methods to enhance the depth and time resolution for the relevant polymorphisms and novel statistical approaches to rigorously examine time-series data for signs of various evolutionary and ecological phenomena within and between species.

Building bridges across subdisciplines in marine ecology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lawrence R. Pomeroy

2004-04-01

Full Text Available Ecology has evolved many subdisciplines whose members do not necessarily communicate regularly through attending the same meetings or reading and publishing in the same journals. As a result, explanations of ecological processes are often limited to a single factor, process, or group of organisms, and this limited approach may fail to provide the best understanding of how communities and ecosystems are assembled and function. Specifically, there is a need to bring together information on the interplay of top-down and bottom-up influences on complete communities consisting of both macroorganisms and microorganisms. A number of examples from the recent literature illustrate the problems encountered in achieving this goal. These include declining fish populations, estuarine eutrophication, the complex origin of a toxic dinoflagellate bloom, and the interactions of microorganisms and macrooorganisms in marine planktonic food webs.

Transhydrogenase promotes the robustness and evolvability of E. coli deficient in NADPH production.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hsin-Hung Chou

Full Text Available Metabolic networks revolve around few metabolites recognized by diverse enzymes and involved in myriad reactions. Though hub metabolites are considered as stepping stones to facilitate the evolutionary expansion of biochemical pathways, changes in their production or consumption often impair cellular physiology through their system-wide connections. How does metabolism endure perturbations brought immediately by pathway modification and restore hub homeostasis in the long run? To address this question we studied laboratory evolution of pathway-engineered Escherichia coli that underproduces the redox cofactor NADPH on glucose. Literature suggests multiple possibilities to restore NADPH homeostasis. Surprisingly, genetic dissection of isolates from our twelve evolved populations revealed merely two solutions: (1 modulating the expression of membrane-bound transhydrogenase (mTH in every population; (2 simultaneously consuming glucose with acetate, an unfavored byproduct normally excreted during glucose catabolism, in two subpopulations. Notably, mTH displays broad phylogenetic distribution and has also played a predominant role in laboratory evolution of Methylobacterium extorquens deficient in NADPH production. Convergent evolution of two phylogenetically and metabolically distinct species suggests mTH as a conserved buffering mechanism that promotes the robustness and evolvability of metabolism. Moreover, adaptive diversification via evolving dual substrate consumption highlights the flexibility of physiological systems to exploit ecological opportunities.

Transhydrogenase Promotes the Robustness and Evolvability of E. coli Deficient in NADPH Production

Science.gov (United States)

Chou, Hsin-Hung; Marx, Christopher J.; Sauer, Uwe

2015-01-01

Metabolic networks revolve around few metabolites recognized by diverse enzymes and involved in myriad reactions. Though hub metabolites are considered as stepping stones to facilitate the evolutionary expansion of biochemical pathways, changes in their production or consumption often impair cellular physiology through their system-wide connections. How does metabolism endure perturbations brought immediately by pathway modification and restore hub homeostasis in the long run? To address this question we studied laboratory evolution of pathway-engineered Escherichia coli that underproduces the redox cofactor NADPH on glucose. Literature suggests multiple possibilities to restore NADPH homeostasis. Surprisingly, genetic dissection of isolates from our twelve evolved populations revealed merely two solutions: (1) modulating the expression of membrane-bound transhydrogenase (mTH) in every population; (2) simultaneously consuming glucose with acetate, an unfavored byproduct normally excreted during glucose catabolism, in two subpopulations. Notably, mTH displays broad phylogenetic distribution and has also played a predominant role in laboratory evolution of Methylobacterium extorquens deficient in NADPH production. Convergent evolution of two phylogenetically and metabolically distinct species suggests mTH as a conserved buffering mechanism that promotes the robustness and evolvability of metabolism. Moreover, adaptive diversification via evolving dual substrate consumption highlights the flexibility of physiological systems to exploit ecological opportunities. PMID:25715029

Why, when and where did honey bee dance communication evolve?

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Robbie eI'Anson Price

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Honey bees (Apis sp. are the only known bee genus that uses nest-based communication to provide nest-mates with information about the location of resources, the so-called dance language. Successful foragers perform waggle dances for high quality food sources and suitable nest-sites during swarming. However, since many species of social insects do not communicate the location of resources to their nest-mates, the question of why the dance language evolved is of ongoing interest. We review recent theoretical and empirical research into the ecological circumstances that make dance communication beneficial in present day environments. This research suggests that the dance language is most beneficial when food sources differ greatly in quality and are hard to find. The dances of extant honey bee species differ in important ways, and phylogenetic studies suggest an increase in dance complexity over time: species with the least complex dance were the first to appear and species with the most complex dance are the most derived. We review the fossil record of honey bees and speculate about the time and context (foraging vs. swarming in which spatially referential dance communication might have evolved. We conclude that there are few certainties about when the dance language first appeared; dance communication could be older than 40 million years and, thus, predate the genus Apis, or it could be as recent as 20 million years when extant honey bee species diverged during the early Miocene. The most parsimonious scenario assumes it evolved in a sub-tropical to temperate climate, with patchy vegetation somewhere in Eurasia.

Foundations of Socio-Cultural Ecology: Consequences for Media Education and Mobile Learning in Schools

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Klaus Rummler

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This conceptual paper offers insights to the foundations of Socio-Cultural Ecology and relates this concept to traditional concepts of Ecology e.g. media ecology or Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development. It will further discuss the term «ecology» as a relation between learners and their surrounding physical and structural world, e. g. an ecology of resources or the classroom as an ecological system. Thirdly more recent concepts in ecology will be considered e. g. Digital Media Ecology including media ecology (German: Medienökologie from a German perspective. This contribution tries to describe common principles of (media ecologies and will ask after their meaning and relation to media education and mobile learning. One of the main results is the realisation that cultural practices of school learning and cultural practices of media acquisition take place in different worlds or in different ecological spheres. The question is thus again of how to bridge these ecological spheres, and how «agency» developed outside school, can be nourished inside school. In other words: how can we bridge socio-cultural and technological structures within these cultural practices.

The Digital Future of Education--The Cloud or the Matrix?

Science.gov (United States)

Saltinski, Ronald

2013-01-01

Across the next 10 to 15 years, education, especially instructional pedagogies, and curriculum design, will be deeply impacted, as will all global society, by emerging technology. The most intense component of this emerging technology will be the cloud. An evolving and self-sustaining digital entity, the cloud provides a ubiquitous access to…

Digital Skills in Perspective: A Critical Reflection on Research and Policy

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Jos de Haan

2012-12-01

Full Text Available In this article we will reflect on the evolving focus of research on digital skills over the past 15 years and discuss the outcomes of this research and their implications for policy. Policy issues regarding digital skills have shifted over time. The present focus on media literacy ties digital skills to the broader theme of citizenship and calls for a wide agenda to improve skills, knowledge of media systems and attitudes towards the media. It reaches into policy domains such as education, work and social participation. We will also reflect on the question as to just how far research is able to feed these policy discussions. The argument is organized in four sections, following more or less chronologically the stages of research on digital skills. We begin with the largely descriptive research on digital skills in the context of the digital divide. The second and third sections follow the theoretical turn in the research agenda with a focus on the causes and consequences of differences in digital skills. In the fourth section we discuss a more recent development, where digital skills are included in a broader research agenda of media literacy.

Rescuing and Sharing Historical Vegetation Data for Ecological Analysis: The California Vegetation Type Mapping Project

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Maggi Kelly

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Research efforts that synthesize historical and contemporary ecological data with modeling approaches improve our understanding of the complex response of species, communities, and landscapes to changing biophysical conditions through time and in space. Historical ecological data are particularly important in this respect. There are remaining barriers that limit such data synthesis, and technological improvements that make multiple diverse datasets more readily available for integration and synthesis are needed. This paper presents one case study of the Wieslander Vegetation Type Mapping project in California and highlights the importance of rescuing, digitizing and sharing historical datasets. We review the varied ecological uses of the historical collection: the vegetation maps have been used to understand legacies of land use change and plan for the future; the plot data have been used to examine changes to chaparral and forest communities around the state and to predict community structure and shifts under a changing climate; the photographs have been used to understand changing vegetation structure; and the voucher specimens in combination with other specimen collections have been used for large scale distribution modeling efforts. The digitization and sharing of the data via the web has broadened the scope and scale of the types of analysis performed. Yet, additional research avenues can be pursued using multiple types of VTM data, and by linking VTM data with contemporary data. The digital VTM collection is an example of a data infrastructure that expands the potential of large scale research through the integration and synthesis of data drawn from numerous data sources; its journey from analog to digital is a cautionary tale of the importance of finding historical data, digitizing it with best practices, linking it with other datasets, and sharing it with the research community.

Composing the Layer of Knowledge of Digital Technology in Architecture

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Johanes Mikhael

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The use of digital tools in architectural practice has been evolving significantly. In following such developments, architectural practice has been incorporating digital technology not only to meet the current demand but also to pursue the vast amount of possibilities ahead. However, the integration of digital technology in architectural knowledge has been reasonably operative that produces uncritical understanding, and it tends to put architects as a passive user of technology. This paper argues that there are layers of knowledge that nees to be acknowledged and nourished accordingly in embracing the use of computation tools yet avoiding the overly simplistic.understanding. It attempts to explore the methods of digital technology in archietctural design practices as well as dicussions that follow to create a critical evaluation of its roles and potentials. The review is conducted theoretically in which the use of digital in the design process is explored in such a way to reveal its importance in architectural design methods. The review also crosses beyond the disciplines of architecture to construct more comprehensive understanding that bridges the logic of digital technology and architecture. The resulted map of methods of the digital thus can be used to develop a framework for digital discourse that bridge the operative knowledge of technology to the more critical perspectives.

Interactive Construction Digital Tools With Real Time Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Klitgaard, Jens; Kirkegaard, Poul Henning

2007-01-01

. The aim of this research is to look into integrated digital design and analysis tools in order to find out if it is suited for use by architects and designers or only by specialists and technicians - and if not, then to look at what can be done to make them more available to architects and designers...... an architect-engineer or hybrid practitioner works simultaneously with both aesthetic and technical design requirements. In this paper the problem of a vague or not existing link between digital design tools, used by architects and designers, and the analysis tools developed by and for engineers is considered......The recent developments in computational design tools have evolved into a sometimes purely digital process which opens up for new perspectives and problems in the sketching process. One of the interesting possibilities lay within the hybrid practitioner- or architect-engineer approach, where...

Preface: evolving rotifers, evolving science: Proceedings of the XIV International Rotifer Symposium

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Devetter, Miloslav; Fontaneto, D.; Jersabek, Ch.D.; Welch, D.B.M.; May, L.; Walsh, E.J.

2017-01-01

Roč. 796, č. 1 (2017), s. 1-6 ISSN 0018-8158 Institutional support: RVO:60077344 Keywords : evolving rotifers * 14th International Rotifer Symposium * evolving science Subject RIV: EG - Zoology OBOR OECD: Zoology Impact factor: 2.056, year: 2016

The Digital Turn in the French Audiovisual Model

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Olivier Alexandre

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This article deals with the digital turn in the French audiovisual model. An organizational and legal system has evolved with changing technology and economic forces over the past thirty years. The high-income television industry served as the key element during the 1980s to compensate for a shifting value economy from movie theaters to domestic screens and personal devices. However, the growing competition in the TV sector and the rise of tech companies have initiated a disruption process. A challenged French conception copyright, the weakened position of TV channels and the scaling of content market all now call into question the sustainability of the French model in a digital era.

Competition for vitamin B1 (thiamin) structures numerous ecological interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Kraft, Clifford E; Angert, Esther R

2017-06-01

Thiamin (vitamin B1) is a cofactor required for essential biochemical reactions in all living organisms, yet free thiamin is scarce in the environment. The diversity of biochemical pathways involved in the acquisition, degradation, and synthesis of thiamin indicates that organisms have evolved numerous ecological strategies for meeting this nutritional requirement. In this review we synthesize information from multiple disciplines to show how the complex biochemistry of thiamin influences ecological outcomes of interactions between organisms in environments ranging from the open ocean and the Australian outback to the gastrointestinal tract of animals. We highlight population and ecosystem responses to the availability or absence of thiamin. These include widespread mortality of fishes, birds, and mammals, as well as the thiamin-dependent regulation of ocean productivity. Overall, we portray thiamin biochemistry as the foundation for molecularly mediated ecological interactions that influence survival and abundance of a vast array of organisms.

Digital Twin concept for smart injection molding

Science.gov (United States)

Liau, Y.; Lee, H.; Ryu, K.

2018-03-01

Injection molding industry has evolved over decades and became the most common method to manufacture plastic parts. Monitoring and improvement in the injection molding industry are usually performed separately in each stage, i.e. mold design, mold making and injection molding process. However, in order to make a breakthrough and survive in the industrial revolution, all the stages in injection molding need to be linked and communicated with each other. Any changes in one stage will cause a certain effect in other stage because there is a correlation between each other. Hence, the simulation should not only based on the input of historical data, but it also needs to include the current condition of equipment and prediction of future events in other stages to make the responsive decision. This can be achieved by implementing the concept of Digital Twin that models the entire process as a virtual model and enables bidirectional control with the physical process. This paper presented types of data and technology required to build the Digital Twin for the injection molding industry. The concept includes Digital Twin of each stage and integration of these Digital Twin model as a thoroughgoing model of the injection molding industry.

[Ecology and ecologies].

Science.gov (United States)

Valera, Luca

2011-01-01

Ecology (from the Greek words οιχοσ, "house" and λογια "study of") is the science of the "house", since it studies the environments where we live. There are three main ways of thinking about Ecology: Ecology as the study of interactions (between humans and the environment, between humans and living beings, between all living beings, etc.), Ecology as the statistical study of interactions, Ecology as a faith, or rather as a science that requires a metaphysical view. The history of Ecology shows us how this view was released by the label of "folk sense" to gain the epistemological status of science, a science that strives to be interdisciplinary. So, the aim of Ecology is to study, through a scientific methodology, the whole natural world, answering to very different questions, that arise from several fields (Economics, Biology, Sociology, Philosophy, etc.). The plurality of issues that Ecology has to face led, during the Twentieth-century, to branch off in several different "ecologies". As a result, each one of these new approaches chose as its own field a more limited and specific portion of reality.

Evolving Digital Divides in Information Literacy and Learning Outcomes: A BYOD Journey in a Scondary School

Science.gov (United States)

Adhikari, Janak; Scogings, Chris; Mathrani, Anuradha; Sofat, Indu

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to seek answers to questions on how equity of information literacy and learning outcomes have evolved with the ongoing advances in technologies in teaching and learning across schools. The authors' report on a five-year long bring your own device (BYOD) journey of one school, which was one of the earliest…

Digital Literacy Skills Among Librarians In University Libraries In The 21st Century In Edo And Delta States Nigeria

OpenAIRE

Emiri; Ogochukwu T.

2015-01-01

Abstract Libraries all over the world have been faced with the evolving technological advancement globalization and digitization of information. These have led to library automation digital and virtual libraries. This paper discussed the contemporary digital literacy skills DLS among librarians in university libraries the 21st century in Edo and Delta States of Southern Nigeria. The study was guided by six objectives and research questions and one hypothesis. The design of the study is descri...

Learning as You Journey: Anishinaabe Perception of Social-ecological Environments and Adaptive Learning

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Iain Davidson-Hunt

2003-12-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the linkages between social-ecological resilience and adaptive learning. We refer to adaptive learning as a method to capture the two-way relationship between people and their social-ecological environment. In this paper, we focus on traditional ecological knowledge. Research was undertaken with the Anishinaabe people of Iskatewizaagegan No. 39 Independent First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, Canada. The research was carried out over two field seasons, with verification workshops following each field season. The methodology was based on site visits and transects determined by the elders as appropriate to answer a specific question, find specific plants, or locate plant communities. During site visits and transect walks, research themes such as plant nomenclature, plant use, habitat descriptions, biogeophysical landscape vocabulary, and place names were discussed. Working with elders allowed us to record a rich set of vocabulary to describe the spatial characteristics of the biogeophysical landscape. However, elders also directed our attention to places they knew through personal experiences and journeys and remembered from stories and collective history. We documented elders' perceptions of the temporal dynamics of the landscape through discussion of disturbance events and cycles. Again, elders drew our attention to the ways in which time was marked by cultural references to seasons and moons. The social memory of landscape dynamics was documented as a combination of biogeophysical structures and processes, along with the stories by which Iskatewizaagegan people wrote their histories upon the land. Adaptive learning for social-ecological resilience, as suggested by this research, requires maintaining the web of relationships of people and places. Such relationships allow social memory to frame creativity, while allowing knowledge to evolve in the face of change. Social memory does not actually evolve directly out of

Digital Waveguide Architectures for Virtual Musical Instruments

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Julius O.

Digital sound synthesis has become a standard staple of modern music studios, videogames, personal computers, and hand-held devices. As processing power has increased over the years, sound synthesis implementations have evolved from dedicated chip sets, to single-chip solutions, and ultimately to software implementations within processors used primarily for other tasks (such as for graphics or general purpose computing). With the cost of implementation dropping closer and closer to zero, there is increasing room for higher quality algorithms.

Digital Technologies and performative pedagogies: Repositioning the visual

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kathryn Grushka

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Images are becoming a primary means of information presentation in the digitized global media and digital technologies have emancipated and democratized the image. This allows for the reproduction and manipulation of images on a scale never seen before and opens new possibilities for teachers schooled in critical visuality. This paper reports on an innovative pre-service teacher training course in which a cross-curricula cohort of secondary teachers employed visual performative competencies to produce a series of learning objects on a digital platform. The resulting intertextual narratives demonstrate that the manipulation of image and text offered by digital technologies create a powerful vehicle for investigating knowledge and understandings, evolving new meaning and awakening latent creativity in the use of images for meaning making. This research informs the New Literacies and multimodal fields of enquiry and argues that visuality is integral to any pedagogy that purports to be relevant to the contemporary learner. It argues that the visual has been significantly under-valued as a conduit for knowledge acquisition and meaning making in the digital environment and supports the claim that critical literacy, interactivity, experimentation and production are vital to attaining the tenets of transformative education (Buckingham, 2007; Walsh, 2007; Cope & Kalantzis, 2008.

Ecological effects of exposure to enhanced levels of ionizing radiation.

Science.gov (United States)

Geras'kin, Stanislav A

2016-10-01

Irradiation of plants and animals can result in disruption of ecological relationships between the components of ecosystems. Such effects may act as triggers of perturbation and lead to consequences that may differ essentially from expected ones based on effects observed at the organismal level. Considerable differences in ecology and niches occupied by different species lead to substantial differences in doses of ionizing radiation absorbed by species, even when they all are present in the same environment at the same time. This is especially evident for contamination with α-emitting radionuclides. Radioactive contamination can be considered an ecological factor that is able to modify the resistance in natural populations. However, there are radioecological situations when elevated radioresistance does not evolve or persist. The complexity and non-linearity of the structure and functioning of ecosystems can lead to unexpected consequences of stress effects, which would appear harmless if they were assessed within the narrower context of organism-based traditional radioecology. Therefore, the use of ecological knowledge is essential for understanding responses of populations and ecosystems to radiation exposure. Integration of basic ecological principles in the design and implementation of radioecological research is essential for predicting radiation effects under rapidly changing environmental conditions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Microbial Interactions and the Ecology and Evolution of Hawaiian Drosophilidae

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Timothy eO'Connor

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Adaptive radiations are characterized by an increased rate of speciation and expanded range of habitats and ecological niches exploited by those species. The Hawaiian Drosophilidae is a classic adaptive radiation; a single ancestral species colonized Hawaii approximately 25 million years ago and gave rise to two monophyletic lineages, the Hawaiian Drosophila and the genus Scaptomyza. The Hawaiian Drosophila are largely saprophagous and rely on approximately 40 endemic plant families and their associated microbes to complete development. Scaptomyza are even more diverse in host breadth. While many species of Scaptomyza utilize decomposing plant substrates, some species have evolved to become herbivores, parasites on spider egg masses, and exploit microbes on living plant tissue. Understanding the origin of the ecological diversity encompassed by these nearly 700 described species has been a challenge. The central role of microbes in drosophilid ecology suggests bacterial and fungal associates may have played a role in the diversification of the Hawaiian Drosophilidae. Here we synthesize recent ecological and microbial community data from the Hawaiian Drosophilidae to examine the forces that may have led to this adaptive radiation. We propose that the evolutionary success of the Hawaiian Drosophilidae is due to a combination of factors, including adaptation to novel ecological niches facilitated by microbes.

The ecological origins of snakes as revealed by skull evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Da Silva, Filipe O; Fabre, Anne-Claire; Savriama, Yoland; Ollonen, Joni; Mahlow, Kristin; Herrel, Anthony; Müller, Johannes; Di-Poï, Nicolas

2018-01-25

The ecological origin of snakes remains amongst the most controversial topics in evolution, with three competing hypotheses: fossorial; marine; or terrestrial. Here we use a geometric morphometric approach integrating ecological, phylogenetic, paleontological, and developmental data for building models of skull shape and size evolution and developmental rate changes in squamates. Our large-scale data reveal that whereas the most recent common ancestor of crown snakes had a small skull with a shape undeniably adapted for fossoriality, all snakes plus their sister group derive from a surface-terrestrial form with non-fossorial behavior, thus redirecting the debate toward an underexplored evolutionary scenario. Our comprehensive heterochrony analyses further indicate that snakes later evolved novel craniofacial specializations through global acceleration of skull development. These results highlight the importance of the interplay between natural selection and developmental processes in snake origin and diversification, leading first to invasion of a new habitat and then to subsequent ecological radiations.

Digital stethoscope: technology update

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Swarup S

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Supreeya Swarup,1 Amgad N Makaryus1,2 1Department of Cardiology, Nassau University Medical Center, East Meadow, NY, 2Department of Cardiology, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Health, Hempstead, NY, USA Abstract: Cardiovascular disease (CVD is recognized as the leading cause of mortality throughout the world. About one-third of global mortality is attributable to CVD. In addition to clinical presentation, specific clinical exam findings can assist in treating and preventing CVD. CVD may initially manifest as pulmonary pathology, and thus, accurate cardiopulmonary auscultation is paramount to establishing accurate diagnosis. One of the most powerful tools available to physicians is the stethoscope. The stethoscope first emerged in the year 1818, invented by a French physician, René Laennec. Since then, the initial modest monaural wooden tube has evolved into a sophisticated digital device. This paper provides an analysis of the evolution of the stethoscope as well as highlights the advancement made by the modern digital stethoscope including the application of this tool in advancing care for patients suffering from CVD. Keywords: cardiovascular disease, physical exam, diagnosis, treatment

Undertaking an Ecological Approach to Advance Game-Based Learning: A Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Shah, Mamta; Foster, Aroutis

2014-01-01

Systematic incorporation of digital games in schools is largely unexplored. This case study explored the ecological conditions necessary for implementing a game-based learning course by examining the interaction between three domains (the innovator, the innovation, and the context). From January-April 2012, one in-service teacher learned and…

Evolving Ecological Social Dilemmas: A Spatial Individual-Based Model for the Evolution of Cooperation with a Minimal Number of Parameters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fort, H.

2007-01-01

Cooperation, both intraspecific and interspecific, is a well-documented phenomenon in nature that is not well understood. Evolutionary game theory is a powerful tool to approach this problem. However, it has important limitations. First, very often it is not obvious which game is more appropriate to use. Second, in general, identical payoff matrices are assumed for all players, a situation that is highly unlikely in nature. Third, slight changes in these payoff values can dramatically alter the outcomes. Here, I use an evolutionary spatial model in which players do not have a universal payoff matrix, so no payoff parameters are required. Instead, each is equipped with random values for the payoffs, fulfilling the constraints that define the game(s). These payoff matrices evolve by natural selection. Two versions of this model are studied. First is a simpler one, with just one evolving payoff. Second is the full version, with all the four payoffs evolving. The fraction of cooperator agents converges in both versions to nonzero values. In the case of the full version, the initial heterogeneity disappears and the selected game is the stag Hunt

Ecological associations of autopodial osteology in Neotropical geckos.

Science.gov (United States)

Rothier, Priscila S; Brandt, Renata; Kohlsdorf, Tiana

2017-03-01

Coevolution of form and function inspires investigation of associations between morphological variation and the exploitation of specific ecological settings. Such relationships, based mostly on traits of external morphology, have been extensively described for vertebrates, and especially so for squamates. External features are, however, composed by both soft tissues and bones, and these likely play different biomechanical roles during locomotion, such as in the autopodia. Therefore, ecological trends identified on the basis of external morphological measurements may not be directly correlated with equivalent variation in osteology. Here, we investigate how refined parameters of autopodial osteology relate to ecology, by contrasting climbing and nonclimbing geckos. Our first step consisted of inferring how external and osteological morphometric traits coevolved in the group. Our results corroborate the hypothesis of coevolution between external and osteological elements in the autopodia of geckos, and provides evidence for associations between specific osteological traits and preferred locomotor habit. Specifically, nonclimbers exhibit longer ultimate and penultimate phalanges of Digit V in the manus and pes and also a longer fifth metatarsal in comparison with climbers, a pattern discussed here in the context of the differential demands made upon locomotion in specific ecological contexts. Our study highlights the relevance of osteological information for discussing the evolution of ecological associations of the tetrapod autopodium. J. Morphol. 278:290-299, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Larval Performance in the Context of Ecological Diversification and Speciation in Lycaeides Butterflies

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Cynthia F. Scholl

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The role of ecology in diversification has been widely investigated, though few groups have been studied in enough detail to allow comparisons of different ecological traits that potentially contribute to reproductive isolation. We investigated larval performance within a species complex of Lycaeides butterflies. Caterpillars from seven populations were reared on five host plants, asking if host-specific, adaptive larval traits exist. We found large differences in performance across plants and fewer differences among populations. The patterns of performance are complex and suggest both conserved traits (i.e., plant effects across populations and more recent dynamics of local adaptation, in particular for L. melissa that has colonized an exotic host. We did not find a relationship between oviposition preference and larval performance, suggesting that preference did not evolve to match performance. Finally, we put larval performance within the context of several other traits that might contribute to ecologically based reproductive isolation in the Lycaeides complex. This larger context, involving multiple ecological and behavioral traits, highlights the complexity of ecological diversification and emphasizes the need for detailed studies on the strength of putative barriers to gene flow in order to fully understand the process of ecological speciation.

Digital daily cycles of individuals

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aledavood, Talayeh; Jørgensen, Sune Lehmann; Saramäki, Jari

2015-01-01

Humans, like almost all animals, are phase-locked to the diurnal cycle. Most of us sleep at night and are active through the day. Because we have evolved to function with this cycle, the circadian rhythm is deeply ingrained and even detectable at the biochemical level. However, within the broader...... day-night pattern, there are individual differences: e.g., some of us are intrinsically morning-active, while others prefer evenings. In this article, we look at digital daily cycles: circadian patterns of activity viewed through the lens of auto-recorded data of communication and online activity. We...

Standardisation of digital human models.

Science.gov (United States)

Paul, Gunther; Wischniewski, Sascha

2012-01-01

Digital human models (DHM) have evolved as useful tools for ergonomic workplace design and product development, and found in various industries and education. DHM systems which dominate the market were developed for specific purposes and differ significantly, which is not only reflected in non-compatible results of DHM simulations, but also provoking misunderstanding of how DHM simulations relate to real world problems. While DHM developers are restricted by uncertainty about the user need and lack of model data related standards, users are confined to one specific product and cannot exchange results, or upgrade to another DHM system, as their previous results would be rendered worthless. Furthermore, origin and validity of anthropometric and biomechanical data is not transparent to the user. The lack of standardisation in DHM systems has become a major roadblock in further system development, affecting all stakeholders in the DHM industry. Evidently, a framework for standardising digital human models is necessary to overcome current obstructions. Practitioner Summary: This short communication addresses a standardisation issue for digital human models, which has been addressed at the International Ergonomics Association Technical Committee for Human Simulation and Virtual Environments. It is the outcome of a workshop at the DHM 2011 symposium in Lyon, which concluded steps towards DHM standardisation that need to be taken.

Digital Ecologies of Youth Mental Health: Apps, Therapeutic Publics and Pedagogy as Affective Arrangements

OpenAIRE

Fullagar, Simone; Rich, Emma; Francombe-Webb, Jessica; Maturo, Antonio

2017-01-01

In this paper, we offer a new conceptual approach to analyzing the interrelations between formal and informal pedagogical sites for learning about youth mental (ill) health with a specific focus on digital health technologies. Our approach builds on an understanding of public pedagogy to examine the pedagogical modes of address (Ellsworth 1997) that are (i) produced through ‘expert’ discourses of mental health literacy for young people; and (ii) include digital practices created by young peop...

Investigating the evolution of apoptosis in malaria parasites: the importance of ecology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pollitt Laura C

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Apoptosis is a precisely regulated process of cell death which occurs widely in multicellular organisms and is essential for normal development and immune defences. In recent years, interest has grown in the occurrence of apoptosis in unicellular organisms. In particular, as apoptosis has been reported in a wide range of species, including protozoan malaria parasites and trypanosomes, it may provide a novel target for intervention. However, it is important to understand when and why parasites employ an apoptosis strategy before the likely long- and short-term success of such an intervention can be evaluated. The occurrence of apoptosis in unicellular parasites provides a challenge for evolutionary theory to explain as organisms are expected to have evolved to maximise their own proliferation, not death. One possible explanation is that protozoan parasites undergo apoptosis in order to gain a group benefit from controlling their density as this prevents premature vector mortality. However, experimental manipulations to examine the ultimate causes behind apoptosis in parasites are lacking. In this review, we focus on malaria parasites to outline how an evolutionary framework can help make predictions about the ecological circumstances under which apoptosis could evolve. We then highlight the ecological considerations that should be taken into account when designing evolutionary experiments involving markers of cell death, and we call for collaboration between researchers in different fields to identify and develop appropriate markers in reference to parasite ecology and to resolve debates on terminology.

The Effect of Size and Ecology on Extinction Susceptibility

Science.gov (United States)

Huynh, C.; Yuan, A.; Heim, N.; Payne, J.

2015-12-01

Although life on Earth first emerged as prokaryotic organisms, it eventually evolved into billions of different species. However, extinctions on Earth, especially the five mass extinctions, have decimated species. So what leads to a species survival or demise during a mass extinction? Are certain species more susceptible to extinctions based on their size and ecology? For this project, we focused on the data of marine animals. To examine the impact of size and ecology on a species's likelihood of survival, we compared the sizes and ecologies of the survivors and victims of the five mass extinctions. The ecology, or life mode, of a genus consists of the combination of tiering, motility, and feeding mechanism. Tiering refers to the animal's typical location in the water column and sediments, motility refers to its ability to move, and feeding mechanism describes the way the organism eats; together, they describe the animal's behavior. We analyzed the effect of ecology on survival using logistic regression, which compares life mode to the success or failure of a genus during each mass extinction interval. For organism size, we found the extinct organisms' mean size (both volume and length) and compared it with the average size of survivors on a graph. Our results show that while surviving genera of mass extinctions tended to be slightly larger than those that went extinct, there was no significant difference. Even though the Permian (Changhsingian) and Triassic (Rhaetian) extinctions had larger surviving species, likewise the difference was small. Ecology had a more obvious impact on the likelihood of survival; fast-moving, predatory pelagic organisms were the most likely to go extinct, while sedentary, infaunal suspension feeders had the greatest chances of survival. Overall, ecology played a greater role than size in determining the survival of a species. With this information, we can use ecology to predict which species would survive future extinctions.

"What we need is a crop ecologist": ecology and agricultural science in Progressive-era America.

Science.gov (United States)

Hersey, Mark D

2011-01-01

Though they are often seen as foils for each other, ecology and agricultural science co-evolved. With shared roots in late nineteenth-century botany, ecologists and agronomists fostered important connections during the Progressive era that have been largely overlooked despite a number of finely nuanced studies of ecology's origins. But if 'applied ecology' once effectively meant agriculture, over the course of the first decades of the twentieth century the relationship between ecology and scientific agriculture grew strained. Agriculturists narrowed their focus to increasing yields, and ecologists sought to establish their discipline as a distant theoretical science and so distanced themselves from its agricultural applications. By the end of World War I, the process of disciplinary specialization was well underway. In time, the two disciplines diverged so completely that the once vital connections between them were obscured and forgotten.

Ecological stability of landscape - ecological infrastructure - ecological management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-01-01

The Field Workshop 'Ecological Stability of Landscape - Ecological Infrastructure - Ecological Management' was held within a State Environmental Programme financed by the Federal Committee for the Environment. The objectives of the workshop were to present Czech and Slovak approaches to the ecological stability of the landscape by means of examples of some case studies in the field, and to exchange ideas, theoretical knowledge and practical experience on implementing the concept of ecological infrastructure in landscape management. Out of 19 papers contained in the proceedings, 3 items were inputted to the INIS system. (Z.S.)

Digital governance and institutional change

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schlæger, Jesper

2010-01-01

Coal allocation in China is a seminal case of e-government in the political economy. The empirical phenomenon of market supporting e-government has not been systematically analysed. By developing and applying a digital governance model this article examines institutional change in a case of coal...... allocation reform in China. The case shows how the central state used e-government to get rid of planning overload. Coal allocation meetings were abolished in favour of an ecology of online market solutions. The findings suggest that further research on Chinese e-government would benefit from attention...

The iconic image in a digital age

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Mette; Allan, Stuart; Peters, Chris

2017-01-01

This article investigates selected newspapers’ editorial mediations over contrasting perceptions regarding the significance of a controversial set of “iconic” news photographs, namely images of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee, whose drowned corpse washed ashore in September, 2015. Spe......-reflexivity within a convergent digital media ecology, this article offers original insights into how and why the epistemic values governing visual communication are being reconsidered and redrawn under pressure from institutional imperatives....

Slumdog romance: Facebook love and digital privacy at the margins

Science.gov (United States)

Arora, Payal; Scheiber, Laura

2017-01-01

Facebook has consolidated its position as the one-stop-shop for social activity among the poor in the global South. Sex, romance, and love are key motivations for mobile and Internet technology usage among this demographic, much like the West. Digital romance is a critical context through which we gain fresh perspectives on Internet governance for an emerging digital and globalizing public. Revenge porn, slut-shaming, and Internet romance scams are a common and growing malady worldwide. Focusing on how it manifests in diverse digital cultures will aid in the shaping of new Internet laws for a more inclusive cross-cultural public. In specific, this article examines how low-income youth in two of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations – Brazil and India – exercise and express their notions on digital privacy, surveillance, and trust through the lens of romance. This allows for a more thorough investigation of the relationship between sexuality, morality, and governance within the larger Facebook ecology. As Facebook becomes the dominant virtual public sphere for the world’s poor, we are compelled to ask whether inclusivity of the digital users comes at the price of diversity of digital platforms.

Slumdog romance: Facebook love and digital privacy at the margins.

Science.gov (United States)

Arora, Payal; Scheiber, Laura

2017-04-01

Facebook has consolidated its position as the one-stop-shop for social activity among the poor in the global South. Sex, romance, and love are key motivations for mobile and Internet technology usage among this demographic, much like the West. Digital romance is a critical context through which we gain fresh perspectives on Internet governance for an emerging digital and globalizing public. Revenge porn, slut-shaming, and Internet romance scams are a common and growing malady worldwide. Focusing on how it manifests in diverse digital cultures will aid in the shaping of new Internet laws for a more inclusive cross-cultural public. In specific, this article examines how low-income youth in two of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations - Brazil and India - exercise and express their notions on digital privacy, surveillance, and trust through the lens of romance. This allows for a more thorough investigation of the relationship between sexuality, morality, and governance within the larger Facebook ecology. As Facebook becomes the dominant virtual public sphere for the world's poor, we are compelled to ask whether inclusivity of the digital users comes at the price of diversity of digital platforms.

Digital ethnicity: discussion of a concept and implications for education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nan B. Adams

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Interaction with the rapidly expanding digital technologies for education, work, and play has drastically changed the processes and practices of world populations. As societies evolve in response to these new communication and calculation tools, the need arises to understand the sometimes unique but increasingly common change in cultures. The Digital Ethnicity Scale (DES, utilizing Longstreet’s (1978, Aspects of Ethnicity (New York: Teachers College Press model of the Aspects of Ethnicity, was developed to describe the emergence of new cultural patterns of behavior that result from the influence of human interaction with digital communication technologies (Adams, DeVaney, and Longstreet (2010 Comput. Hum. Behav. 26(6: 1822–1830. Longstreet’s definition of ethnicity focuses on cultural development during the earliest stages of human development, prior to the onset of children’s abstract thinking. The ultimate goal for the development of the DES is to describe those aspects of digital ethnicity and collect these descriptions along with demographic data to achieve profiles of various digital ethnicities. A discussion of the guiding concept and overview of the development of the DES seeks to present a description of these digital ethnic profiles that may provide insight into the educational needs of rapidly changing societal groupings with hopes of providing guidance for educational practice.

Natural selection promotes antigenic evolvability.

Science.gov (United States)

Graves, Christopher J; Ros, Vera I D; Stevenson, Brian; Sniegowski, Paul D; Brisson, Dustin

2013-01-01

The hypothesis that evolvability - the capacity to evolve by natural selection - is itself the object of natural selection is highly intriguing but remains controversial due in large part to a paucity of direct experimental evidence. The antigenic variation mechanisms of microbial pathogens provide an experimentally tractable system to test whether natural selection has favored mechanisms that increase evolvability. Many antigenic variation systems consist of paralogous unexpressed 'cassettes' that recombine into an expression site to rapidly alter the expressed protein. Importantly, the magnitude of antigenic change is a function of the genetic diversity among the unexpressed cassettes. Thus, evidence that selection favors among-cassette diversity is direct evidence that natural selection promotes antigenic evolvability. We used the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, as a model to test the prediction that natural selection favors amino acid diversity among unexpressed vls cassettes and thereby promotes evolvability in a primary surface antigen, VlsE. The hypothesis that diversity among vls cassettes is favored by natural selection was supported in each B. burgdorferi strain analyzed using both classical (dN/dS ratios) and Bayesian population genetic analyses of genetic sequence data. This hypothesis was also supported by the conservation of highly mutable tandem-repeat structures across B. burgdorferi strains despite a near complete absence of sequence conservation. Diversification among vls cassettes due to natural selection and mutable repeat structures promotes long-term antigenic evolvability of VlsE. These findings provide a direct demonstration that molecular mechanisms that enhance evolvability of surface antigens are an evolutionary adaptation. The molecular evolutionary processes identified here can serve as a model for the evolution of antigenic evolvability in many pathogens which utilize similar strategies to establish chronic infections.

Natural selection promotes antigenic evolvability.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christopher J Graves

Full Text Available The hypothesis that evolvability - the capacity to evolve by natural selection - is itself the object of natural selection is highly intriguing but remains controversial due in large part to a paucity of direct experimental evidence. The antigenic variation mechanisms of microbial pathogens provide an experimentally tractable system to test whether natural selection has favored mechanisms that increase evolvability. Many antigenic variation systems consist of paralogous unexpressed 'cassettes' that recombine into an expression site to rapidly alter the expressed protein. Importantly, the magnitude of antigenic change is a function of the genetic diversity among the unexpressed cassettes. Thus, evidence that selection favors among-cassette diversity is direct evidence that natural selection promotes antigenic evolvability. We used the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, as a model to test the prediction that natural selection favors amino acid diversity among unexpressed vls cassettes and thereby promotes evolvability in a primary surface antigen, VlsE. The hypothesis that diversity among vls cassettes is favored by natural selection was supported in each B. burgdorferi strain analyzed using both classical (dN/dS ratios and Bayesian population genetic analyses of genetic sequence data. This hypothesis was also supported by the conservation of highly mutable tandem-repeat structures across B. burgdorferi strains despite a near complete absence of sequence conservation. Diversification among vls cassettes due to natural selection and mutable repeat structures promotes long-term antigenic evolvability of VlsE. These findings provide a direct demonstration that molecular mechanisms that enhance evolvability of surface antigens are an evolutionary adaptation. The molecular evolutionary processes identified here can serve as a model for the evolution of antigenic evolvability in many pathogens which utilize similar strategies to establish

The Digital Memory of CERN: status and input for a Preservation Strategic Plan

CERN Document Server

Le Meur, Jean-Yves

2016-01-01

The Digital Memory project is born from the repetitive observation over decades that a fraction of CERN knowledge is lost or threaten to be lost. If a good part is kept in safe systems where long term preservation is ”in the pipeline” - but rarely fully implemented - another part is not managed for archiving. CERN Digital Memory targets to create incentives for a more consistent and robust solution to guarantee the long term preservation of content by existing information systems, as well as a new approach to collect missing content worth been transmitted to future generations. The first part of this document overviews digital preservation in the world, looking at rationale, world wide evolution and best practices. The second chapter describes past initiatives started at CERN and what has been recommended to ensure a safer preservation of CERN-produced digital assets. Finally, the last section exposes proposals to evolve existing information systems and to set up innovative processes to make digital prese...

The evolution of eggshell cuticle in relation to nesting ecology

Science.gov (United States)

Hauber, Mark E.

2016-01-01

Avian eggs are at risk of microbial infection prior to and during incubation. A large number of defence mechanisms have evolved in response to the severe costs imposed by these infections. The eggshell's cuticle is an important component of antimicrobial defence, and its role in preventing contamination by microorganisms in domestic chickens is well known. Nanometer-scale cuticular spheres that reduce microbial attachment and penetration have recently been identified on eggs of several wild avian species. However, whether these spheres have evolved specifically for antimicrobial defence is unknown. Here, we use comparative data on eggshell cuticular structure and nesting ecology to test the hypothesis that birds nesting in habitats with higher risk of infection (e.g. wetter and warmer) are more likely to evolve cuticular nanospheres on their eggshells than those nesting in less risky habitats. We found that nanostructuring, present in 54 of 296 analysed species, is the ancestral condition of avian eggshells and has been retained more often in taxa that nest in humid infection-prone environments, suggesting that they serve critical roles in antimicrobial egg defence. PMID:27488648

Exploitation of Digital Filters to Advance the Single-Phase T/4 Delay PLL System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yang, Yongheng; Zhou, Keliang; Blaabjerg, Frede

2016-01-01

will violate this design rule and it can become a major challenge for digital controllers. To deal with the above issue, this paper first exploits a virtual unit delay (z_v^-1) to emulate the viable sampling behavior in practical digital signal processors with a fixed sampling rate. This exploitation......With the development of digital signal processing technologies, control and monitoring of power electronics conversion systems have been evolving to become fully digital. As the basic element in the design and analysis phase of digital controllers or filters, a number of unit delays (z^-1) have...... been employed, e.g., in a cascaded structure. Practically, the number of unit delays is designed as an integer, which is related to the sampling frequency (e.g., 50 Hz). More common, the sampling frequency is fixed during operation for simplicity and design. Hence, any disturbance in the ac signal...

Ecological disequilibrium drives insect pest and pathogen accumulation in non-native trees.

Science.gov (United States)

Crous, Casparus J; Burgess, Treena I; Le Roux, Johannes J; Richardson, David M; Slippers, Bernard; Wingfield, Michael J

2016-12-23

Non-native trees have become dominant components of many landscapes, including urban ecosystems, commercial forestry plantations, fruit orchards, and as invasives in natural ecosystems. Often, these trees have been separated from their natural enemies (i.e. insects and pathogens) leading to ecological disequilibrium, that is, the immediate breakdown of historically co-evolved interactions once introduced into novel environments. Long-established, non-native tree plantations provide useful experiments to explore the dimensions of such ecological disequilibria. We quantify the status quo of non-native insect pests and pathogens catching up with their tree hosts (planted Acacia, Eucalyptus and Pinus species) in South Africa, and examine which native South African enemy species utilise these trees as hosts. Interestingly, pines, with no confamilial relatives in South Africa and the longest residence time (almost two centuries), have acquired only one highly polyphagous native pathogen. This is in contrast to acacias and eucalypts, both with many native and confamilial relatives in South Africa that have acquired more native pathogens. These patterns support the known role of phylogenetic relatedness of non-native and native floras in influencing the likelihood of pathogen shifts between them. This relationship, however, does not seem to hold for native insects. Native insects appear far more likely to expand their feeding habits onto non-native tree hosts than are native pathogens, although they are generally less damaging. The ecological disequilibrium conditions of non-native trees are deeply rooted in the eco-evolutionary experience of the host plant, co-evolved natural enemies, and native organisms from the introduced range. We should expect considerable spatial and temporal variation in ecological disequilibrium conditions among non-native taxa, which can be significantly influenced by biosecurity and management practices. Published by Oxford University Press on

Digital libraries applications CBIR, education, social networks, eScience/simulation, and GIS

CERN Document Server

Fox, Edward A

2014-01-01

Digital libraries (DLs) have evolved since their launch in 1991 into an important type of information system, with widespread application. This volume advances that trend further by describing new research and development in the DL field that builds upon the 5S (Societies, Scenarios, Spaces, Structures, Streams) framework, which is discussed in three other DL volumes in this series.While the 5S framework may be used to describe many types of information systems, and is likely to have even broader utility and appeal, we focus here on digital libraries.Drawing upon six (Akbar, Kozievitch, Leidig

Information in the Biosphere: Biological and Digital Worlds.

Science.gov (United States)

Gillings, Michael R; Hilbert, Martin; Kemp, Darrell J

2016-03-01

Evolution has transformed life through key innovations in information storage and replication, including RNA, DNA, multicellularity, and culture and language. We argue that the carbon-based biosphere has generated a cognitive system (humans) capable of creating technology that will result in a comparable evolutionary transition. Digital information has reached a similar magnitude to information in the biosphere. It increases exponentially, exhibits high-fidelity replication, evolves through differential fitness, is expressed through artificial intelligence (AI), and has facility for virtually limitless recombination. Like previous evolutionary transitions, the potential symbiosis between biological and digital information will reach a critical point where these codes could compete via natural selection. Alternatively, this fusion could create a higher-level superorganism employing a low-conflict division of labor in performing informational tasks. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

KALIGRAFI ARAB DIGITAL AYAT AL-QUR'AN DI DUNIA MAYA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pujiati

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Digital Arabic Calligraphy of the Qur’anic Verses in Cyberspace. Islamic Civililation introduced calligraphy tradition as a form of Islamic art the main foculs of which mainly the verses of the as al-Qur’an. This article examines the digital Arabic calligraphy of of the Quranic Verses in cyberspace. This article found that calligraphy tradition have evolved along the development of science and technology. Through computer technology progress, calligraphers began to harness and use the computer and internet media to develop treasures of calligraphy. So far it was found that many internet sites that have published various models of digital calligraphy by using various verses of the al-Qur’an. From the data, it is known that there are two types of digital Arabic calligraphy. First is a contemporary calligraphy that looks freely with current development, abstract, the weather condition, objects and mortal. Second is qawa'id that having standards in writing. There are seven types namely tsuluts, naskhi, farisi, diwani, diwani jali, kufi, dan riq‘ah. Both types of calligraphy has contributed to the study of Islamic aesthetics.

Splicing the Divide: A Review of Research on the Evolving Digital Divide among K-12 Students

Science.gov (United States)

Dolan, Jennifer E.

2016-01-01

The digital divide has narrowed with regard to one definition of access to technology--the binary view of the "haves" and "have-nots." However, use of technology at home and in school is not equitable for all students. According to recent literature, a broader and more nuanced definition of the technological divide is necessary…

[Application of 3S techniques in ecological landscape planning of Harbin suburb].

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, Wenyi; Gong, Wenfeng; Liu, Dandan; Zhou, Hongze; Zhu, Ning

2005-12-01

With the image data (SPOT), soil utilization map (1:50000) and other related materials of Harbin, and under the support of GIS, RS and GPS techniques, this paper obtained the landscape pattern of Harbin suburb and the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of Harbin. Indices including mean patch area, landscape dominance, mean slope, mean altitude, and fragmentation degree were selected and synthetically analyzed, with the ecological landscape planning made by DEM model. The results showed that 3S techniques could help to decide typical landscape types. The landscape type database was established, and the landscape type thematic map was generated, with land use status and landscape distribution, physiognomy, and land use types combined. The ecological landscape planning was described in large scale with the image data and DEM combined, and the landscape structure of Harbin suburb was reflected directly with the ecological landscape planning and DEM combined, which improved the ecological function in this region, and provided scientific bases to the healthy development in urban-rural integration area.

Place prioritization for biodiversity content using species ecological niche modeling

OpenAIRE

Víctor Sánchez-Cordero; Verónica Cirelli; Mariana Munguial; Sahotra Sarkar

2005-01-01

Place prioritization for biodiversity representation is essential for conservation planning, particularly in megadiverse countries where high deforestation threatens biodiversity. Given the collecting biases and uneven sampling of biological inventories, there is a need to develop robust models of species’ distributions. By modeling species’ ecological niches using point occurrence data and digitized environmental feature maps, we can predict potential and extant distributions of species in u...

Predicting Individual Characteristics from Digital Traces on Social Media: A Meta-Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Settanni, Michele; Azucar, Danny; Marengo, Davide

2018-04-01

The increasing utilization of social media provides a vast and new source of user-generated ecological data (digital traces), which can be automatically collected for research purposes. The availability of these data sets, combined with the convergence between social and computer sciences, has led researchers to develop automated methods to extract digital traces from social media and use them to predict individual psychological characteristics and behaviors. In this article, we reviewed the literature on this topic and conducted a series of meta-analyses to determine the strength of associations between digital traces and specific individual characteristics; personality, psychological well-being, and intelligence. Potential moderator effects were analyzed with respect to type of social media platform, type of digital traces examined, and study quality. Our findings indicate that digital traces from social media can be studied to assess and predict theoretically distant psychosocial characteristics with remarkable accuracy. Analysis of moderators indicated that the collection of specific types of information (i.e., user demographics), and the inclusion of different types of digital traces, could help improve the accuracy of predictions.

Web 2.0 Technologies and Parent Involvement of ELL Students: An Ecological Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Dong-shin; Seger, Wendy

2016-01-01

This study explores how ELL students' parents participated in a blog-mediated English language arts curriculum in a second grade classroom at a U.S. urban school, and how they supported their children's learning of school-based writing. Adopting ecological perspectives on technological affordances, this study views digital literacy as discursive…

DigiNotar: Dissecting the First Dutch Digital Disaster

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicole S. van der Meulen

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In the middle of the night on September 2, 2011, the Dutch Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations held an emergency press conference. DigiNotar, a Certificate Authority (CA, had been electronically ‘broken into’ and as a result intruders had managed to generate falsified certificates. As a CA, DigiNotar issued digital certificates to secure digital communication, but as a result of the breach the authenticity of such certificates could no longer be verified. The Dutch government subsequently revoked its trust in all certificates issued by DigiNotar. This was the beginning of the first digital disaster in the Netherlands. As a pioneering disaster, this article focuses on the implications of DigiNotar as a vital case study for future scenarios of digital disaster management. The main focus of this article is on the underlying ‘weaknesses’ of the DigiNotar incident, which allowed the situation to evolve from a problem into a disaster. These include lack of oversight, lack of security attention and risk awareness and the absence of an effective mitigation strategy. By identifying and subsequently analyzing the underlying problems, this article aims to demonstrate how future situations can be better contained if sufficient attention is granted to these factors and subsequent changes are introduced.

EEVEE: the Empathy-Enhancing Virtual Evolving Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philip L. Jackson

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Empathy is a multifaceted emotional and mental faculty that is often found to be affected in a great number of psychopathologies, including schizophrenia, yet it remains very difficult to measure in an ecological context. The challenge stems partly from the complexity and fluidity of this social process, but also from its covert nature. A powerful tool to enhance experimental control over such dynamic social interactions is the use of avatars in virtual reality (VR, and one way to collect information about an individual in an interaction is through the analysis of his or her neurophysiological and behavioural responses. We have developed a unique platform, the Empathy-Enhancing Virtual Evolving Environment (EEVEE, which is built around three main components: 1 different avatars capable of expressing feelings and emotions at various levels based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS; 2 systems for measuring the physiological responses of the observer (heart and respiration rate, skin conductance, gaze and eye movements, facial expression; and 3 a multimodal interface linking the avatar’s behaviour to the observer’s neurophysiological response. In this article, we provide a detailed description of the components of this innovative platform and validation data from the first phases of development. Our data show that healthy adults can discriminate different negative emotions, including pain, expressed by avatars at varying intensities. We also provide evidence that masking part of an avatar’s face (top or bottom half does not prevent the detection of different levels of pain. Overall, this innovative and flexible platform provides a unique tool to study and even modulate empathy in a comprehensive and ecological manner in number of populations suffering from neurological or psychiatric disorders.

SEPHIROT: Scenario for Universe-Creation AUTOMATICALLY from Digits On-Average Euler-Bernoulli-Kummer-Riemann-Newcomb-Poincare-Weyl-Benford-Kac-Raimi-Hill-Antonoff-Siegel ``Digit-Physics'' Logarithm-Law: ``It's a Jack-in-the-Box Universe'': EMET/TRUTH!!!

Science.gov (United States)

Siegel, Edward Carl-Ludwig; Young, Frederic; Wignall, Janis

2013-04-01

SEPHIROT: Siegel[http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1553]: Ten-[0->9]-Digits; Average Log-Law SCALE-Invariance; Utter-Simplicity: ``Complexity'' (vs. ``Complicatedness''); Zipf-law/Hyperbolicity/ Inevitability SCENARIO AUTOMATICALLY CREATES & EVOLVES a UNIVERSE: inflation, a big-bang, bosons(E)->Mellin-(c2)-tranform->fermions(m), hidden-dark-energy(HDE), hidden-dark-matter (HDM), cosmic-microwave-background(CMB), supersymmetry(SUSY), PURPOSELY NO: theories,models,mechanisms,processes, parameters,assumptions,WHATSOEVER: It's a ``Jack-in-the-Box'' Universe!!!: ONLY VIA: Newcomb [Am.J.Math.4(1),39(1881)]QUANTUM-discovery!!!-Benford-Siegel-Antonoff[AMS.Joint-Mtg.(02)-Abs.#973-60-124!!!] inversion to ONLY BEQS with d=0 BEC: ``Digit-Physics''!; Log fixed-point invariance(s): [base=units=SCALE] of digits classic (not classical!) average [CAUSING] log statistical-correlations =log(1+1/d), with physics-crucial d=0 BEC singularity/pole, permits SEPHIROT!!!: ``digits are quanta are bosons because bosons are and always were digits!!!'': Digits = Bosons with d=0 BEC(!!!) & expansion to Zipf-law Hyperbolicity INEVITABILITY CMB!

Buckets: Smart Objects for Digital Libraries

Science.gov (United States)

Nelson, Michael L.

2001-01-01

Current discussion of digital libraries (DLs) is often dominated by the merits of the respective storage, search and retrieval functionality of archives, repositories, search engines, search interfaces and database systems. While these technologies are necessary for information management, the information content is more important than the systems used for its storage and retrieval. Digital information should have the same long-term survivability prospects as traditional hardcopy information and should be protected to the extent possible from evolving search engine technologies and vendor vagaries in database management systems. Information content and information retrieval systems should progress on independent paths and make limited assumptions about the status or capabilities of the other. Digital information can achieve independence from archives and DL systems through the use of buckets. Buckets are an aggregative, intelligent construct for publishing in DLs. Buckets allow the decoupling of information content from information storage and retrieval. Buckets exist within the Smart Objects and Dumb Archives model for DLs in that many of the functionalities and responsibilities traditionally associated with archives are pushed down (making the archives dumber) into the buckets (making them smarter). Some of the responsibilities imbued to buckets are the enforcement of their terms and conditions, and maintenance and display of their contents.

Predicting phenology by integrating ecology, evolution and climate science

Science.gov (United States)

Pau, Stephanie; Wolkovich, Elizabeth M.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Davies, T. Jonathan; Kraft, Nathan J.B.; Bolmgren, Kjell; Betancourt, Julio L.; Cleland, Elsa E.

2011-01-01

Forecasting how species and ecosystems will respond to climate change has been a major aim of ecology in recent years. Much of this research has focused on phenology — the timing of life-history events. Phenology has well-demonstrated links to climate, from genetic to landscape scales; yet our ability to explain and predict variation in phenology across species, habitats and time remains poor. Here, we outline how merging approaches from ecology, climate science and evolutionary biology can advance research on phenological responses to climate variability. Using insight into seasonal and interannual climate variability combined with niche theory and community phylogenetics, we develop a predictive approach for species' reponses to changing climate. Our approach predicts that species occupying higher latitudes or the early growing season should be most sensitive to climate and have the most phylogenetically conserved phenologies. We further predict that temperate species will respond to climate change by shifting in time, while tropical species will respond by shifting space, or by evolving. Although we focus here on plant phenology, our approach is broadly applicable to ecological research of plant responses to climate variability.

How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews, Luke J.; Hare, Brian A.; Nunn, Charles L.; Anderson, Rindy C.; Aureli, Filippo; Brannon, Elizabeth M.; Call, Josep; Drea, Christine M.; Emery, Nathan J.; Haun, Daniel B. M.; Herrmann, Esther; Jacobs, Lucia F.; Platt, Michael L.; Rosati, Alexandra G.; Sandel, Aaron A.; Schroepfer, Kara K.; Seed, Amanda M.; Tan, Jingzhi; van Schaik, Carel P.; Wobber, Victoria

2014-01-01

Now more than ever animal studies have the potential to test hypotheses regarding how cognition evolves. Comparative psychologists have developed new techniques to probe the cognitive mechanisms underlying animal behavior, and they have become increasingly skillful at adapting methodologies to test multiple species. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologists have generated quantitative approaches to investigate the phylogenetic distribution and function of phenotypic traits, including cognition. In particular, phylogenetic methods can quantitatively (1) test whether specific cognitive abilities are correlated with life history (e.g., lifespan), morphology (e.g., brain size), or socio-ecological variables (e.g., social system), (2) measure how strongly phylogenetic relatedness predicts the distribution of cognitive skills across species, and (3) estimate the ancestral state of a given cognitive trait using measures of cognitive performance from extant species. Phylogenetic methods can also be used to guide the selection of species comparisons that offer the strongest tests of a priori predictions of cognitive evolutionary hypotheses (i.e., phylogenetic targeting). Here, we explain how an integration of comparative psychology and evolutionary biology will answer a host of questions regarding the phylogenetic distribution and history of cognitive traits, as well as the evolutionary processes that drove their evolution. PMID:21927850

How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

MacLean, Evan L; Matthews, Luke J; Hare, Brian A; Nunn, Charles L; Anderson, Rindy C; Aureli, Filippo; Brannon, Elizabeth M; Call, Josep; Drea, Christine M; Emery, Nathan J; Haun, Daniel B M; Herrmann, Esther; Jacobs, Lucia F; Platt, Michael L; Rosati, Alexandra G; Sandel, Aaron A; Schroepfer, Kara K; Seed, Amanda M; Tan, Jingzhi; van Schaik, Carel P; Wobber, Victoria

2012-03-01

Now more than ever animal studies have the potential to test hypotheses regarding how cognition evolves. Comparative psychologists have developed new techniques to probe the cognitive mechanisms underlying animal behavior, and they have become increasingly skillful at adapting methodologies to test multiple species. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologists have generated quantitative approaches to investigate the phylogenetic distribution and function of phenotypic traits, including cognition. In particular, phylogenetic methods can quantitatively (1) test whether specific cognitive abilities are correlated with life history (e.g., lifespan), morphology (e.g., brain size), or socio-ecological variables (e.g., social system), (2) measure how strongly phylogenetic relatedness predicts the distribution of cognitive skills across species, and (3) estimate the ancestral state of a given cognitive trait using measures of cognitive performance from extant species. Phylogenetic methods can also be used to guide the selection of species comparisons that offer the strongest tests of a priori predictions of cognitive evolutionary hypotheses (i.e., phylogenetic targeting). Here, we explain how an integration of comparative psychology and evolutionary biology will answer a host of questions regarding the phylogenetic distribution and history of cognitive traits, as well as the evolutionary processes that drove their evolution.

The contribution of post-copulatory mechanisms to incipient ecological speciation in sticklebacks.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufmann, Joshka; Eizaguirre, Christophe; Milinski, Manfred; Lenz, Tobias L

2015-01-01

Ecology can play a major role in species diversification. As individuals are adapting to contrasting habitats, reproductive barriers may evolve at multiple levels. While pre-mating barriers have been extensively studied, the evolution of post-mating reproductive isolation during early stages of ecological speciation remains poorly understood. In diverging three-spined stickleback ecotypes from two lakes and two rivers, we observed differences in sperm traits between lake and river males. Interestingly, these differences did not translate into ecotype-specific gamete precedence for sympatric males in competitive in vitro fertilization experiments, potentially owing to antagonistic compensatory effects. However, we observed indirect evidence for impeded development of inter-ecotype zygotes, possibly suggesting an early stage of genetic incompatibility between ecotypes. Our results show that pre-zygotic post-copulatory mechanisms play a minor role during this first stage of ecotype divergence, but suggest that genetic incompatibilities may arise at early stages of ecological speciation. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Ecology, mobility and labour: dynamic pastoral herd management in an uncertain world.

Science.gov (United States)

Butt, B

2016-11-01

In this review, the author discusses how pastoralism, and its many constituent components, is increasingly being recognised as in tune with the changing political and ecological nature of rangelands. He describes ways in which the literature reflects this changing attitude, outlines how rangelands respond to changes in climate and explores the evolving use of livestock resources. In addition, he describes the growing recognition of factors other than livestock density that affect rangeland vegetation (i.e. density-independent relationships). The author explains how terms such as 'carrying capacity', 'overgrazing' and 'desertification' are often taken out of their social and political context when describing rangeland pastoralism. Next, he describes the growing recognition by the development community of the importance of the mobility model, particularly in relation to changing ecologies and politics. Finally, he outlines how labour, a central focus of pastoral herd management, is a fluid component of pastoral systems in response to changing political and ecological circumstances.

BGS·SIGMA - Digital mapping at the British Geological Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Nichola; Lawrie, Ken

2017-04-01

Geological mapping methods have evolved significantly over recent decades and this has included the transition to digital field data capture. BGS has been developing methodologies and technologies for this since 2001, and has now reached a stage where our custom built data capture and map compilation system (BGS·SIGMAv2015) is the default toolkit, within BGS, for bedrock and superficial mapping across the UK and overseas. In addition, BGS scientists also use the system for other data acquisition projects, such as landslide assessment, geodiversity audits and building stone studies. BGS·SIGMAv2015 is an integrated toolkit which enables assembly, interrogation and visualisation of existing geological information; capture of, and integration with, new data and geological interpretations; and delivery of digital products and services. From its early days as a system which used PocketGIS run on Husky Fex21 hardware, to the present day system, developed using ESRI's ArcGIS built on top of a bespoke relational data model, running on ruggedized tablet PCs with integrated GPS units, the system has evolved into a comprehensive system for digital geological data capture, mapping and compilation. The benefits, for BGS, of digital data capture are huge. Not only are the data being gathered in a standardised format, with the use of dictionaries to ensure consistency, but project teams can start building their digital geological map in the field by merging data collected by colleagues, building line-work and polygons, and subsequently identifying areas for further investigation. This digital data can then be easily incorporated into corporate databases and used in 3D modelling and visualisation software once back in the office. BGS is now at a stage where the free external release of our digital mapping system is in demand across the world, with 3000 licences being issued to date, and is successfully being used by other geological surveys, universities and exploration companies

Evolvability Is an Evolved Ability: The Coding Concept as the Arch-Unit of Natural Selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Janković, Srdja; Ćirković, Milan M

2016-03-01

Physical processes that characterize living matter are qualitatively distinct in that they involve encoding and transfer of specific types of information. Such information plays an active part in the control of events that are ultimately linked to the capacity of the system to persist and multiply. This algorithmicity of life is a key prerequisite for its Darwinian evolution, driven by natural selection acting upon stochastically arising variations of the encoded information. The concept of evolvability attempts to define the total capacity of a system to evolve new encoded traits under appropriate conditions, i.e., the accessible section of total morphological space. Since this is dependent on previously evolved regulatory networks that govern information flow in the system, evolvability itself may be regarded as an evolved ability. The way information is physically written, read and modified in living cells (the "coding concept") has not changed substantially during the whole history of the Earth's biosphere. This biosphere, be it alone or one of many, is, accordingly, itself a product of natural selection, since the overall evolvability conferred by its coding concept (nucleic acids as information carriers with the "rulebook of meanings" provided by codons, as well as all the subsystems that regulate various conditional information-reading modes) certainly played a key role in enabling this biosphere to survive up to the present, through alterations of planetary conditions, including at least five catastrophic events linked to major mass extinctions. We submit that, whatever the actual prebiotic physical and chemical processes may have been on our home planet, or may, in principle, occur at some time and place in the Universe, a particular coding concept, with its respective potential to give rise to a biosphere, or class of biospheres, of a certain evolvability, may itself be regarded as a unit (indeed the arch-unit) of natural selection.

Natural selection promotes antigenic evolvability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Graves, C.J.; Ros, V.I.D.; Stevenson, B.; Sniegowski, P.D.; Brisson, D.

2013-01-01

The hypothesis that evolvability - the capacity to evolve by natural selection - is itself the object of natural selection is highly intriguing but remains controversial due in large part to a paucity of direct experimental evidence. The antigenic variation mechanisms of microbial pathogens provide

Digitized adiabatic quantum computing with a superconducting circuit.

Science.gov (United States)

Barends, R; Shabani, A; Lamata, L; Kelly, J; Mezzacapo, A; Las Heras, U; Babbush, R; Fowler, A G; Campbell, B; Chen, Yu; Chen, Z; Chiaro, B; Dunsworth, A; Jeffrey, E; Lucero, E; Megrant, A; Mutus, J Y; Neeley, M; Neill, C; O'Malley, P J J; Quintana, C; Roushan, P; Sank, D; Vainsencher, A; Wenner, J; White, T C; Solano, E; Neven, H; Martinis, John M

2016-06-09

Quantum mechanics can help to solve complex problems in physics and chemistry, provided they can be programmed in a physical device. In adiabatic quantum computing, a system is slowly evolved from the ground state of a simple initial Hamiltonian to a final Hamiltonian that encodes a computational problem. The appeal of this approach lies in the combination of simplicity and generality; in principle, any problem can be encoded. In practice, applications are restricted by limited connectivity, available interactions and noise. A complementary approach is digital quantum computing, which enables the construction of arbitrary interactions and is compatible with error correction, but uses quantum circuit algorithms that are problem-specific. Here we combine the advantages of both approaches by implementing digitized adiabatic quantum computing in a superconducting system. We tomographically probe the system during the digitized evolution and explore the scaling of errors with system size. We then let the full system find the solution to random instances of the one-dimensional Ising problem as well as problem Hamiltonians that involve more complex interactions. This digital quantum simulation of the adiabatic algorithm consists of up to nine qubits and up to 1,000 quantum logic gates. The demonstration of digitized adiabatic quantum computing in the solid state opens a path to synthesizing long-range correlations and solving complex computational problems. When combined with fault-tolerance, our approach becomes a general-purpose algorithm that is scalable.

Long-Term Environmental Research Programs - Evolving Capacity for Discovery

Science.gov (United States)

Swanson, F. J.

2008-12-01

Long-term forestry, watershed, and ecological research sites have become critical, productive nodes for environmental science research and in some cases for work in the social sciences and humanities. The Forest Service's century-old Experimental Forests and Ranges and the National Science Foundation's 28- year-old Long-Term Ecological Research program have been remarkably productive in both basic and applied sciences, including characterization of acid rain and old-growth ecosystems and development of forest, watershed, and range management systems for commercial and other land use objectives. A review of recent developments suggests steps to enhance the function of collections of long-term research sites as interactive science networks. The programs at these sites have evolved greatly, especially over the past few decades, as the questions addressed, disciplines engaged, and degree of science integration have grown. This is well displayed by small, experimental watershed studies, which first were used for applied hydrology studies then more fundamental biogeochemical studies and now examination of complex ecosystem processes; all capitalizing on the legacy of intensive studies and environmental monitoring spanning decades. In very modest ways these collections of initially independent sites have functioned increasingly as integrated research networks addressing inter-site questions by using common experimental designs, being part of a single experiment, and examining long-term data in a common analytical framework. The network aspects include data sharing via publicly-accessible data-harvester systems for climate and streamflow data. The layering of one research or environmental monitoring network upon another facilitates synergies. Changing climate and atmospheric chemistry highlight a need to use these networks as continental-scale observatory systems for assessing the impacts of environmental change on ecological services. To better capitalize on long

A Qualitative Assessment of Current CCF Guidance Based on a Review of Safety System Digital Implementation Changes with Evolving Technology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Korsah, Kofi [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Muhlheim, Michael David [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Wood, Richard [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

2016-04-01

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is initiating a new rulemaking project to develop a digital system common-cause failure (CCF) rule. This rulemaking will review and modify or affirm the NRC's current digital system CCF policy as discussed in the Staff Requirements Memorandum to the Secretary of the Commission, Office of the NRC (SECY) 93-087, Policy, Technical, and Licensing Issues Pertaining to Evolutionary and Advanced Light Water Reactor (ALWR) Designs, and Branch Technical Position (BTP) 7-19, Guidance on Evaluation of Defense-in-Depth and Diversity in Digital Computer-Based Instrumentation and Control Systems, as well as Chapter 7, Instrumentation and Controls, in NRC Regulatory Guide (NUREG)-0800, Standard Review Plan for Review of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants (ML033580677). The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is providing technical support to the NRC staff on the CCF rulemaking, and this report is one of several providing the technical basis to inform NRC staff members. For the task described in this report, ORNL examined instrumentation and controls (I&C) technology implementations in nuclear power plants in the light of current CCF guidance. The intent was to assess whether the current position on CCF is adequate given the evolutions in digital safety system implementations and, if gaps in the guidance were found, to provide recommendations as to how these gaps could be closed.

An open future for ecological and evolutionary data?

Science.gov (United States)

Kenall, Amye; Harold, Simon; Foote, Christopher

2014-04-02

As part of BioMed Central's open science mission, we are pleased to announce that two of our journals have integrated with the open data repository Dryad. Authors submitting their research to either BMC Ecology or BMC Evolutionary Biology will now have the opportunity to deposit their data directly into the Dryad archive and will receive a permanent, citable link to their dataset. Although this does not affect any of our current data deposition policies at these journals, we hope to encourage a more widespread adoption of open data sharing in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology by facilitating this process for our authors. We also take this opportunity to discuss some of the wider issues that may concern researchers when making their data openly available. Although we offer a number of positive examples from different fields of biology, we also recognise that reticence to data sharing still exists, and that change must be driven from within research communities in order to create future science that is fit for purpose in the digital age. This editorial was published jointly in both BMC Ecology and BMC Evolutionary Biology.

Between Assessments, Digital Technologies and Big Data: The Growing Influence of "Hidden" Data Mediators in Education

Science.gov (United States)

Hartong, Sigrid

2016-01-01

The past few decades have witnessed a global enforcement of "governance by data" in education policy, including a significant increase of assessments and quantified evaluation. Within this context, this article focuses particularly on the intensifying evolvement of new (digital) information technologies and "mediated"…

Carnegie Mellon University bioimaging day 2014: Challenges and opportunities in digital pathology.

Science.gov (United States)

Rohde, Gustavo K; Ozolek, John A; Parwani, Anil V; Pantanowitz, Liron

2014-01-01

Recent advances in digital imaging is impacting the practice of pathology. One of the key enabling technologies that is leading the way towards this transformation is the use of whole slide imaging (WSI) which allows glass slides to be converted into large image files that can be shared, stored, and analyzed rapidly. Many applications around this novel technology have evolved in the last decade including education, research and clinical applications. This publication highlights a collection of abstracts, each corresponding to a talk given at Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Bioimaging Day 2014 co-sponsored by the Biomedical Engineering and Lane Center for Computational Biology Departments at CMU. Topics related specifically to digital pathology are presented in this collection of abstracts. These include topics related to digital workflow implementation, imaging and artifacts, storage demands, and automated image analysis algorithms.

Carnegie Mellon University bioimaging day 2014: Challenges and opportunities in digital pathology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gustavo K Rohde

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Recent advances in digital imaging is impacting the practice of pathology. One of the key enabling technologies that is leading the way towards this transformation is the use of whole slide imaging (WSI which allows glass slides to be converted into large image files that can be shared, stored, and analyzed rapidly. Many applications around this novel technology have evolved in the last decade including education, research and clinical applications. This publication highlights a collection of abstracts, each corresponding to a talk given at Carnegie Mellon University′s (CMU Bioimaging Day 2014 co-sponsored by the Biomedical Engineering and Lane Center for Computational Biology Departments at CMU. Topics related specifically to digital pathology are presented in this collection of abstracts. These include topics related to digital workflow implementation, imaging and artifacts, storage demands, and automated image analysis algorithms.

Disgust: Evolved function and structure

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tybur, J.M.; Lieberman, D.; Kurzban, R.; DeScioli, P.

2013-01-01

Interest in and research on disgust has surged over the past few decades. The field, however, still lacks a coherent theoretical framework for understanding the evolved function or functions of disgust. Here we present such a framework, emphasizing 2 levels of analysis: that of evolved function and

Reconstructing past ecological networks: the reconfiguration of seed-dispersal interactions after megafaunal extinction.

Science.gov (United States)

Pires, Mathias M; Galetti, Mauro; Donatti, Camila I; Pizo, Marco A; Dirzo, Rodolfo; Guimarães, Paulo R

2014-08-01

The late Quaternary megafaunal extinction impacted ecological communities worldwide, and affected key ecological processes such as seed dispersal. The traits of several species of large-seeded plants are thought to have evolved in response to interactions with extinct megafauna, but how these extinctions affected the organization of interactions in seed-dispersal systems is poorly understood. Here, we combined ecological and paleontological data and network analyses to investigate how the structure of a species-rich seed-dispersal network could have changed from the Pleistocene to the present and examine the possible consequences of such changes. Our results indicate that the seed-dispersal network was organized into modules across the different time periods but has been reconfigured in different ways over time. The episode of megafaunal extinction and the arrival of humans changed how seed dispersers were distributed among network modules. However, the recent introduction of livestock into the seed-dispersal system partially restored the original network organization by strengthening the modular configuration. Moreover, after megafaunal extinctions, introduced species and some smaller native mammals became key components for the structure of the seed-dispersal network. We hypothesize that such changes in network structure affected both animal and plant assemblages, potentially contributing to the shaping of modern ecological communities. The ongoing extinction of key large vertebrates will lead to a variety of context-dependent rearranged ecological networks, most certainly affecting ecological and evolutionary processes.

Indigenous design and development of digital ASICs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Misra, M.K.; Kishore, G.V.; Sridhar, N.; Palanisami, K.; Thirugnana Murthy, D.

2013-01-01

FPGAs and CPLDs were extensively used for the design and development of Instrumentation and Control systems including safety systems of Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). The developed I and C systems have been tested extensively for their functionality and also undergone various qualification tests. Some of these I and C systems have also been deployed in Fast Breeder Test Reactor. The performance of these designs is found to be satisfactory. However FPGAs/CPLDs are rapidly evolving and the devices become obsolete in a short span of time (typically about 5 to 8 years), whereas reactor's life time is typically about 40 years. This obsolescence problem can be handled in different ways. This paper discusses design and fabrication of digital ASICs as one of the alternate for handling obsolescence problems. Aim of this development work is to establish complete digital ASIC design, fabrication and testing flow, so that the same can be used in some of the critical/strategic requirements. (author)

Missing ecology: integrating ecological perspectives with the social-ecological system framework

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Graham Epstein

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The social-ecological systems framework was designed to provide a common research tool for interdisciplinary investigations of social-ecological systems. However, its origin in institutional studies of the commons belies its interdisciplinary ambitions and highlights its relatively limited attention to ecology and natural scientific knowledge. This paper considers the biophysical components of the framework and its epistemological foundations as it relates to the incorporation of knowledge from the natural sciences. It finds that the mixture of inductive and deductive reasoning associated with socially-oriented investigations of these systems is lacking on the ecological side, which relies upon induction alone. As a result the paper proposes the addition of a seventh core sub-system to the social-ecological systems framework, ecological rules, which would allow scholars to explicitly incorporate knowledge from the natural sciences for deductive reasoning. The paper shows, through an instructive case study, how the addition of ecological rules can provide a more nuanced description of the factors that contribute to outcomes in social-ecological systems.

當代傳播思潮中的數位素養： 評介Digital Literacy for Technical Com Digital Literacy in Contemporary Communication: A Review of Digital Literacy for Technical Communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tzong-Sheng, Deng

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The ever-advancing technology has reformed our work environment and also redefined our life styles. The advancement of computer and cyber technology has allowed “digital” jobs and products to infiltrate different aspects of our society, influencing the ways of modern communication as well as the future course of education practices. Comparing with conventional literacy concepts about “reading, writing, listening, and speaking”, “digital literacy” lays more emphasis on the effects and changes caused by a digital context. Based on the standpoints of social constructivism and with experts in communication studies and educators as subjects, this paper reviews the book Digital Literacy for Technical communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice to analyze and discuss key knowledge and abilities required for the future and possible development of related research. Based on the compilation of the book, this review is divided into four parts. The first raises questions about the ontology of “digital literacy”, identifies the scope and meaning of “digital literacy” as defined by Spilkaet al., and confirms the discourse of this review. The second introduces the evolvement of a digital context and describes its three characteristics –authoring, publishing, and management technology – as the preconditions for developing digital literacy. The third discusses the “ fundamental knowledge” for the practice of “digital literacy” and introduces “shaping tools, information design, and content management” as references for communication and education works. The last part concludes the cultural, crosscultural, audience, and ethical perspectives introduced in this book and discusses how to connect “human and technology” for the future development of communication studies and education.

Digital Culture and Digital Library

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yalçın Yalçınkaya

2016-12-01

Full Text Available In this study; digital culture and digital library which have a vital connection with each other are examined together. The content of the research consists of the interaction of culture, information, digital culture, intellectual technologies, and digital library concepts. The study is an entry work to integrity of digital culture and digital library theories and aims to expand the symmetry. The purpose of the study is to emphasize the relation between the digital culture and digital library theories acting intersection of the subjects that are examined. Also the perspective of the study is based on examining the literature and analytical evaluation in both studies (digital culture and digital library. Within this context, the methodology of the study is essentially descriptive and has an attribute for the transmission and synthesis of distributed findings produced in the field of the research. According to the findings of the study results, digital culture is an inclusive term that describes the effects of intellectual technologies in the field of information and communication. Information becomes energy and the spectrum of the information is expanding in the vertical rise through the digital culture. In this context, the digital library appears as a new living space of a new environment. In essence, the digital library is information-oriented; has intellectual technology support and digital platform; is in a digital format; combines information resources and tools in relationship/communication/cooperation by connectedness, and also it is the dynamic face of the digital culture in time and space independence. Resolved with the study is that the digital libraries are active and effective in the formation of global knowing and/or mass wisdom in the process of digital culture.

Canadian community pharmacists' use of digital health technologies in practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Leung, Valerie; Tharmalingam, Sukirtha; Cooper, Janet; Charlebois, Maureen

2016-01-01

In 2010, a pan-Canadian study on the current state and benefits of provincial drug information systems (DIS) found that substantial benefits were being realized and that pharmacists perceived DIS to be a valuable tool in the evolving models of pharmacy practice. To understand changes in digital health and the impact on practice since that time, a survey of community pharmacists in Canada was conducted. In 2014, Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) and the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) invited community pharmacists to participate in a Web-based survey to understand their use and perceived benefits of digital health in practice. The survey was open from April 15 to May 12, 2014. Of the 447 survey responses, almost all used some form of digital health in practice. Those with access to DIS and provincial laboratory information systems (LIS) reported increased productivity and better quality of care. Those without access to these systems would overwhelmingly like access. There have been significant advances in digital health and community pharmacy practice over the past several years. In addition to digital health benefits in the areas of productivity and quality of care, pharmacists are also experiencing substantial benefits in areas related to recently expanded scope of practice activities such as ordering lab tests. Community pharmacists frequently use digital health in practice and recognize the benefits of these technologies. Digital health is, and will continue to be, a key enabler for practice transformation and improved quality of care. Can Pharm J (Ott) 2016;149:xx-xx.

Why did heterospory evolve?

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Kurt B; Burd, Martin

2017-08-01

The primitive land plant life cycle featured the production of spores of unimodal size, a condition called homospory. The evolution of bimodal size distributions with small male spores and large female spores, known as heterospory, was an innovation that occurred repeatedly in the history of land plants. The importance of desiccation-resistant spores for colonization of the land is well known, but the adaptive value of heterospory has never been well established. It was an addition to a sexual life cycle that already involved male and female gametes. Its role as a precursor to the evolution of seeds has received much attention, but this is an evolutionary consequence of heterospory that cannot explain the transition from homospory to heterospory (and the lack of evolutionary reversal from heterospory to homospory). Enforced outcrossing of gametophytes has often been mentioned in connection to heterospory, but we review the shortcomings of this argument as an explanation of the selective advantage of heterospory. Few alternative arguments concerning the selective forces favouring heterospory have been proposed, a paucity of attention that is surprising given the importance of this innovation in land plant evolution. In this review we highlight two ideas that may lead us to a better understanding of why heterospory evolved. First, models of optimal resource allocation - an approach that has been used for decades in evolutionary ecology to help understand parental investment and other life-history patterns - suggest that an evolutionary increase in spore size could reach a threshold at which small spores yielding small, sperm-producing gametophytes would return greater fitness per unit of resource investment than would large spores and bisexual gametophytes. With the advent of such microspores, megaspores would evolve under frequency-dependent selection. This argument can account for the appearance of heterospory in the Devonian, when increasingly tall and complex

Bacteriophage ecology in environmental biotechnology processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Shapiro, Orr H; Kushmaro, Ariel

2011-06-01

Heterotrophic bacteria are an integral part of any environmental biotechnology process (EBP). Therefore, factors controlling bacterial abundance, activity, and community composition are central to the understanding of such processes. Among these factors, top-down control by bacteriophage predation has so far received very limited attention. With over 10(8) particles per ml, phage appear to be the most numerous biological entities in EBP. Phage populations in EBP appear to be highly dynamic and to correlate with the population dynamics of their hosts and genomic evidence suggests bacteria evolve to avoid phage predation. Clearly, there is much to learn regarding bacteriophage in EBP before we can truly understand the microbial ecology of these globally important systems. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Significant Structuring Resources in the Reading Practices of a Digital Classroom

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Annika Lantz-Andersson

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Since reading and writing digitally demand partially different competencies, there is a change in some of the premises of related educational practices. This study aims to contribute to the knowledge of educational reading practices by scrutinizing how literacy events evolve in a digital classroom where each student has a personal digital device (1:1, iPads in this study. Our study is grounded in sociocultural theories of learning and focuses on the structuring resources utilized by students, namely the notion of multiple ongoing activities and the ways in which specific resources take precedence in shaping these activities. One class of 13–14 year-old students was studied for a week across several subjects through video-recordings and observations. The findings imply that the students moved among vast array of reading practices. However, the main structuring resource is a strong focus on task-solving and the practice of schooling, which mainly builds on principles emanating from traditional text. It is only occasionally that structuring resources that also include the opportunities associated with digital technology are utilized. This indicates the importance of further studies on how educational practices could be organized to scaffold the basis of traditional reading comprehension as well as other approaches required in digital environments.

Traces of humanity: Echoes of social and cultural experience in physical objects and digital surrogates in the University of Victoria Libraries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robbyn Gordon Lanning

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The relationships between primary source materials and their digital surrogates warrant consideration about how different materials translate into digitized forms. Physical primary source materials found in library special collections and archives and their digital surrogates challenge the viewer to consider what these objects are communicating through their materiality or lack thereof. For example, how does a clay tablet represent itself digitally, as compared to a parchment manuscript, or a paper accounts book? What qualities, stories or narratives do these resources communicate in their original forms, as digital surrogates, or when engaged with together, and how do these differ? How do both physical and digital resources serve as archival objects with the ability to reflect our social and cultural experiences—and indeed our humanity—back to us? As more and more library and museum resources are digitized and made open to researchers, such questions must be addressed as the use and reuse of digital surrogates becomes increasingly complex as digital scholarship evolves.

Sensory Evolution and Ecology of Early Turtles Revealed by Digital Endocranial Reconstructions

OpenAIRE

Stephan Lautenschlager; Gabriel S. Ferreira; Gabriel S. Ferreira; Gabriel S. Ferreira; Ingmar Werneburg; Ingmar Werneburg; Ingmar Werneburg

2018-01-01

In the past few years, new fossil finds and novel methodological approaches have prompted intensive discussions about the phylogenetic affinities of turtles and rekindled the debate on their ecological origin, with very distinct scenarios, such as fossoriality and aquatic habitat occupation, proposed for the earliest stem-turtles. While research has focused largely on the origin of the anapsid skull and unique postcranial anatomy, little is known about the endocranial anatomy of turtles. Here...

The Relevance of the Organic Tradition in Architecture in the Digital Age

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jaeger, Thomas Arvid; Carter, Adrian Stanley

2017-01-01

The paper will propose that as the digital technology evolves, enabling us to increasingly emulate the forms of nature within our built environment, as we see in the parametric design, it will be ever more important to understand the origins of nature and organic growth in form and concept...... of the factors, behind and involved in, creating his version of “new organic architecture” in the fifties - in order to make it possible to compare this with later studies of “digital organic” architecture of the 21. Cent. The relevance of going back to Mumford’s criticism of the consequences...... - and what this means for our perception of architecture. The Digital Age has been introducing a new wave of sculptural, organic curved architecture – often placed as iconic landmarks in the city. These buildings represent a new kind of aesthetics in contrast to the rectangular Euclidian rationalistic...

An Evaluation of Multiple Perceptions of Digital Rights Management

Science.gov (United States)

Stott, Allyn D.; Taneja, Aakash

Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions have generated much interest because of their influence on the expectations and responsibilities of customers and related organizations. It was created to restrict piracy and enhance digital media sales, however, it is found to be unable to fulfill its objectives. We find the protections by DRM lack an understanding of the end user and the evolving nature of copyright and fair use. The potential motives for pirating appear to increase as DRM becomes more intrusive causing a conflict in the objectives of DRM. Thus, adjustments must be made to the current DRM model in order for it to become beneficial for both the producer and the consumer. Our research identifies the needs, desires, and responsibilities of the various DRM stakeholders so that a successful use of DRM technologies can be modeled: a challenge faced by the media industry.

A comparison between the original and Tablet-based Symbol Digit Modalities Test in patients with schizophrenia: Test-retest agreement, random measurement error, practice effect, and ecological validity.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Shih-Fen; Chen, I-Hui; Chiang, Hsin-Yu; Wu, Chien-Te; Hsueh, I-Ping; Yu, Wan-Hui; Hsieh, Ching-Lin

2017-11-27

We aimed to compare the test-retest agreement, random measurement error, practice effect, and ecological validity of the original and Tablet-based Symbol Digit Modalities Test (T-SDMT) over five serial assessments, and to examine the concurrent validity of the T-SDMT in patients with schizophrenia. Sixty patients with chronic schizophrenia completed five serial assessments (one week apart) of the SDMT and T-SDMT and one assessment of the Activities of Daily Living Rating Scale III at the first time point. Both measures showed high test-retest agreement, similar levels of random measurement error over five serial assessments. Moreover, the practice effects of the two measures did not reach a plateau phase after five serial assessments in young and middle-aged participants. Nevertheless, only the practice effect of the T-SDMT became trivial after the first assessment. Like the SDMT, the T-SDMT had good ecological validity. The T-SDMT also had good concurrent validity with the SDMT. In addition, only the T-SDMT had discriminative validity to discriminate processing speed in young and middle-aged participants. Compared to the SDMT, the T-SDMT had overall slightly better psychometric properties, so it can be an alternative measure to the SDMT for assessing processing speed in patients with schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An emergent theory of digital library metadata enrich then filter

CERN Document Server

Stevens, Brett

2015-01-01

An Emergent Theory of Digital Library Metadata is a reaction to the current digital library landscape that is being challenged with growing online collections and changing user expectations. The theory provides the conceptual underpinnings for a new approach which moves away from expert defined standardised metadata to a user driven approach with users as metadata co-creators. Moving away from definitive, authoritative, metadata to a system that reflects the diversity of users’ terminologies, it changes the current focus on metadata simplicity and efficiency to one of metadata enriching, which is a continuous and evolving process of data linking. From predefined description to information conceptualised, contextualised and filtered at the point of delivery. By presenting this shift, this book provides a coherent structure in which future technological developments can be considered.

The digital sport radio.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hilario José ROMERO BEJARANO

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Radio has been immersed in recent years in a phase of technological integration and business of multimedia, as well as diversification of systems and channels for broadcasting. In addition, Internet has been consolidated as the platform of digital radio that more has evolved as a result of its continued expansion. However, the merger radio-Internet must be understood as a new form of communication, and not solely as a new complementary medium. In this context, it is of great interest to analyze that transformations in the way of reception, contents, languages, programs and schedules, has brought with it for the radio that integration. To this end is taken as main reference the sports areas, a key aspect and broadly representative of the current broadcasting landscape.

Digital Collections, Digital Libraries & the Digitization of Cultural Heritage Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Lynch, Clifford

2002-01-01

Discusses digital collections and digital libraries. Topics include broadband availability; digital rights protection; content, both non-profit and commercial; digitization of cultural content; sustainability; metadata harvesting protocol; infrastructure; authorship; linking multiple resources; data mining; digitization of reference works;…

H. Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom

Science.gov (United States)

Prensky, Marc

2009-01-01

As we move further into the 21st century, the digital native/digital immigrant paradigm created by Marc Prensky in 2001 is becoming less relevant. In this article, Prensky suggests that we should focus instead on the development of what he calls "digital wisdom." Arguing that digital technology can make us not just smarter but truly wiser, Prensky…

Digital Collections, Digital Libraries and the Digitization of Cultural Heritage Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Lynch, Clifford

2002-01-01

Discusses the development of digital collections and digital libraries. Topics include digitization of cultural heritage information; broadband issues; lack of compelling content; training issues; types of materials being digitized; sustainability; digital preservation; infrastructure; digital images; data mining; and future possibilities for…

A neighbourhood evolving network model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cao, Y.J.; Wang, G.Z.; Jiang, Q.Y.; Han, Z.X.

2006-01-01

Many social, technological, biological and economical systems are best described by evolved network models. In this short Letter, we propose and study a new evolving network model. The model is based on the new concept of neighbourhood connectivity, which exists in many physical complex networks. The statistical properties and dynamics of the proposed model is analytically studied and compared with those of Barabasi-Albert scale-free model. Numerical simulations indicate that this network model yields a transition between power-law and exponential scaling, while the Barabasi-Albert scale-free model is only one of its special (limiting) cases. Particularly, this model can be used to enhance the evolving mechanism of complex networks in the real world, such as some social networks development

The Stick Design Test on the assessment of older adults with low formal education: evidences of construct, criterion-related and ecological validity.

Science.gov (United States)

de Paula, Jonas Jardim; Costa, Mônica Vieira; Bocardi, Matheus Bortolosso; Cortezzi, Mariana; De Moraes, Edgar Nunes; Malloy-Diniz, Leandro Fernandes

2013-12-01

The assessment of visuospatial abilities is usually performed by drawing tasks. In patients with very low formal education, the use of these tasks might be biased by their cultural background. The Stick Design Test was developed for the assessment of this population. We aim to expand the test psychometric properties by assessing its construct, criterion-related and ecological validity in older adults with low formal education. Healthy older adults (n = 63) and Alzheimer's disease patients (n = 92) performed the Stick Design Test, Mini-Mental State Examination, Digit Span Forward and the Clock Drawing Test. Their caregivers answered Personal Care and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living). Construct validity was assessed by factor analysis, convergent correlations (with the Clock Drawing Test), and divergent correlations (with Digit Span Forward); criterion-related validity by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and binary logistic regression; and Ecological validity by correlations with ADL. The test factor structure was composed by one component (R 2 = 64%). Significant correlations with the Clock Drawing Test and Digit Span Forward were found, and the relationship was stronger with the first measure. The test was less associated with formal education than the Clock Drawing Test. It classified about 76% of the participants correctly and had and additive effect with the Mini-Mental State Examination (84% of correct classification). The test also correlated significantly with measures of ADL, suggesting ecological validity. The Stick Design Test shows evidence of construct, criterion-related and ecological validity. It is an interesting alternative to drawing tasks for the assessment of visuospatial abilities.

The role of ecological factors in shaping bat cone opsin evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Gutierrez, Eduardo de A; Schott, Ryan K; Preston, Matthew W; Loureiro, Lívia O; Lim, Burton K; Chang, Belinda S W

2018-04-11

Bats represent one of the largest and most striking nocturnal mammalian radiations, exhibiting many visual system specializations for performance in light-limited environments. Despite representing the greatest ecological diversity and species richness in Chiroptera, Neotropical lineages have been undersampled in molecular studies, limiting the potential for identifying signatures of selection on visual genes associated with differences in bat ecology. Here, we investigated how diverse ecological pressures mediate long-term shifts in selection upon long-wavelength ( Lws ) and short-wavelength ( Sws1 ) opsins, photosensitive cone pigments that form the basis of colour vision in most mammals, including bats. We used codon-based likelihood clade models to test whether ecological variables associated with reliance on visual information (e.g. echolocation ability and diet) or exposure to varying light environments (e.g. roosting behaviour and foraging habitat) mediated shifts in evolutionary rates in bat cone opsin genes. Using additional cone opsin sequences from newly sequenced eye transcriptomes of six Neotropical bat species, we found significant evidence for different ecological pressures influencing the evolution of the cone opsins. While Lws is evolving under significantly lower constraint in highly specialized high-duty cycle echolocating lineages, which have enhanced sonar ability to detect and track targets, variation in Sws1 constraint was significantly associated with foraging habitat, exhibiting elevated rates of evolution in species that forage among vegetation. This suggests that increased reliance on echolocation as well as the spectral environment experienced by foraging bats may differentially influence the evolution of different cone opsins. Our study demonstrates that different ecological variables may underlie contrasting evolutionary patterns in bat visual opsins, and highlights the suitability of clade models for testing ecological hypotheses of

On the Critical Role of Divergent Selection in Evolvability

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Joel Lehman

2016-08-01

Full Text Available An ambitious goal in evolutionary robotics is to evolve increasingly complex robotic behaviors with minimal human design effort. Reaching this goal requires evolutionary algorithms that can unlock from genetic encodings their latent potential for evolvability. One issue clouding this goal is conceptual confusion about evolvability, which often obscures the aspects of evolvability that are important or desirable. The danger from such confusion is that it may establish unrealistic goals for evolvability that prove unproductive in practice. An important issue separate from conceptual confusion is the common misalignment between selection and evolvability in evolutionary robotics. While more expressive encodings can represent higher-level adaptations (e.g. sexual reproduction or developmental systems that increase long-term evolutionary potential (i.e. evolvability, realizing such potential requires gradients of fitness and evolvability to align. In other words, selection is often a critical factor limiting increasing evolvability. Thus, drawing from a series of recent papers, this article seeks to both (1 clarify and focus the ways in which the term evolvability is used within artificial evolution, and (2 argue for the importance of one type of selection, i.e. divergent selection, for enabling evolvability. The main argument is that there is a fundamental connection between divergent selection and evolvability (on both the individual and population level that does not hold for typical goal-oriented selection. The conclusion is that selection pressure plays a critical role in realizing the potential for evolvability, and that divergent selection in particular provides a principled mechanism for encouraging evolvability in artificial evolution.

Ecological succession as an energy dispersal process.

Science.gov (United States)

Würtz, Peter; Annila, Arto

2010-04-01

Ecological succession is described by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. According to the universal law of the maximal energy dispersal, an ecosystem evolves toward a stationary state in its surroundings by consuming free energy via diverse mechanisms. Species are the mechanisms that conduct energy down along gradients between repositories of energy which consist of populations at various thermodynamic levels. The salient characteristics of succession, growing biomass production, increasing species richness and shifting distributions of species are found as consequences of the universal quest to diminish energy density differences in least time. The analysis reveals that during succession the ecosystem's energy transduction network, i.e., the food web organizes increasingly more effective in the free energy reduction by acquiring new, more effective and abandoning old, less effective species of energy transduction. The number of species does not necessarily peak at the climax state that corresponds to the maximum-entropy partition of species maximizing consumption of free energy. According to the theory of evolution by natural selection founded on statistical physics of open systems, ecological succession is one among many other evolutionary processes. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evolved H II regions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Churchwell, E.

1975-01-01

A probable evolutionary sequence of H II regions based on six distinct types of observed objects is suggested. Two examples which may deviate from this idealized sequence, are discussed. Even though a size-mean density relation of H II regions can be used as a rough indication of whether a nebula is very young or evolved, it is argued that such a relation is not likely to be useful for the quantitative assignment of ages to H II regions. Evolved H II regions appear to fit into one of four structural types: rings, core-halos, smooth structures, and irregular or filamentary structures. Examples of each type are given with their derived physical parameters. The energy balance in these nebulae is considered. The mass of ionized gas in evolved H II regions is in general too large to trace the nebula back to single compact H II regions. Finally, the morphological type of the Galaxy is considered from its H II region content. 2 tables, 2 figs., 29 refs

Feral goats in the Hawaiian Islands: understanding the behavioral ecology of nonnative ungulates with GPS and remote sensing technology

Science.gov (United States)

Mark Chynoweth; Creighton M. Litton; Christopher A. Lepczyk; Susan Cordell

2010-01-01

Nonnative feral ungulates have both direct and indirect impacts on native ecosystems. Hawai`i is particularly susceptible to biological invasions, as the islands have evolved in extreme geographic isolation. In this paper we explore the ecological impacts of nonnative feral goats (Capra hircus) in the Hawaiian Islands, including both the current...

Promoting community socio-ecological sustainability through technology: A case study from Chile

Science.gov (United States)

Aguayo, Claudio; Eames, Chris

2017-12-01

The importance of community learning in effecting social change towards ecological sustainability has been recognised for some time. More recently, the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to promote socio-ecological sustainability has been shown to have potential in community education for sustainable development (ESD). The effective design and use of technology for community learning implies an understanding of a range of cross-dimensional factors including: socio-cultural characteristics and needs of the target audience; considerations of available and culturally responsive types of technology; and non-formal pedagogical ESD strategies for community empowerment. In addition, both technology itself and social communities are dynamically evolving and complex entities. This article presents a case study which evaluated the potential of ICT for promoting ecological literacy and action competence amongst community members in southern Chile. The case study addressed the ecological deterioration of a lake, which is having deep social, economic, recreational and cultural implications locally. The authors' research involved developing a theoretical framework for the design, implementation and use of ICT for community learning for sustainability. The framework was based on key ideas from ESD, ICT and community education, and was underpinned by a systems thinking approach to account for the dynamism and complexity of such settings. Activity theory provided a frame to address overarching socio-cultural elements when using technology as a mediating tool for community learning. The authors' findings suggest that the use of an ICT tool, such as a website, can enhance ecological literacy in relation to a local socio-ecological issue.

Intoxigenic digital spaces? Youth, social networking sites and alcohol marketing.

Science.gov (United States)

Griffiths, Richard; Casswell, Sally

2010-09-01

To examine how young people in New Zealand engage with alcohol and reproduce alcohol marketing messages and alcohol-related branding in 'Bebo', a popular social networking site (SNS) on the Internet. Data are drawn from information posted on approximately 150 Bebo Web pages and analysed by way of textual analysis and cyberspace ethnography. Social networking sites, such as Bebo, provide young people with a digital space in which to share a range of alcohol marketing messages via peer-to-peer transmission. Bebo also enables youth to communicate to one another how they consume alcohol and their views of alcohol marketing messages. The information being shared by young people who use Bebo is openly provided in the form of personal information, forum comments, digital photographs and answering quizzes about their engagement with alcohol. Through this sharing of information in the digital Internet environment, young people are creating 'intoxigenic social identities' as well as 'intoxigenic digital spaces' that further contribute towards the normalisation of youth consumption of alcohol. A better understanding of how youth are using the Internet to share their experiences with alcohol and engagement with alcohol-related messages is crucial to public health research as alcohol marketing practices rapidly evolve.

Managing Increasing Complexity in Undergraduate Digital Media Design Education: The Impact and Benefits of Multidisciplinary Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Fleischmann, Katja; Daniel, Ryan

2013-01-01

Increasing complexity is one of the most pertinent issues when discussing the role and future of design, designers and their education. The evolving nature of digital media technology has resulted in a profession in a state of flux with increasingly complex communication and design problems. The ability to collaborate and interact with other…

Digital Humanities and networked digital media

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Finnemann, Niels Ole

2014-01-01

This article discusses digital humanities and the growing diversity of digital media, digital materials and digital methods. The first section describes the humanities computing tradition formed around the interpretation of computation as a rule-based process connected to a concept of digital...... materials centred on the digitisation of non-digital, finite works, corpora and oeuvres. The second section discusses “the big tent” of contemporary digital humanities. It is argued that there can be no unifying interpretation of digital humanities above the level of studying digital materials with the help...... of software-supported methods. This is so, in part, because of the complexity of the world and, in part, because digital media remain open to the projection of new epistemologies onto the functional architecture of these media. The third section discusses the heterogeneous character of digital materials...

Ecological mechanisms for the coevolution of mating systems and defence.

Science.gov (United States)

Campbell, Stuart A

2015-02-01

The diversity of flowering plants is evident in two seemingly unrelated aspects of life history: sexual reproduction, exemplified by the stunning variation in flower form and function, and defence, often in the form of an impressive arsenal of secondary chemistry. Researchers are beginning to appreciate that plant defence and reproduction do not evolve independently, but, instead, may have reciprocal and interactive (coevolutionary) effects on each other. Understanding the mechanisms for mating-defence interactions promises to broaden our understanding of how ecological processes can generate these two rich sources of angiosperm diversity. Here, I review current research on the role of herbivory as a driver of mating system evolution, and the role of mating systems in the evolution of defence strategies. I outline different ecological mechanisms and processes that could generate these coevolutionary patterns, and summarize theoretical and empirical support for each. I provide a conceptual framework for linking plant defence with mating system theory to better integrate these two research fields.

Marine Ecological Environment Management Based on Ecological Compensation Mechanisms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qunzhen Qu

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The level of marine environmental management is a key factor in the successful implementation of marine power strategies. The improvement in management levels of marine environments requires innovation in marine management. In other words, the transformation of marine environmental management into marine ecological environment management must be done in order to achieve sustainable development of the marine economy. As an environmental economic policy that combines both administrative and market measures, ecological compensation mechanisms have significant advantages in marine ecological environment management. Based on the study of the current development of ecological compensation mechanisms in China, through the analysis of the connotation of marine ecological civilization, existing marine ecological protection practices and marine environmental management methods, this paper posits that the current marine ecological environment management in China should be established on the basis of ecological compensation mechanisms. At present, a lack of laws and regulations for overall marine ecological environment management is the key factor restricting the practice of marine ecological environment management. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the current path of marine ecological environment management in China from the perspective of the construction of legal system of ecological compensation law, the establishment of ecological compensation fees, ecological taxes and ecological compensation fund systems, and the clear status for a marine ecological management and supervision body.

Disparity changes in 370 Ma Devonian fossils: the signature of ecological dynamics?

Science.gov (United States)

Girard, Catherine; Renaud, Sabrina

2012-01-01

Early periods in Earth's history have seen a progressive increase in complexity of the ecosystems, but also dramatic crises decimating the biosphere. Such patterns are usually considered as large-scale changes among supra-specific groups, including morphological novelties, radiation, and extinctions. Nevertheless, in the same time, each species evolved by the way of micro-evolutionary processes, extended over millions of years into the evolution of lineages. How these two evolutionary scales interacted is a challenging issue because this requires bridging a gap between scales of observation and processes. The present study aims at transferring a typical macro-evolutionary approach, namely disparity analysis, to the study of fine-scale evolutionary variations in order to decipher what processes actually drove the dynamics of diversity at a micro-evolutionary level. The Late Frasnian to Late Famennian period was selected because it is punctuated by two major macro-evolutionary crises, as well as a progressive diversification of marine ecosystem. Disparity was estimated through this period on conodonts, tooth-like fossil remains of small eel-like predators that were part of the nektonic fauna. The study was focused on the emblematic genus of the period, Palmatolepis. Strikingly, both crises affected an already impoverished Palmatolepis disparity, increasing risks of random extinction. The major disparity signal rather emerged as a cycle of increase and decrease in disparity during the inter-crises period. The diversification shortly followed the first crisis and might correspond to an opportunistic occupation of empty ecological niche. The subsequent oriented shrinking in the morphospace occupation suggests that the ecological space available to Palmatolepis decreased through time, due to a combination of factors: deteriorating climate, expansion of competitors and predators. Disparity changes of Palmatolepis thus reflect changes in the structure of the ecological

Disparity changes in 370 Ma Devonian fossils: the signature of ecological dynamics?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Catherine Girard

Full Text Available Early periods in Earth's history have seen a progressive increase in complexity of the ecosystems, but also dramatic crises decimating the biosphere. Such patterns are usually considered as large-scale changes among supra-specific groups, including morphological novelties, radiation, and extinctions. Nevertheless, in the same time, each species evolved by the way of micro-evolutionary processes, extended over millions of years into the evolution of lineages. How these two evolutionary scales interacted is a challenging issue because this requires bridging a gap between scales of observation and processes. The present study aims at transferring a typical macro-evolutionary approach, namely disparity analysis, to the study of fine-scale evolutionary variations in order to decipher what processes actually drove the dynamics of diversity at a micro-evolutionary level. The Late Frasnian to Late Famennian period was selected because it is punctuated by two major macro-evolutionary crises, as well as a progressive diversification of marine ecosystem. Disparity was estimated through this period on conodonts, tooth-like fossil remains of small eel-like predators that were part of the nektonic fauna. The study was focused on the emblematic genus of the period, Palmatolepis. Strikingly, both crises affected an already impoverished Palmatolepis disparity, increasing risks of random extinction. The major disparity signal rather emerged as a cycle of increase and decrease in disparity during the inter-crises period. The diversification shortly followed the first crisis and might correspond to an opportunistic occupation of empty ecological niche. The subsequent oriented shrinking in the morphospace occupation suggests that the ecological space available to Palmatolepis decreased through time, due to a combination of factors: deteriorating climate, expansion of competitors and predators. Disparity changes of Palmatolepis thus reflect changes in the structure

Beyond positivist ecology: toward an integrated ecological ethics.

Science.gov (United States)

Norton, Bryan G

2008-12-01

A post-positivist understanding of ecological science and the call for an "ecological ethic" indicate the need for a radically new approach to evaluating environmental change. The positivist view of science cannot capture the essence of environmental sciences because the recent work of "reflexive" ecological modelers shows that this requires a reconceptualization of the way in which values and ecological models interact in scientific process. Reflexive modelers are ecological modelers who believe it is appropriate for ecologists to examine the motives for their choices in developing models; this self-reflexive approach opens the door to a new way of integrating values into public discourse and to a more comprehensive approach to evaluating ecological change. This reflexive building of ecological models is introduced through the transformative simile of Aldo Leopold, which shows that learning to "think like a mountain" involves a shift in both ecological modeling and in values and responsibility. An adequate, interdisciplinary approach to ecological valuation, requires a re-framing of the evaluation questions in entirely new ways, i.e., a review of the current status of interdisciplinary value theory with respect to ecological values reveals that neither of the widely accepted theories of environmental value-neither economic utilitarianism nor intrinsic value theory (environmental ethics)-provides a foundation for an ecologically sensitive evaluation process. Thus, a new, ecologically sensitive, and more comprehensive approach to evaluating ecological change would include an examination of the metaphors that motivate the models used to describe environmental change.

[Regional ecological construction and mission of landscape ecology].

Science.gov (United States)

Xiao, Duning; Xie, Fuju; Wei, Jianbing

2004-10-01

The eco-construction on regional and landscape scale is the one which can be used to specific landscape and intercrossing ecosystem in specific region including performing scientific administration of ecosystem and optimizing environmental function. Recently, the government has taken a series of significant projects into action, such as national forest protection item, partly forest restoration, and adjustment of water, etc. Enforcing regional eco-construction and maintaining the ecology security of the nation have become the strategic requisition. In various regions, different eco-construction should be applied, for example, performing ecological safeguard measure in ecological sensitive zone, accommodating the ecological load in ecological fragile zone, etc., which can control the activities of human being, so that, sustainable development can be reached. Facing opportunity and challenge in the development of landscape ecology, we have some key topics: landscape pattern of ecological security, land use and ecological process, landscape changes under human activity stress, quantitative evaluation of the influence on human being activities, evaluation of zonal ecological security and advance warning of ecological risk, and planning and optimizing of model in landscape eco-construction.

State Of The Art In Digital Steganography Focusing ASCII Text Documents

OpenAIRE

Rafat, Khan Farhan; Sher, Muhammad

2010-01-01

Digitization of analogue signals has opened up new avenues for information hiding and the recent advancements in the telecommunication field has taken up this desire even further. From copper wire to fiber optics, technology has evolved and so are ways of covert channel communication. By "Covert" we mean "anything not meant for the purpose for which it is being used". Investigation and detection of existence of such cover channel communication has always remained a serious concern of informat...

El Entorno Aumentado: Imperativo informacional para una ecología digital de lo arquitectónico

OpenAIRE

Roig Segovia, Eduardo

2014-01-01

Esta tesis se suma a los intentos teóricos de clarificar la impronta del dominio digital en lo arquitectónico. Propone una cartografía crítica para reconstruir el proceso de tal convergencia considerando aquellos acontecimientos reveladores que lo han pautado. La integración de la extensión digital propia las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en el contexto tradicional arquitectónico ha supuesto el advenimiento de un ecosistema artificial complejo. A esta realidad o proceso conc...

[Ecological vulnerability of coal mining area: a case study of Shengli Coalfield in Xilinguole of Inner Mongolia, China].

Science.gov (United States)

Quan, Zhan-Jun; Li, Yuan; Li, Jun-Sheng; Han, Yu; Xiao, Neng-Wen; Fu, Meng-Di

2013-06-01

In this paper, an ecological vulnerability evaluation index system for the Shengli Coalfield in Xilinguole of Inner Mongolia was established, which included 16 factors in ecological sensitivity, natural and social pressure, and ecological recovery capacity, respectively. Based on the expert scoring method and analytic hierarchy process (AHP), an ecological vulnerability model was built for the calculation of the regional ecological vulnerability by means of RS and GIS spatial analysis. An analysis of the relationships between land use and ecological vulnerability was also made, and the results were tested by spatial auto-correlation analysis. Overall, the ecological vulnerability of the study area was at medium-high level. The exploitation of four opencast areas in the Coalfield caused a significant increase of ecological vulnerability. Moreover, due to the effects of mine drained water and human activities, the 300 -2000 m around the opencast areas was turning into higher ecologically fragile area. With further exploitation, the whole Coalfield was evolved into moderate and heavy ecological vulnerability area, and the coal resources mining was a key factor in this process. The cluster analysis showed that the spatial distribution of the ecological vulnerability in the study area had reasonable clustering characteristics. To decrease the population density, control the grazing capacity of grassland, and regulate the ratios of construction land and cultivated land could be the optimal ways for resolving the natural and social pressure, and to increase the investment and improve the vegetation recovery coefficient could be the fundamental measures for decreasing the ecological vulnerability of the study area.

The Evolution of Digital Chemistry at Southampton.

Science.gov (United States)

Bird, Colin; Coles, Simon J; Frey, Jeremy G

2015-09-01

In this paper we take a historical view of e-Science and e-Research developments within the Chemical Sciences at the University of Southampton, showing the development of several stages of the evolving data ecosystem as Chemistry moves into the digital age of the 21(st) Century. We cover our research on aspects of the representation of chemical information in the context of the world wide web (WWW) and its semantic enhancement (the Semantic Web) and illustrate this with the example of the representation of quantities and units within the Semantic Web. We explore the changing nature of laboratories as computing power becomes increasing powerful and pervasive and specifically look at the function and role of electronic or digital notebooks. Having focussed on the creation of chemical data and information in context, we finish the paper by following the use and reuse of this data as facilitated by the features provided by digital repositories and their importance in facilitating the exchange of chemical information touching on the issues of open and or intelligent access to the data. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Editorial: Pedagogical Media Ecologies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dorothee M. Meister

2014-07-01

(data projector to lecture capture media– have not rendered the lecture obsolete, but have instead foregrounded its performative aspects and its ongoing adaptability. Michael Kerres and Richard Heinen take as their starting point Deimann’s, Hug’s and Friesen’s stress on the manifold possibilities presented digital and open educational resources. They then seek to answer the question: How can this embarrassment of riches be put to good use in K-12 educational contexts? Their answer: «Edutags», a way of making resources more accessible and usable by providing descriptive and evaluative information along with such resources. Heinz Moser and Thomas Hermann present the concept and first results of the project «Visualized Vocational Aspirations: Potentials of photography for career counselling and vocational preparation».5 The research project is a cooperation between the Zurich University of Teacher Education (Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich and the «Laufbahnzentrum» (Centre of Vocational Counselling Zürich. Based on an ecological approach of narrative career education and a design-based research methodology the undertaking aims at creative applications of visual storytelling in career counselling. Rainer Leschke and Norm Friesen conclude the issue with what might be called an aesthetic- or formal-ecological perspective. The digital convergence of textual and other media forms, Leschke and Friesen maintain, means the erasure of formal and material distinctions traditionally embedded in separate media. Educational (and other institutions have oriented long themselves on the basis of such distinctions; and what is now left are distinctions based only on recombinant, virtual aesthetic markers. ——————————— The exceptions are the papers by Rainer Leschke and Norm Friesen, Michael Kerres and Richard Heinen, and Theo Hug. See: http

Evolving Technologies: A View to Tomorrow

Science.gov (United States)

Tamarkin, Molly; Rodrigo, Shelley

2011-01-01

Technology leaders must participate in strategy creation as well as operational delivery within higher education institutions. The future of higher education--the view to tomorrow--is irrevocably integrated and intertwined with evolving technologies. This article focuses on two specific evolving technologies: (1) alternative IT sourcing; and (2)…

Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roy Williams

2011-03-01

Full Text Available This paper describes emergent learning and situates it within learning networks and systems and the broader learning ecology of Web 2.0. It describes the nature of emergence and emergent learning and the conditions that enable emergent, self-organised learning to occur and to flourish. Specifically, it explores whether emergent learning can be validated and self-correcting and whether it is possible to link or integrate emergent and prescribed learning. It draws on complexity theory, communities of practice, and the notion of connectivism to develop some of the foundations for an analytic framework, for enabling and managing emergent learning and networks in which agents and systems co-evolve. It then examines specific cases of learning to test and further develop the analytic framework.The paper argues that although social networking media increase the potential range and scope for emergent learning exponentially, considerable effort is required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraint. It is possible to manage the relationship between prescriptive and emergent learning, both of which need to be part of an integrated learning ecology.

The ecological role of type three secretion systems in the interaction of bacteria with fungi in soil and related habitats is diverse and context-dependent

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nazir, Rashid; Mazurier, Sylvie; Yang, Pu; Lemanceau, Philippe; van Elsas, Jan Dirk

2017-01-01

Bacteria and fungi constitute important organisms in many ecosystems, in particular terrestrial ones. Both organismal groups contribute significantly to biogeochemical cycling processes. Ecological theory postulates that bacteria capable of receiving benefits from host fungi are likely to evolve

Landscape Planning and Ecological Networks. Part B. A Rural System in Nuoro, Sardinia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea De Montis

2014-05-01

Full Text Available This paper represents the continuation, i.e. Part B, of an homonymous paper aiming at designing an ecological network for the periurban area on the town of Nuoro in central Sardinia. While in Part A we illustrate the methodological premises and introduce a spatial network analysis-based study of a pilot ecological network, in this paper we apply a complex network analysis approach to the construction and characterization of the dynamics of the ecological network of Nuoro.  We are interested in monitoring the performance of the ecological network evolving from a real to a hypothetical scenario, where the two target vegetal species (holm oak and cultivated or wild olive are present in each patch. We focus on global network properties and on three different centrality measures: degree, clustering coefficient, and betweenness centrality. We also take into account the influence of the intensity of the connection (i.e. the weight by introducing the corresponding weighted centrality measures. Through thematic mapping we illustrate the pattern of each centrality indicator throughout the entire pilot set of patches. In this way, we demonstrate how spatial network analysis is useful to monitor the performance of the network and to support decision-making, management, and planning.

Spacetimes containing slowly evolving horizons

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kavanagh, William; Booth, Ivan

2006-01-01

Slowly evolving horizons are trapping horizons that are ''almost'' isolated horizons. This paper reviews their definition and discusses several spacetimes containing such structures. These include certain Vaidya and Tolman-Bondi solutions as well as (perturbatively) tidally distorted black holes. Taking into account the mass scales and orders of magnitude that arise in these calculations, we conjecture that slowly evolving horizons are the norm rather than the exception in astrophysical processes that involve stellar-scale black holes

Multi-scale location analysis of vulnerabilities and their link to disturbances within digital ecosystems

OpenAIRE

Jackson, Jennifer

2017-01-01

As computer networks evolve, so too does the techniques used by attackers to exploit new vulnerabilities. Natural ecosystems already have resistant and resilient properties that help protect them from unwanted disturbances despite the existence of different vulnerabilities. Computer networks and their environments can be considered as digital ecosystems with different vulnerabilities, and security attacks can be considered as unwanted disturbances. Analysis of vulnerabilities and attacks from...

Whole genome duplication affects evolvability of flowering time in an autotetraploid plant.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sara L Martin

Full Text Available Whole genome duplications have occurred recurrently throughout the evolutionary history of eukaryotes. The resulting genetic and phenotypic changes can influence physiological and ecological responses to the environment; however, the impact of genome copy number on evolvability has rarely been examined experimentally. Here, we evaluate the effect of genome duplication on the ability to respond to selection for early flowering time in lines drawn from naturally occurring diploid and autotetraploid populations of the plant Chamerion angustifolium (fireweed. We contrast this with the result of four generations of selection on synthesized neoautotetraploids, whose genic variability is similar to diploids but genome copy number is similar to autotetraploids. In addition, we examine correlated responses to selection in all three groups. Diploid and both extant tetraploid and neoautotetraploid lines responded to selection with significant reductions in time to flowering. Evolvability, measured as realized heritability, was significantly lower in extant tetraploids (^b(T =  0.31 than diploids (^b(T =  0.40. Neotetraploids exhibited the highest evolutionary response (^b(T  =  0.55. The rapid shift in flowering time in neotetraploids was associated with an increase in phenotypic variability across generations, but not with change in genome size or phenotypic correlations among traits. Our results suggest that whole genome duplications, without hybridization, may initially alter evolutionary rate, and that the dynamic nature of neoautopolyploids may contribute to the prevalence of polyploidy throughout eukaryotes.

Ecosystem-based fishery management: a critical review of concepts and ecological economic models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nguyen, Thanh Viet

  An ecosystem approach means different things to different people. As a result the concept of ecosystem-based fishery management is evolving and it has no universal definition or consistent application. As regards ecosystem modeling, most economic models of fishery ignore the linkages to lower...... trophic levels. In particular, environmental data and other bottom-up information is widely disregarded. The objective of this paper is to provide a critical review of concepts and ecological economic models relating to ecosystem-based fishery management....

ForestCrowns: a software tool for analyzing ground-based digital photographs of forest canopies

Science.gov (United States)

Matthew F. Winn; Sang-Mook Lee; Phillip A. Araman

2013-01-01

Canopy coverage is a key variable used to characterize forest structure. In addition, the light transmitted through the canopy is an important ecological indicator of plant and animal habitat and understory climate conditions. A common ground-based method used to document canopy coverage is to take digital photographs from below the canopy. To assist with analyzing...

A Digital Archives Framework for the Preservation of Cultural Artifacts with Technological Components

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guillaume Boutard

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The preservation of artistic works with technological components, such as musical works, is recognised as an issue by both the artistic community and the archival community. Preserving such works involves tackling the difficulties associated with digital information in general, but also raises its own specific problems, such as constantly evolving digital instruments embodied within software and idiosyncratic human-computer interactions. Because of these issues, standards in place for archiving digital information are not always suitable for the preservation of these works. The impact on the organisation and the descriptions of such archives need to be conceptualised in order to provide these technological components with readability, authenticity and intelligibility. While previous projects emphasized readability and authenticity, less effort has been dedicated to addressing intelligibility issues.The research into the specification of significant properties and its extension, namely significant knowledge, offers some grounds for reflecting on this question. Furthermore, the relevance of taking into account the creative process involved in the production of technological components offers an opportunity to redefine the status of technological agents in the performative aspect of digital records. Altogether, the research on significant knowledge and creative processes provide us with a conceptual framework that we propose to bring together with digital archives models to form a coherent framework.

Digital broadcasting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Ji Hyeong

1999-06-01

This book contains twelve chapters, which deals with digitization of broadcast signal such as digital open, digitization of video signal and sound signal digitization of broadcasting equipment like DTPP and digital VTR, digitization of equipment to transmit such as digital STL, digital FPU and digital SNG, digitization of transmit about digital TV transmit and radio transmit, digital broadcasting system on necessity and advantage, digital broadcasting system abroad and Korea, digital broadcasting of outline, advantage of digital TV, ripple effect of digital broadcasting and consideration of digital broadcasting, ground wave digital broadcasting of DVB-T in Europe DTV in U.S.A and ISDB-T in Japan, HDTV broadcasting, satellite broadcasting, digital TV broadcasting in Korea, digital radio broadcasting and new broadcasting service.

Digital Biomass Accumulation Using High-Throughput Plant Phenotype Data Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Rahaman, Md Matiur; Ahsan, Md Asif; Gillani, Zeeshan; Chen, Ming

2017-09-01

Biomass is an important phenotypic trait in functional ecology and growth analysis. The typical methods for measuring biomass are destructive, and they require numerous individuals to be cultivated for repeated measurements. With the advent of image-based high-throughput plant phenotyping facilities, non-destructive biomass measuring methods have attempted to overcome this problem. Thus, the estimation of plant biomass of individual plants from their digital images is becoming more important. In this paper, we propose an approach to biomass estimation based on image derived phenotypic traits. Several image-based biomass studies state that the estimation of plant biomass is only a linear function of the projected plant area in images. However, we modeled the plant volume as a function of plant area, plant compactness, and plant age to generalize the linear biomass model. The obtained results confirm the proposed model and can explain most of the observed variance during image-derived biomass estimation. Moreover, a small difference was observed between actual and estimated digital biomass, which indicates that our proposed approach can be used to estimate digital biomass accurately.

Digital Historic Urban Landscape Methodology for Heritage Impact Assessment of Singapore

Science.gov (United States)

Widodo, J.; Wong, Y. C.; Ismail, F.

2017-08-01

Using the case study of Singapore's existing heritage websites, this research will probe the circumstances of the emerging technology and practice of consuming heritage architecture on a digital platform. Despite the diverse objectives, technology is assumed to help deliver greater interpretation through the use of new and high technology emphasising experience and provide visual fidelity. However, the success is limited as technology is insufficient to provide the past from multiple perspectives. Currently, existing projects provide linear narratives developed through a top-down approach that assumes the end-users as an individual entity and limits heritage as a consumable product. Through this research, we hope to uncover for better experience of digital heritage architecture where interpretation is an evolving `process' that is participatory and contributory that allows public participation, together with effective presentation, cultural learning and embodiment, to enhance the end-users' interpretation of digital heritage architecture. Additionally, this research seeks to establish an inventory in the form of a digital platform that adopts the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) into the Singapore context to better and deepen the understandings of the public towards architectural as well as cultural heritage through an intercultural and intergenerational dialogue. Through HUL, this research hopes that it will better shape conservation strategies and urban planning.

Versions in the lifecycle of academic papers user requirements and guidelins fo digital repositories

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2005-01-01

An academic research paper evolves through various stages during its lifecycle, for example from early conference presentation through working paper to final published refereed journal article. Different versions can co-exist in publicly available electronic form. Finding out researchers’ attitudes towards storing, labelling and making accessible these different versions, both of their own and of their peers’ work is at the heart of the VERSIONS Project, funded by the JISC under the Digital Repositories Programme. The project addresses the issues and uncertainties relating to versions of academic papers in digital repositories. By including a user requirements study, the project will clarify the needs of researchers and other stakeholders for deposit, storage and accessibility of different versions in the lifecycle of a digital resource. In addition to looking at user needs, the project will analyse researchers’ current practice in terms of retention of author copies of their own material. This investig...

Evolvable Neural Software System

Science.gov (United States)

Curtis, Steven A.

2009-01-01

The Evolvable Neural Software System (ENSS) is composed of sets of Neural Basis Functions (NBFs), which can be totally autonomously created and removed according to the changing needs and requirements of the software system. The resulting structure is both hierarchical and self-similar in that a given set of NBFs may have a ruler NBF, which in turn communicates with other sets of NBFs. These sets of NBFs may function as nodes to a ruler node, which are also NBF constructs. In this manner, the synthetic neural system can exhibit the complexity, three-dimensional connectivity, and adaptability of biological neural systems. An added advantage of ENSS over a natural neural system is its ability to modify its core genetic code in response to environmental changes as reflected in needs and requirements. The neural system is fully adaptive and evolvable and is trainable before release. It continues to rewire itself while on the job. The NBF is a unique, bilevel intelligence neural system composed of a higher-level heuristic neural system (HNS) and a lower-level, autonomic neural system (ANS). Taken together, the HNS and the ANS give each NBF the complete capabilities of a biological neural system to match sensory inputs to actions. Another feature of the NBF is the Evolvable Neural Interface (ENI), which links the HNS and ANS. The ENI solves the interface problem between these two systems by actively adapting and evolving from a primitive initial state (a Neural Thread) to a complicated, operational ENI and successfully adapting to a training sequence of sensory input. This simulates the adaptation of a biological neural system in a developmental phase. Within the greater multi-NBF and multi-node ENSS, self-similar ENI s provide the basis for inter-NBF and inter-node connectivity.

Platform capitalism: The intermediation and capitalization of digital economic circulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paul Langley

2017-10-01

Full Text Available A new form of digital economic circulation has emerged, wherein ideas, knowledge, labour and use rights for otherwise idle assets move between geographically distributed but connected and interactive online communities. Such circulation is apparent across a number of digital economic ecologies, including social media, online marketplaces, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and other manifestations of the so-called ‘sharing economy’. Prevailing accounts deploy concepts such as ‘co-production’, ‘prosumption’ and ‘peer-to-peer’ to explain digital economic circulation as networked exchange relations characterised by their disintermediated, collaborative and democratising qualities. Building from the neologism of platform capitalism, we place ‘the platform’ – understood as a distinct mode of socio-technical intermediary and business arrangement that is incorporated into wider processes of capitalisation – at the centre of the critical analysis of digital economic circulation. To create multi-sided markets and coordinate network effects, platforms enrol users through a participatory economic culture and mobilise code and data analytics to compose immanent infrastructures. Platform intermediation is also nested in the ex-post construction of a replicable business model. Prioritising rapid up-scaling and extracting revenues from circulations and associated data trails, the model performs the structure of venture capital investment which capitalises on the potential of platforms to realise monopoly rents.

Evolving phenotypic networks in silico.

Science.gov (United States)

François, Paul

2014-11-01

Evolved gene networks are constrained by natural selection. Their structures and functions are consequently far from being random, as exemplified by the multiple instances of parallel/convergent evolution. One can thus ask if features of actual gene networks can be recovered from evolutionary first principles. I review a method for in silico evolution of small models of gene networks aiming at performing predefined biological functions. I summarize the current implementation of the algorithm, insisting on the construction of a proper "fitness" function. I illustrate the approach on three examples: biochemical adaptation, ligand discrimination and vertebrate segmentation (somitogenesis). While the structure of the evolved networks is variable, dynamics of our evolved networks are usually constrained and present many similar features to actual gene networks, including properties that were not explicitly selected for. In silico evolution can thus be used to predict biological behaviours without a detailed knowledge of the mapping between genotype and phenotype. Copyright © 2014 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and Modern Western Ecological ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Indigenous knowledge is often dismissed as 'traditional and outdated', and hence irrelevant to modern ecological assessment. This theoretical paper critically examines the arguments advanced to elevate modern western ecological knowledge over indigenous ecological knowledge, as well as the sources and uses of ...

Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in evolving food webs.

Science.gov (United States)

Allhoff, K T; Drossel, B

2016-05-19

We use computer simulations in order to study the interplay between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) during both the formation and the ongoing evolution of large food webs. A species in our model is characterized by its own body mass, its preferred prey body mass and the width of its potential prey body mass spectrum. On an ecological time scale, population dynamics determines which species are viable and which ones go extinct. On an evolutionary time scale, new species emerge as modifications of existing ones. The network structure thus emerges and evolves in a self-organized manner. We analyse the relation between functional diversity and five community level measures of ecosystem functioning. These are the metabolic loss of the predator community, the total biomasses of the basal and the predator community, and the consumption rates on the basal community and within the predator community. Clear BEF relations are observed during the initial build-up of the networks, or when parameters are varied, causing bottom-up or top-down effects. However, ecosystem functioning measures fluctuate only very little during long-term evolution under constant environmental conditions, despite changes in functional diversity. This result supports the hypothesis that trophic cascades are weaker in more complex food webs. © 2016 The Author(s).

canEvolve: a web portal for integrative oncogenomics.

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Mehmet Kemal Samur

Full Text Available BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Genome-wide profiles of tumors obtained using functional genomics platforms are being deposited to the public repositories at an astronomical scale, as a result of focused efforts by individual laboratories and large projects such as the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA and the International Cancer Genome Consortium. Consequently, there is an urgent need for reliable tools that integrate and interpret these data in light of current knowledge and disseminate results to biomedical researchers in a user-friendly manner. We have built the canEvolve web portal to meet this need. RESULTS: canEvolve query functionalities are designed to fulfill most frequent analysis needs of cancer researchers with a view to generate novel hypotheses. canEvolve stores gene, microRNA (miRNA and protein expression profiles, copy number alterations for multiple cancer types, and protein-protein interaction information. canEvolve allows querying of results of primary analysis, integrative analysis and network analysis of oncogenomics data. The querying for primary analysis includes differential gene and miRNA expression as well as changes in gene copy number measured with SNP microarrays. canEvolve provides results of integrative analysis of gene expression profiles with copy number alterations and with miRNA profiles as well as generalized integrative analysis using gene set enrichment analysis. The network analysis capability includes storage and visualization of gene co-expression, inferred gene regulatory networks and protein-protein interaction information. Finally, canEvolve provides correlations between gene expression and clinical outcomes in terms of univariate survival analysis. CONCLUSION: At present canEvolve provides different types of information extracted from 90 cancer genomics studies comprising of more than 10,000 patients. The presence of multiple data types, novel integrative analysis for identifying regulators of oncogenesis, network

Adoption of Geospatial Systems towards evolving Sustainable Himalayan Mountain Development

Science.gov (United States)

Murthy, M. S. R.; Bajracharya, B.; Pradhan, S.; Shestra, B.; Bajracharya, R.; Shakya, K.; Wesselmann, S.; Ali, M.; Bajracharya, S.; Pradhan, S.

2014-11-01

Natural resources dependence of mountain communities, rapid social and developmental changes, disaster proneness and climate change are conceived as the critical factors regulating sustainable Himalayan mountain development. The Himalayan region posed by typical geographic settings, diverse physical and cultural diversity present a formidable challenge to collect and manage data, information and understands varied socio-ecological settings. Recent advances in earth observation, near real-time data, in-situ measurements and in combination of information and communication technology have transformed the way we collect, process, and generate information and how we use such information for societal benefits. Glacier dynamics, land cover changes, disaster risk reduction systems, food security and ecosystem conservation are a few thematic areas where geospatial information and knowledge have significantly contributed to informed decision making systems over the region. The emergence and adoption of near-real time systems, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), board-scale citizen science (crowd-sourcing), mobile services and mapping, and cloud computing have paved the way towards developing automated environmental monitoring systems, enhanced scientific understanding of geophysical and biophysical processes, coupled management of socio-ecological systems and community based adaptation models tailored to mountain specific environment. There are differentiated capacities among the ICIMOD regional member countries with regard to utilization of earth observation and geospatial technologies. The region can greatly benefit from a coordinated and collaborative approach to capture the opportunities offered by earth observation and geospatial technologies. The regional level data sharing, knowledge exchange, and Himalayan GEO supporting geospatial platforms, spatial data infrastructure, unique region specific satellite systems to address trans-boundary challenges would go a long way in

Crossing the Digital Divide Safely and Trustingly: How Ecologies of Learning Scaffold the Journey

Science.gov (United States)

Henning, Elizabeth; Van der Westhuizen, Duan

2004-01-01

The article addresses the issue of "learning to elearn" in borderless programs in a globalised learning landscape and the associated problems of scaffolding the journey across the digital divide. The authors argue that the assumption underlying such courses is that cross-cultural programs are viable because they are conceived and…

An Economic Perspective : The Future of Digital vs. Print Media with a focus on the cultural products of books and music

OpenAIRE

Lakhani, Imtiaz

2011-01-01

Digital media has introduced the market to the quickest form of content distribution man has ever seen. Many businesses have tried to adapt their business models to the digital world to maximize their value and influence. Internet has impacted many businesses worldwide giving them an opportunity to evolve and bring innovation to their business direction and economic model so they can offer a balanced value proposition to the consumer and gain competitive advantage in the market. There is a ge...

Influencia del marketing digital en el proceso de decisión de compra

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adrián Valencia

2015-10-01

Abstract In the last years the digital marketing has evolved causing favorable impact in the companies, since the new age implies the use of new tools that are changing everything. Because of it in necessary to analyze the influence of this one, opposite to the indispensable processes of decision of purchase for the companies, from a survey and meetings groups in the province of Santa Elena, possessing also interviews in depth of the negotiations of marketing used by the local companies. The information of the study shows the limited application of strategies of digital marketing in the local companies, the interest and acceptance of the population studied by the use of these tools, bearing in mind many advantages in the utilization of these.

Carnegie Mellon University bioimaging day 2014: Challenges and opportunities in digital pathology

OpenAIRE

Gustavo K Rohde; John A Ozolek; Anil V Parwani; Liron Pantanowitz

2014-01-01

Recent advances in digital imaging is impacting the practice of pathology. One of the key enabling technologies that is leading the way towards this transformation is the use of whole slide imaging (WSI) which allows glass slides to be converted into large image files that can be shared, stored, and analyzed rapidly. Many applications around this novel technology have evolved in the last decade including education, research and clinical applications. This publication highlights a collection o...

Eco-Polycentric Urban Systems: An Ecological Region Perspective for Network Cities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Botequilha-Leitão

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The research presented in this paper is a work in progress. It provides linkages between the author’s earlier research under the sustainable land planning framework (SLP and emergent ideas and planning and design strategies, centered on the (landscape ecological dimension of cities’ sustainability. It reviews several concepts, paradigms, and metaphors that have been emerging during the last decade, which can contribute to expand our vision on city planning and design. Among other issues, city form—monocentric, polycentric, and diffused—is discussed. The hypothesis set forth is that cities can improve the pathway to sustainability by adopting intermediate, network urban forms such as polycentric urban systems (PUS under a broader vision (as compared to the current paradigm, to make way to urban ecological regions. It discusses how both the principles of SLP and those emergent ideas can contribute to integrate PUS with their functional hinterland, adopting an ecosystemic viewpoint of cities. It proposes to redirect the current dominant economic focus of PUS to include all of the other functions that are essential to urbanites, such as production (including the 3Rs, recreation, and ecology in a balanced way. Landscape ecology principles are combined with complexity science in order to deal with uncertainty to improve regional systems’ resilience. Cooperation in its multiple forms is seen as a fundamental social, but also economic process contributing to the urban network functioning, including its evolving capabilities for self-organization and adaptation.

Strategies for Digital Inclusion: Towards a Pedagogy for Embracing and Sustaining Student Diversity and Engagement with Online Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Clarida, Baylie Hart; Bobeva, Milena; Hutchings, Maggie; Taylor, Jacqui

2016-01-01

This paper reports on the progress of a current PhD research study. The research study will evolve through four phases and eventually develop a conceptual framework for effective teaching and learning approaches that influence digital inclusion and exclusion of students from diverse backgrounds. It will also seek to identify differences in learner…

Örgütsel Ekoloji Kuramından Stratejik Yönetim Anlayışına = From the Organizational Ecology Theory to Strategic Management Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adnan KALKAN

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In this study, it is aimed to point out the direction of change in the organizational ecology theory, which is one of the management approaches today. When it was promoted, this theory provided a way to clarify the harmony between the organizational structures and the environment.According to the organizational ecology theory, business organizations act as living organisms in that they undergo a natural selection in which some die out while others evolve and survive. In this theoretical study, the relationships of organizations with their environment in their development was tried to be explained within the framework of the organizational ecology theory and the strategic management approach.

PERSEPSI GURU TENTANG DIGITAL NATIVES, SUMBER BELAJAR DIGITAL DAN MOTIVASI MEMANFAATKAN SUMBER BELAJAR DIGITAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ferdinandus Bate Dopo

2016-06-01

TEACHER’S PERCEPTION OF DIGITAL NATIVES, DIGITAL LEARNING RESOURCES AND MOTIVATION TO UTILIZE DIGITAL LEARNING RESOURCES Abstract This study aims to reveal (1 the influence of teacher's perception of digital natives toward teacher’s motivation to utilize digital learning resources. (2 the influence of teacher's perception of digital learning resources toward teacher’s motivation to utilize digital learning resources and (3 the influence both of teacher's perception of digital natives and digital learning resources toward teacher’s motivation to utilize digital learning resources. This study used the descriptive-correlational quantitative approach. The Population and sample were high school teachers of Regina Pacis Bajawa, SMA Seminari Mataloko and SMA Negeri 1 Golewa. Sampling technique in this research was proportional random sampling. A questionnaire was used to obtain the data. The data were analyzed using the Likert scale. The instrument was developed based on lattice theory of assessment instruments relevant to the study variables. The analysis technique used is a regression followed by statistic technique of t test and F test with the significance level of 0.05. The results are as follows. (1 There is a positive and significant influence of teacher's perception of digital natives toward teacher’s motivation to utilize digital learning resources. (2 There is a positive and significant influence of teacher's perception of digital learning resources and teacher’s motivation to utilize digital learning resources. (3 There is a positive and significant influence both of teacher's perception of digital learning resources and teacher’s motivation to utilize digital learning resources. Keywords: perception, digital natives, digital learning resources, motivation

On the Benefits of Divergent Search for Evolved Representations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lehman, Joel; Risi, Sebastian; Stanley, Kenneth O

2012-01-01

Evolved representations in evolutionary computation are often fragile, which can impede representation-dependent mechanisms such as self-adaptation. In contrast, evolved representations in nature are robust, evolvable, and creatively exploit available representational features. This paper provide...

Digital-Networked Images as Personal Acts of Political Expression: New Categories for Meaning Formation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mona Kasra

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This article examines the growing use of digital-networked images, specifically online self-portraits or “selfies”, as deliberate and personal acts of political expression and the ways in which meaning evolves and expands from their presence on the Internet. To understand the role of digital-networked images as a site for engaging in a personal and connective “visual” action that leads to formation of transient communities, the author analyzes the nude self-portrait of the young Egyptian woman Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, which during the Egyptian uprisings in 2011 drew attention across social media. As an object of analysis this image is a prime example of the use of digital-networked images in temporally intentional distribution, and as an instance of political enactment unique to this era. This article also explains the concept of participatory narratives as an ongoing process of meaning formation in the digital-networked image, shaped by the fluidity of the multiple and immediate textual narratives, visual derivatives, re-appropriation, and remixes contributed by other interested viewers. The online circulation of digital-networked images in fact culminates in a flow of ever-changing and overarching narratives, broadening the contextual scope around which images are traditionally viewed.

Spectral theory and nonlinear analysis with applications to spatial ecology

CERN Document Server

Cano-Casanova, S; Mora-Corral , C

2005-01-01

This volume details some of the latest advances in spectral theory and nonlinear analysis through various cutting-edge theories on algebraic multiplicities, global bifurcation theory, non-linear Schrödinger equations, non-linear boundary value problems, large solutions, metasolutions, dynamical systems, and applications to spatial ecology. The main scope of the book is bringing together a series of topics that have evolved separately during the last decades around the common denominator of spectral theory and nonlinear analysis - from the most abstract developments up to the most concrete applications to population dynamics and socio-biology - in an effort to fill the existing gaps between these fields.

How Genes Evolve

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

focus on ecological and evolutionary genetics of ... construction of phylogenetic trees from molecular data. More recently, use of ... 500 MVA- Bony fishes. Ca 100 MVA - .... functional or structural domain of the proteins e.g. tropomysine chain ...

What Is "Known" in Community Music in Higher Education? Engagement, Emotional Learning and an Ecology of Ideas from the Student Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Mellor, Liz

2011-01-01

This article aims to make explicit the evolving ecology of ideas in the field of community music and higher education that are particular to a context yet transferable across respective fields of enquiry--music education, community music, music therapy and community music therapy. This is contextualized in two ways: (1) through a consideration of…

Digital image processing in the nuclear field with ImaWin 5.0

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marajofsky, A.; Trafelati, A.A.; Lavagnino, C.E.

2000-01-01

ImaWin is a software project designed to cover a broad set of applications of Digital Image Processing in the Nuclear Field. Since 1994 the system has evolved in a complete tool that helped to face problems like densitometry calculus, quality control in pellets, deposit administration and surveillance. Neural network kernel and ImaScript scripting language are included within the package. The open and incremental development of ImaWin software has been allowing easy expansion upon a common re-engineering framework. (author)

EVOLVE

CERN Document Server

Deutz, André; Schütze, Oliver; Legrand, Pierrick; Tantar, Emilia; Tantar, Alexandru-Adrian

2017-01-01

This book comprises nine selected works on numerical and computational methods for solving multiobjective optimization, game theory, and machine learning problems. It provides extended versions of selected papers from various fields of science such as computer science, mathematics and engineering that were presented at EVOLVE 2013 held in July 2013 at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The internationally peer-reviewed papers include original work on important topics in both theory and applications, such as the role of diversity in optimization, statistical approaches to combinatorial optimization, computational game theory, and cell mapping techniques for numerical landscape exploration. Applications focus on aspects including robustness, handling multiple objectives, and complex search spaces in engineering design and computational biology.

(Re)Educating the Senses to Multicultural Communities: Prospective Teachers Using Digital Media and Sonic Cartography to Listen for Culture

Science.gov (United States)

Brownell, Cassie J.; Wargo, Jon M.

2017-01-01

Attuning to the acoustic ecologies of multicultural education, this critical qualitative project interrogated how elementary prospective teachers (PST) used digital media to write community through and with sound. Examining PST produced soundscapes and the practice of sonic cartography, this study inquired how "hearing" difference and…

Revisiting Robustness and Evolvability: Evolution in Weighted Genotype Spaces

Science.gov (United States)

Partha, Raghavendran; Raman, Karthik

2014-01-01

Robustness and evolvability are highly intertwined properties of biological systems. The relationship between these properties determines how biological systems are able to withstand mutations and show variation in response to them. Computational studies have explored the relationship between these two properties using neutral networks of RNA sequences (genotype) and their secondary structures (phenotype) as a model system. However, these studies have assumed every mutation to a sequence to be equally likely; the differences in the likelihood of the occurrence of various mutations, and the consequence of probabilistic nature of the mutations in such a system have previously been ignored. Associating probabilities to mutations essentially results in the weighting of genotype space. We here perform a comparative analysis of weighted and unweighted neutral networks of RNA sequences, and subsequently explore the relationship between robustness and evolvability. We show that assuming an equal likelihood for all mutations (as in an unweighted network), underestimates robustness and overestimates evolvability of a system. In spite of discarding this assumption, we observe that a negative correlation between sequence (genotype) robustness and sequence evolvability persists, and also that structure (phenotype) robustness promotes structure evolvability, as observed in earlier studies using unweighted networks. We also study the effects of base composition bias on robustness and evolvability. Particularly, we explore the association between robustness and evolvability in a sequence space that is AU-rich – sequences with an AU content of 80% or higher, compared to a normal (unbiased) sequence space. We find that evolvability of both sequences and structures in an AU-rich space is lesser compared to the normal space, and robustness higher. We also observe that AU-rich populations evolving on neutral networks of phenotypes, can access less phenotypic variation compared to

Molecular phylogeny and ecological diversification in a clade of New World songbirds (genus Vireo).

Science.gov (United States)

Cicero, C; Johnson, N K

1998-10-01

We constructed a molecular phylogeny for a clade of eye-ringed vireos (Vireo flavifrons and the V. solitarius complex) to examine existing hypotheses of speciation and ecological diversification. Complete sequences of the mtDNA cytochrome b gene were obtained from 47 individuals of this group plus four vireonid outgroups. Mean levels of sequence divergence in the clade varied from 0.29% to 5.7%. Differences were greatest between V. flavifrons and four taxa of 'V. solitarius'. The latter separated into three taxonomic, geographical and ecological groups: V. plumbeus plumbeus, V. cassinii cassinii, and V. solitarius solitarius plus V. solitarius alticola. These differed by an average of 2.6-3.2%. Populations within each group revealed low levels of sequence variation (x = 0.20%) and little geographical structuring. The mtDNA data generally corroborate results from allozymes. V. plumbeus shows a loss of yellow-green carotenoid pigmentation from the ancestral condition. The occupancy of relatively dry habitats by this species and V. cassinii represents a derived ecological shift from more-humid environments occupied by other species of vireonids. Ecological divergence in this clade occurred in allopatry and is associated with generic-level stability in morphometrics and foraging styles. Migratory behaviour and seasonal habitat shifts apparently evolved multiple times in vireos breeding in temperate environments. Present geographical and ecological distributions, and low levels of intrataxon genetic divergence, are hypothesized to be the result of postglacial regionalization of climate-plant associations and rapid northward expansion of breeding ranges.

Digital Disconnect or Digital Difference? A Socio-Ecological Perspective on Young Children's Technology Use in the Home and the Early Childhood Centre

Science.gov (United States)

Edwards, Susan; Henderson, Michael; Gronn, Donna; Scott, Anne; Mirkhil, Moska

2017-01-01

A digital disconnect perspective is founded on an assumption that technology use in the home is frequent, creative and generative, and that technology use in the early childhood centre should be the same as that found in the home. However, such arguments divert our attention from understanding the nature of the setting and thereby from an…

AN ATTEMPT TO DEVELOP AN ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION SYSTEM OF ECOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR EVALUATING FUNCTIONS OF ECOSYSTEM-BASED SOLUTIONS FOR DISASTER RISK REDUCTION (ECO-DRR

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Doko

2016-06-01

Full Text Available “Ecological Infrastructure (EI” are defined as naturally functioning ecosystems that deliver valuable services to people, such as healthy mountain catchments, rivers, wetlands, coastal dunes, and nodes and corridors of natural habitat, which together form a network of interconnected structural elements in the landscape. On the other hand, natural disaster occur at the locations where habitat was reduced due to the changes of land use, in which the land was converted to the settlements and agricultural cropland. Hence, habitat loss and natural disaster are linked closely. Ecological infrastructure is the nature-based equivalent of built or hard infrastructure, and is as important for providing services and underpinning socio-economic development. Hence, ecological infrastructure is expected to contribute to functioning as ecological disaster reduction, which is termed Ecosystem-based Solutions for Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR. Although ecological infrastructure already exists in the landscape, it might be degraded, needs to be maintained and managed, and in some cases restored. Maintenance and restoration of ecological infrastructure is important for security of human lives. Therefore, analytical tool and effective visualization tool in spatially explicit way for the past natural disaster and future prediction of natural disaster in relation to ecological infrastructure is considered helpful. Hence, Web-GIS based Ecological Infrastructure Environmental Information System (EI-EIS has been developed. This paper aims to describe the procedure of development and future application of EI-EIS. The purpose of the EI-EIS is to evaluate functions of Eco-DRR. In order to analyse disaster data, collection of past disaster information, and disaster-prone area is effective. First, a number of digital maps and analogue maps in Japan and Europe were collected. In total, 18,572 maps over 100 years were collected. The Japanese data includes Future

An Attempt to Develop AN Environmental Information System of Ecological Infrastructure for Evaluating Functions of Ecosystem-Based Solutions for Disaster Risk Reduction Eco-Drr

Science.gov (United States)

Doko, T.; Chen, W.; Sasaki, K.; Furutani, T.

2016-06-01

"Ecological Infrastructure (EI)" are defined as naturally functioning ecosystems that deliver valuable services to people, such as healthy mountain catchments, rivers, wetlands, coastal dunes, and nodes and corridors of natural habitat, which together form a network of interconnected structural elements in the landscape. On the other hand, natural disaster occur at the locations where habitat was reduced due to the changes of land use, in which the land was converted to the settlements and agricultural cropland. Hence, habitat loss and natural disaster are linked closely. Ecological infrastructure is the nature-based equivalent of built or hard infrastructure, and is as important for providing services and underpinning socio-economic development. Hence, ecological infrastructure is expected to contribute to functioning as ecological disaster reduction, which is termed Ecosystem-based Solutions for Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR). Although ecological infrastructure already exists in the landscape, it might be degraded, needs to be maintained and managed, and in some cases restored. Maintenance and restoration of ecological infrastructure is important for security of human lives. Therefore, analytical tool and effective visualization tool in spatially explicit way for the past natural disaster and future prediction of natural disaster in relation to ecological infrastructure is considered helpful. Hence, Web-GIS based Ecological Infrastructure Environmental Information System (EI-EIS) has been developed. This paper aims to describe the procedure of development and future application of EI-EIS. The purpose of the EI-EIS is to evaluate functions of Eco-DRR. In order to analyse disaster data, collection of past disaster information, and disaster-prone area is effective. First, a number of digital maps and analogue maps in Japan and Europe were collected. In total, 18,572 maps over 100 years were collected. The Japanese data includes Future-Pop Data Series (1,736 maps

Digital holographic microscopy: a novel tool to study the morphology, physiology and ecology of diatoms

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zetsche, E.-M.; El Mallahi, A.; Meysman, F.J.R.

2016-01-01

Recent advances in optical components, computational hardware and image analysis algorithms have led to the development of a powerful new imaging tool, digital holographic microscopy (DHM). So far, DHM has been predominantly applied in the life sciences and medical research, and here, we evaluate

Social Ecology, Deep Ecology and the Future of Green Political Thought.

Science.gov (United States)

Tokar, Brian

1988-01-01

Describes the differences which divide the social ecology movement and the Deep Ecology Movement. Discusses how each views population ecology, politics, natural resources, and ecological living. Calls for a unified ecological movement. (CW)

Digital Hydrologic Networks Supporting Applications Related to Spatially Referenced Regression Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Brakebill, J.W.; Wolock, D.M.; Terziotti, S.E.

2011-01-01

Digital hydrologic networks depicting surface-water pathways and their associated drainage catchments provide a key component to hydrologic analysis and modeling. Collectively, they form common spatial units that can be used to frame the descriptions of aquatic and watershed processes. In addition, they provide the ability to simulate and route the movement of water and associated constituents throughout the landscape. Digital hydrologic networks have evolved from derivatives of mapping products to detailed, interconnected, spatially referenced networks of water pathways, drainage areas, and stream and watershed characteristics. These properties are important because they enhance the ability to spatially evaluate factors that affect the sources and transport of water-quality constituents at various scales. SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes (SPARROW), a process-based/statistical model, relies on a digital hydrologic network in order to establish relations between quantities of monitored contaminant flux, contaminant sources, and the associated physical characteristics affecting contaminant transport. Digital hydrologic networks modified from the River Reach File (RF1) and National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) geospatial datasets provided frameworks for SPARROW in six regions of the conterminous United States. In addition, characteristics of the modified RF1 were used to update estimates of mean-annual streamflow. This produced more current flow estimates for use in SPARROW modeling. ?? 2011 American Water Resources Association. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Design concepts for a nuclear digital instrumentation and control system platform

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ou, T. C.; Chen, C. K.; Chen, P. J.; Shyu, S. S.; Lee, C. L.; Hsieh, S. F.

2010-10-01

The objective of this paper is to present the development results of the nuclear instrumentation and control system in Taiwan. As the Taiwan nuclear power plants age, the need to consider upgrading of both their safety and non-safety-related instrumentation and control systems becomes more urgent. Meanwhile, the digital instrumentation and control system that is based on current fast evolving electronic and information technologies are difficult to maintain effectively. Therefore, Institute of Nuclear Energy Research was made a decision to promote the Taiwan Nuclear Instrumentation and Control System project to collaborate with domestic electronic industry to establish self-reliant capabilities on the design, manufacturing, and application of nuclear instrumentation and control systems with newer technology. In the case of safety-related applications like nuclear instrumentation and control, safety-oriented quality control is required. In order to establish a generic qualified digital platform, the world-wide licensing experience should be considered in the licensing process. This paper describes the qualification and certification tools by IEC 61508 for design and development of safety related equipment and explains the basis for many decisions made while performing the digital upgrade. (Author)

Landscape Ecology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Andreas Aagaard; Brandt, Jesper; Svenningsen, Stig Roar

2017-01-01

Landscape ecology is an interdisciplinary field of research and practice that deals with the mutual association between the spatial configuration and ecological functioning of landscapes, exploring and describing processes involved in the differentiation of spaces within landscapes......, and the ecological significance of the patterns which are generated by such processes. In landscape ecology, perspectives drawn from existing academic disciplines are integrated based on a common, spatially explicit mode of analysis developed from classical holistic geography, emphasizing spatial and landscape...... pattern analysis and ecological interaction of land units. The landscape is seen as a holon: an assemblage of interrelated phenomena, both cultural and biophysical, that together form a complex whole. Enduring challenges to landscape ecology include the need to develop a systematic approach able...

Digital Natives or Digital Tribes?

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, Ian Robert

2013-01-01

This research builds upon the discourse surrounding digital natives. A literature review into the digital native phenomena was undertaken and found that researchers are beginning to identify the digital native as not one cohesive group but of individuals influenced by other factors. Primary research by means of questionnaire survey of technologies…

Superfetation increases total fecundity in a viviparous fish regardless of the ecological context

Science.gov (United States)

Zúñiga-Vega, J. Jaime; Olivera-Tlahuel, Claudia; Molina-Moctezuma, Alejandro

2017-10-01

Superfetation is the ability of females to simultaneously carry multiple broods of embryos at different developmental stages. This is an uncommon reproductive strategy that has evolved independently several times in viviparous fishes. The ecological conditions that favor higher degrees of superfetation (the presence of more simultaneous broods) still remain unclear. In this study we tested hypotheses about the potential effects of three particular ecological factors (water flow velocity, population density, and adult mortality) on superfetation. We used data on six populations of one fish species from the family Poeciliidae (Poeciliopsis baenschi) and a multimodel inference framework to test these hypotheses. We found no clear associations between the degree of superfetation and these ecological factors. Instead, we found a positive relationship between the total number of embryos carried by females and superfetation. Females increased their total fecundity as they overlapped more broods and this pattern was independent of the particular ecological conditions. Thus, in P. baenschi superfetation may facilitate a greater reproductive output. In addition, this positive relationship between total number of embryos and superfetation was stronger in small- and medium-sized females, whereas large females produced few or no simultaneous broods regardless of their total fecundity. The observed lack of association between superfetation and ecological variables is noteworthy because previous studies on other congeneric species have found that superfetation may vary as a function of water flow velocity or food availability. Our results indicate that the effect of particular selective factors on the degree of superfetation may differ among closely related species.

Ecological effects of aphid abundance, genotypic variation, and contemporary evolution on plants.

Science.gov (United States)

Turley, Nash E; Johnson, Marc T J

2015-07-01

Genetic variation and contemporary evolution within populations can shape the strength and nature of species interactions, but the relative importance of these forces compared to other ecological factors is unclear. We conducted a field experiment testing the effects of genotypic variation, abundance, and presence/absence of green peach aphids (Myzus persicae) on the growth, leaf nitrogen, and carbon of two plant species (Brassica napus and Solanum nigrum). Aphid genotype affected B. napus but not S. nigrum biomass explaining 20 and 7% of the total variation, respectively. Averaging across both plant species, the presence/absence of aphids had a 1.6× larger effect size (Cohen's d) than aphid genotype, and aphid abundance had the strongest negative effects on plant biomass explaining 29% of the total variation. On B. napus, aphid genotypes had different effects on leaf nitrogen depending on their abundance. Aphids did not influence leaf nitrogen in S. nigrum nor leaf carbon in either species. We conducted a second experiment in the field to test whether contemporary evolution could affect plant performance. Aphid populations evolved in as little as five generations, but the rate and direction of this evolution did not consistently vary between plant species. On one host species (B. napus), faster evolving populations had greater negative effects on host plant biomass, with aphid evolutionary rate explaining 23% of the variation in host plant biomass. Together, these results show that genetic variation and evolution in an insect herbivore can play important roles in shaping host plant ecology.

Are You Ready to Teach Secondary Mathematics in the 21st Century? A Study of Preservice Teachers' Digital Game Design Experience

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Qing; Lemieux, Collette; Vandermeiden, Elise; Nathoo, Shahista

2013-01-01

This research study examines preservice teachers' experiences of learning through game design. In particular, we investigate how their perceptions of digital games have evolved through the process of designing and building their own educational games. We are also concerned with the knowledge and reasoning skills that preservice teachers…

Ecology

Science.gov (United States)

Ternjej, Ivancica; Mihaljevic, Zlatko

2017-10-01

Ecology is a science that studies the mutual interactions between organisms and their environment. The fundamental subject of interest in ecology is the individual. Topics of interest to ecologists include the diversity, distribution and number of particular organisms, as well as cooperation and competition between organisms, both within and among ecosystems. Today, ecology is a multidisciplinary science. This is particularly true when the subject of interest is the ecosystem or biosphere, which requires the knowledge and input of biologists, chemists, physicists, geologists, geographists, climatologists, hydrologists and many other experts. Ecology is applied in a science of restoration, repairing disturbed sites through human intervention, in natural resource management, and in environmental impact assessments.

Moving Teaching and Learning into the Digital Era

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ramlee Mustapha

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Digital learners, who are now entering schools and universities, have learning expectations, styles, and needs different from past students. Today’s Gen-Z communicates in a language that older generation may not fully understand; the aforementioned learners have a vernacular of their own. It’s an ever-evolving language of interpretation and expression, an interactive approach to learning, creating and responding to information through a complex montage of images, sound, and communication. Students are pushing learning into a new dimension. It’s a mistake to continue to try to teach these learners in time-worn ways. Their choices of communication need to be diversified to encompass visual interpretations of texts and historical figures. Vast challenges have arisen and the impact of technology on the socio-economic landscape is becoming more significant. Gen-Z takes advantage of the enormous resources of the Web, transforming what they find there by using digital technologies to create something new and expressive. More advanced and specialized courses could also be converted, although some level of face-to-face contact is necessary to master such material. Unless teachers are trained to expect and accept content gathered through social networks with emphasis on teaching students how to check validity and reliability of the web, the full power of the digital natives cannot be released or expanded. Educators have to adjust their teaching styles to accommodate a new generation of Gen-Z. This paper, which is a predominantly theoretical one, maintains that creative thinking and a firm commitment are needed to move teaching and learning into the digital age.

Bridging the gap between research and practice: The development of a digital library of research syntheses.

Science.gov (United States)

Barroso, Julie; Edlin, April; Sandelowski, Margarete; Lambe, Camille

2006-01-01

This article describes the development of a digital library as a resource for clinicians and researchers working with women with HIV infection. We wanted to find a new way of communicating the findings from the 114 studies that we used as the method case. The development of the SandBar Digital Library (http://sonweb.unc.edu/sandbar), a product of a 5-year project to develop the analytic techniques for qualitative metasynthesis, is described from its inception, including analyses of the potential users and how they might use such a resource. The Digital Library evolved over a 3-year period, with continuous feedback from a group of researchers and clinicians who are also experts in the care of HIV-positive people. It provides a concise and comprehensive compilation of findings in two major areas of concern for the seropositive women who were the participants in the studies: motherhood and stigma.

Maintaining evolvability.

Science.gov (United States)

Crow, James F

2008-12-01

Although molecular methods, such as QTL mapping, have revealed a number of loci with large effects, it is still likely that the bulk of quantitative variability is due to multiple factors, each with small effect. Typically, these have a large additive component. Conventional wisdom argues that selection, natural or artificial, uses up additive variance and thus depletes its supply. Over time, the variance should be reduced, and at equilibrium be near zero. This is especially expected for fitness and traits highly correlated with it. Yet, populations typically have a great deal of additive variance, and do not seem to run out of genetic variability even after many generations of directional selection. Long-term selection experiments show that populations continue to retain seemingly undiminished additive variance despite large changes in the mean value. I propose that there are several reasons for this. (i) The environment is continually changing so that what was formerly most fit no longer is. (ii) There is an input of genetic variance from mutation, and sometimes from migration. (iii) As intermediate-frequency alleles increase in frequency towards one, producing less variance (as p --> 1, p(1 - p) --> 0), others that were originally near zero become more common and increase the variance. Thus, a roughly constant variance is maintained. (iv) There is always selection for fitness and for characters closely related to it. To the extent that the trait is heritable, later generations inherit a disproportionate number of genes acting additively on the trait, thus increasing genetic variance. For these reasons a selected population retains its ability to evolve. Of course, genes with large effect are also important. Conspicuous examples are the small number of loci that changed teosinte to maize, and major phylogenetic changes in the animal kingdom. The relative importance of these along with duplications, chromosome rearrangements, horizontal transmission and polyploidy

Digital platforms as enablers for digital transformation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hossain, Mokter; Lassen, Astrid Heidemann

transformation is crucial. This study aims at exploring how organizations are driven towards transformation in various ways to embrace digital platforms for ideas, technologies, and knowledge. It shows the opportunities and challenges digital platforms bring in organizations. It also highlights underlying......Digital platforms offer new ways for organizations to collaborate with the external environment for ideas, technologies, and knowledge. They provide new possibilities and competence but they also bring new challenges for organizations. Understanding the role of these platforms in digital...... mechanisms and potential outcomes of various digital platforms. The contribution of the submission is valuable for scholars to understand and further explore this area. It provides insight for practitioners to capture value through digital platforms and accelerate the pace of organizations’ digital...

Nutrition, ecology and nutritional ecology: towardan integrated framework

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Raubenheimer, David; Simpson, Steven J.; Mayntz, David

2009-01-01

requirements: it should be nutritionally explicit, organismally explicit, and ecologically explicit. 4. We evaluate against these criteria four existing frameworks (Optimal Foraging Theory, Classical Insect Nutritional Ecology, the Geometric Framework for nutrition, and Ecological Stoichiometry), and conclude...... in its own right? 2. We suggest that the distinctive feature of nutritional ecology is its integrative nature, and that the field would benefit from more attention to formalizing a theoretical and quantitative framework for developing this. 3. Such a framework, we propose, should satisfy three minimal...

[Dynamic changes of ecological footprint and ecological capacity in Fujian Province].

Science.gov (United States)

Weng, Boqi; Wang, Yixiang; Huang, Yibin; Ying, Zhaoyang; Huang, Qinlou

2006-11-01

The analysis on the dynamic changes of ecological footprint and ecological capacity in Fujian Province showed that in 1999-2003, the ecological footprint per capita in the Province increased from 1.428 hm2 to 1.658 hm2, while the ecological capacity per capita decreased from 0.683 hm2 to 0.607 hm2, with an increased ecological deficit year after year. The contradiction between the ecological footprint and ecological capacity pricked up gradually, and the ecological environment was at risk. There existed a severe imbalance in the supply and demand of ecological footprint per capita. The main body of the demands was grassland and fossil fuel, accouting for 55.74% - 63.43% of the total, while their supply only occupied 0.77% - 0.82% and next to nothing of the ecological capacity per capita, respectively. As a whole, the ecological footprint per ten thousand yuan GDP declined in the five years, indicating that the resources use efficiency in the Province was improved gradually. Based on the analysis of the present situation of the economic development and resources distribution in the Province, the strategies on reducing ecological deficit were put forward.

Biosphere II: engineering of manned, closed ecological systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Dempster, W F

1991-01-01

Space Biospheres and Ventures, a private, for-profit firm, has undertaken a major research and development project in the study of biospheres, with the objective of creating and producing biospheres. Biosphere II-scheduled for completion in March 1991-will be essentially isolated from the existing biosphere by a closed structure, composed of components derived from the existing biosphere. Like the biosphere of the Earth, Biosphere II will be essentially closed to exchanges of material or living organisms with the surrounding environment and open to energy and information exchanges. Also, like the biosphere of the Earth, Biosphere II will contain five kingdoms of life, a variety of ecosystems, plus humankind, culture, and technics. The system is designed to be complex, stable and evolving throughout its intended 100-year lifespan, rather than static. Biosphere II will cover approximately 1.3 hectare and contain 200,000 m3 in volume, with seven major biomes: tropical rainforest, tropical savannah, marsh, marine, desert, intensive agriculture, and human habitat. An interdisciplinary team of leading scientific, ecological, management, architectural, and engineering consultants have been contracted by Space Biospheres Ventures for the project. Potential applications for biospheric systems include scientific and ecological management research, refuges for endangered species, and life habitats for manned stations on spacecraft or other planets.

Digital citizens Digital nations: the next agenda

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A.W. (Bert) Mulder; M.W. (Martijn) Hartog

2015-01-01

DIGITAL CITIZENS CREATE A DIGITAL NATION Citizens will play the lead role as they – in the next phase of the information society – collectively create a digital nation. Personal adoption of information and communication technology will create a digital infrastructure that supports individual and

Evolvability as a Quality Attribute of Software Architectures

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ciraci, S.; van den Broek, P.M.; Duchien, Laurence; D'Hondt, Maja; Mens, Tom

We review the definition of evolvability as it appears on the literature. In particular, the concept of software evolvability is compared with other system quality attributes, such as adaptability, maintainability and modifiability.

An Overview of Ecological Modeling and Machine Learning Research Within the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Science.gov (United States)

Coughlan, Joseph C.

2004-01-01

In the early 1980 s NASA began research to understand global habitability and quantify the processes and fluxes between the Earth's vegetation and the biosphere. This effort evolved into the Earth Observing System Program which current encompasses 18 platforms and 80 sensors. During this time, the global environmental research community has evolved from a data poor to a data rich research area and is challenged to provide timely use of these new data. This talk will outline some of the data mining research NASA has funded in support for the environmental sciences in the Intelligent Systems project and will give a specific example in ecological forecasting, predicting the land surface properties given nowcasts and weather forecasts, using the Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS).

The ecology and evolution of avian alarm call signaling systems

Science.gov (United States)

Billings, Alexis Chandon

Communication is often set up as a simple dyadic exchange between one sender and one receiver. However, in reality, signaling systems have evolved and are used with many forms and types of information bombarding multiple senders, who in turn send multiple signals of different modalities, through various environmental spaces, finally reaching multiple receivers. In order to understand both the ecology and evolution of a signaling system, we must examine all the facets of the signaling system. My dissertation focused on the alarm call signaling system in birds. Alarm calls are acoustic signals given in response to danger or predators. My first two chapters examine how information about predators alters alarm calls. In chapter one I found that chickadees make distinctions between predators of different hunting strategies and appear to encode information about predators differently if they are heard instead of seen. In my second chapter, I test these findings more robustly in a non-model bird, the Steller's jay. I again found that predator species matters, but that how Steller's jays respond if they saw or heard the predator depends on the predator species. In my third chapter, I tested how habitat has influenced the evolution of mobbing call acoustic structure. I found that habitat is not a major contributor to the variation in acoustic structure seen across species and that other selective pressures such as body size may be more important. In my fourth chapter I present a new framework to understand the evolution of multimodal communication across species. I identify a unique constraint, the need for overlapping sensory systems, thresholds and cognitive abilities between sender and receiver in order for different forms of interspecific communication to evolve. Taken together, these chapters attempt to understand a signaling system from both an ecological and evolutionary perspective by examining each piece of the communication scheme.

A survey of passive technology for digital image forensics

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LUO Weiqi; QU Zhenhua; PAN Feng; HUANG Jiwu

2007-01-01

Over the past years,digital images have been widely used in the Internet and other applications.Whilst image processing techniques are developing at a rapid speed,tampering with digital images without leaving any obvious traces becomes easier and easier.This may give rise to some problems such as image authentication.A new passive technology for image forensics has evolved quickly during the last few years.Unlike the signature-based or watermark-based methods,the new technology does not need any signature generated or watermark embedded in advance,it assumes that different imaging devices or processing would introduce different inherent patterns into the output images.These underlying patterns are consistent in the original untampered images and would be altered after some kind of manipulations.Thus,they can be used as evidence for image source identification and alteration detection.In this paper,we will discuss this new forensics technology and give an overview of the prior literatures.Some concluding remarks are made about the state of the art and the challenges in this novel technology.

Digital Holography and Three-Dimensional Display Principles and Applications

CERN Document Server

Poon, Ting-Chung

2006-01-01

About the Book Digital (or electronic) holography and its application to 3-D display is one of the formidable problems of evolving areas of high technology that has been receiving great attention in recent years. The realization of life-size interactive 3-D displays has been a seemingly unobtainable goal. Technology is not quite at that level yet, but advances in 3-D display now allow us to take important steps toward the achievement of this objective. The reader is presented with the state-of-the-art developments in both digital holography and 3-D display techniques. The book contains a large amount of research material as well as reviews, new ideas and insights that will be useful for graduate students, scientists, and engineers working in the field. About the Editor Ting-Chung Poon is a professor at Virgina Tech in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he is also Director of the Optical Image Processing Laboratory. His research interests include acousto-optics, hybrid (optica...

Digital reef rugosity estimates coral reef habitat complexity.

Science.gov (United States)

Dustan, Phillip; Doherty, Orla; Pardede, Shinta

2013-01-01

Ecological habitats with greater structural complexity contain more species due to increased niche diversity. This is especially apparent on coral reefs where individual coral colonies aggregate to give a reef its morphology, species zonation, and three dimensionality. Structural complexity is classically measured with a reef rugosity index, which is the ratio of a straight line transect to the distance a flexible chain of equal length travels when draped over the reef substrate; yet, other techniques from visual categories to remote sensing have been used to characterize structural complexity at scales from microhabitats to reefscapes. Reef-scale methods either lack quantitative precision or are too time consuming to be routinely practical, while remotely sensed indices are mismatched to the finer scale morphology of coral colonies and reef habitats. In this communication a new digital technique, Digital Reef Rugosity (DRR) is described which utilizes a self-contained water level gauge enabling a diver to quickly and accurately characterize rugosity with non-invasive millimeter scale measurements of coral reef surface height at decimeter intervals along meter scale transects. The precise measurements require very little post-processing and are easily imported into a spreadsheet for statistical analyses and modeling. To assess its applicability we investigated the relationship between DRR and fish community structure at four coral reef sites on Menjangan Island off the northwest corner of Bali, Indonesia and one on mainland Bali to the west of Menjangan Island; our findings show a positive relationship between DRR and fish diversity. Since structural complexity drives key ecological processes on coral reefs, we consider that DRR may become a useful quantitative community-level descriptor to characterize reef complexity.

Ecological Capability Evaluation of Rural Development by Means of GIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J Nouri, R Sharifipour

2004-07-01

Full Text Available Execution of development and creation of appropriate points for rural development without considering ecological capability will result in the appearance of several environmental, economic and social problems. This research is done in an analysis approach frame of a system with the aim of choosing the most suitable location for rural development in Abadeh with an area of 22,000 km2. in 2002 by applying geographic information system (GIS precious tools. Based on the above objective, ecological resources of concerned area were recognized and surveyed. The obtained data changed into digital figures and together with the other descriptive data were shifted to Arc/Info and Arcview systems for the purpose of creation of data base. Based on specific ecological models of Iran and special conditions of the area and by using structured query language (SQL in Arcview, the ecological capability of concerned area for rural development was determined. By considering current natural limitations, such as limited severe earthquake danger in central areas, limitation of flood danger in some of the central and western areas, development of evaporating deposits and salt domes in east and precipitation under 500mm in the studied area, no suitable place for the first grade rural development was found. However, it showed capability for second-grade rural development aspect. This area includes 3.8% of total area of the studied place. For improving present management in the studied region, it is recommended that in future development of the region, offered appropriated points while emphasizing on the land having low production capability to be considered.

From ecological records to big data: the invention of global biodiversity.

Science.gov (United States)

Devictor, Vincent; Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette

2016-12-01

This paper is a critical assessment of the epistemological impact of the systematic quantification of nature with the accumulation of big datasets on the practice and orientation of ecological science. We examine the contents of big databases and argue that it is not just accumulated information; records are translated into digital data in a process that changes their meanings. In order to better understand what is at stake in the 'datafication' process, we explore the context for the emergence and quantification of biodiversity in the 1980s, along with the concept of the global environment. In tracing the origin and development of the global biodiversity information facility (GBIF) we describe big data biodiversity projects as a techno-political construction dedicated to monitoring a new object: the global diversity. We argue that, biodiversity big data became a powerful driver behind the invention of the concept of the global environment, and a way to embed ecological science in the political agenda.

The Imagination of Communication: On Media Ecology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chun-Hsiang Hsia

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Following digital convergence, the press starts new adventures beyond its traditional business scope, in search for new platforms in the internet. Some extend to audio-visual journalism, others ally with radio broadcasters. As a result, conventional communication boundaries start to be blurred, and this trend is ever more intensified by touch screens of smart phones. With this in mind, this essay explores the term “media ecology” as understood in Taiwan, by juxtaposing it with some other related ideas, comparing their respective references, meantime responding to the controversy over its Chinese translations, i.e., “媒介生態學 vs. “媒介環境學”. The author concludes by suggesting a preference for the former, arguing that, if grasped as a methodological notion, it（媒介生態學）serves far better than the latter（媒介環境學）for referring to social reconfigurations and cultural impacts brought up by new media technologies. A more humanistic view of media ecology tends to focus on quality issues about civilization process. In contrast, giving a holistic description of the structural characteristics of a specific media industry could be seen as media ecology of mass media.

A new evolutionary system for evolving artificial neural networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, X; Liu, Y

1997-01-01

This paper presents a new evolutionary system, i.e., EPNet, for evolving artificial neural networks (ANNs). The evolutionary algorithm used in EPNet is based on Fogel's evolutionary programming (EP). Unlike most previous studies on evolving ANN's, this paper puts its emphasis on evolving ANN's behaviors. Five mutation operators proposed in EPNet reflect such an emphasis on evolving behaviors. Close behavioral links between parents and their offspring are maintained by various mutations, such as partial training and node splitting. EPNet evolves ANN's architectures and connection weights (including biases) simultaneously in order to reduce the noise in fitness evaluation. The parsimony of evolved ANN's is encouraged by preferring node/connection deletion to addition. EPNet has been tested on a number of benchmark problems in machine learning and ANNs, such as the parity problem, the medical diagnosis problems, the Australian credit card assessment problem, and the Mackey-Glass time series prediction problem. The experimental results show that EPNet can produce very compact ANNs with good generalization ability in comparison with other algorithms.

Perspectives on the evolutionary ecology of arthropod antimicrobial peptides.

Science.gov (United States)

Rolff, Jens; Schmid-Hempel, Paul

2016-05-26

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are important elements of the innate immune defence in multicellular organisms that target and kill microbes. Here, we reflect on the various points that are raised by the authors of the 11 contributions to a special issue of Philosophical Transactions on the 'evolutionary ecology of arthropod antimicrobial peptides'. We see five interesting topics emerging. (i) AMP genes in insects, and perhaps in arthropods more generally, evolve much slower than most other immune genes. One explanation refers to the constraints set by AMPs being part of a finely tuned defence system. A new view argues that AMPs are under strong stabilizing selection. Regardless, this striking observation still invites many more questions than have been answered so far. (ii) AMPs almost always are expressed in combinations and sometimes show expression patterns that are dependent on the infectious agent. While it is often assumed that this can be explained by synergistic interactions, such interactions have rarely been demonstrated and need to be studied further. Moreover, how to define synergy in the first place remains difficult and needs to be addressed. (iii) AMPs play a very important role in mediating the interaction between a host and its mutualistic or commensal microbes. This has only been studied in a very small number of (insect) species. It has become clear that the very same AMPs play different roles in different situations and hence are under concurrent selection. (iv) Different environments shape the physiology of organisms; especially the host-associated microbial communities should impact on the evolution host AMPs. Studies in social insects and some organisms from extreme environments seem to support this notion, but, overall, the evidence for adaptation of AMPs to a given environment is scant. (v) AMPs are considered or already developed as new drugs in medicine. However, bacteria can evolve resistance to AMPs. Therefore, in the light of our

Three dimensional digital imaging of environmental data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nichols, R.L.; Eddy, C.A.

1991-01-01

The Environmental Sciences Section (ESS) of the Savannah River Laboratory has recently acquired the computer hardware (Silicon Graphics Personal Iris Workstations) and software (Dynamic Graphics, Interactive Surface and Volume Modeling) to perform three dimensional analysis of hydrogeologic data. Three dimensional digital imaging of environmental data is a powerful technique that can be used to incorporate field, analytical, and modeling results from geologic, hydrologic, ecologic, and chemical studies into a comprehensive model for visualization and interpretation. This report covers the contamination of four different sites of the Savannah River Plant. Each section of this report has a computer graphic display of the concentration of contamination in the groundwater and/or sediments of each site

EVOLVE 2014 International Conference

CERN Document Server

Tantar, Emilia; Sun, Jian-Qiao; Zhang, Wei; Ding, Qian; Schütze, Oliver; Emmerich, Michael; Legrand, Pierrick; Moral, Pierre; Coello, Carlos

2014-01-01

This volume encloses research articles that were presented at the EVOLVE 2014 International Conference in Beijing, China, July 1–4, 2014.The book gathers contributions that emerged from the conference tracks, ranging from probability to set oriented numerics and evolutionary computation; all complemented by the bridging purpose of the conference, e.g. Complex Networks and Landscape Analysis, or by the more application oriented perspective. The novelty of the volume, when considering the EVOLVE series, comes from targeting also the practitioner’s view. This is supported by the Machine Learning Applied to Networks and Practical Aspects of Evolutionary Algorithms tracks, providing surveys on new application areas, as in the networking area and useful insights in the development of evolutionary techniques, from a practitioner’s perspective. Complementary to these directions, the conference tracks supporting the volume, follow on the individual advancements of the subareas constituting the scope of the confe...

Digital health: a new dimension in rheumatology patient care.

Science.gov (United States)

Kataria, Suchitra; Ravindran, Vinod

2018-04-30

The new digital health innovations have opened up several opportunities to help the clinicians, patients and other caregivers of rheumatology healthcare system in maximizing efficiencies resulting in better patient outcomes. In the global context, digital health technology has the potential to bridge the distance gap between all the key stakeholders involved in rheumatology health care. In this review, we update on the recent advances in the field of digital health and highlight unique features of these technologies which would help in routine care. Application of technology in any form to enable, facilitate or enhance the quality of care is the foundation of digitised care. The components could be smartphone apps, sensors, video, social media platforms or messenger platforms, wearables or a combination of these enabling healthcare delivery and overcoming the constraints of distance, location and time. Digital therapeutics have started evolving and an important step in this direction is the involvement of FDA in the approval process. Speciality specific apps, personalised patient education as per disease status, remote specialist consultations or virtual health coach to guide on lifestyle modifications are some of the developments which have been facilitated by increased digitization in all walks of life. Assisted care with the help of robots rendering care in the hospitals or an intelligent robot guiding a patient by voice and visual sense at home are already at the threshold of entering the mainstream of patient care. Wearable devices equipped with powerful sensors are coming handy in keeping a watch on patient symptoms all the time and providing useful insights on disease progression, clinical response or complications. In chronic care such as rheumatology the implications, possibilities and benefits seem unprecedented. Real time data analytics and artificial intelligence are helping the clinicians, healthcare systems and policy makers optimise the resources and

Mentoring: An Evolving Relationship.

Science.gov (United States)

Block, Michelle; Florczak, Kristine L

2017-04-01

The column concerns itself with mentoring as an evolving relationship between mentor and mentee. The collegiate mentoring model, the transformational transcendence model, and the humanbecoming mentoring model are considered in light of a dialogue with mentors at a Midwest university and conclusions are drawn.

Nonsynonymous substitution rate (Ka is a relatively consistent parameter for defining fast-evolving and slow-evolving protein-coding genes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Lei

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Mammalian genome sequence data are being acquired in large quantities and at enormous speeds. We now have a tremendous opportunity to better understand which genes are the most variable or conserved, and what their particular functions and evolutionary dynamics are, through comparative genomics. Results We chose human and eleven other high-coverage mammalian genome data–as well as an avian genome as an outgroup–to analyze orthologous protein-coding genes using nonsynonymous (Ka and synonymous (Ks substitution rates. After evaluating eight commonly-used methods of Ka and Ks calculation, we observed that these methods yielded a nearly uniform result when estimating Ka, but not Ks (or Ka/Ks. When sorting genes based on Ka, we noticed that fast-evolving and slow-evolving genes often belonged to different functional classes, with respect to species-specificity and lineage-specificity. In particular, we identified two functional classes of genes in the acquired immune system. Fast-evolving genes coded for signal-transducing proteins, such as receptors, ligands, cytokines, and CDs (cluster of differentiation, mostly surface proteins, whereas the slow-evolving genes were for function-modulating proteins, such as kinases and adaptor proteins. In addition, among slow-evolving genes that had functions related to the central nervous system, neurodegenerative disease-related pathways were enriched significantly in most mammalian species. We also confirmed that gene expression was negatively correlated with evolution rate, i.e. slow-evolving genes were expressed at higher levels than fast-evolving genes. Our results indicated that the functional specializations of the three major mammalian clades were: sensory perception and oncogenesis in primates, reproduction and hormone regulation in large mammals, and immunity and angiotensin in rodents. Conclusion Our study suggests that Ka calculation, which is less biased compared to Ks and Ka

Adaptive long-term monitoring of soil health in metal phytostabilization: ecological attributes and ecosystem services based on soil microbial parameters.

Science.gov (United States)

Epelde, Lur; Becerril, José M; Alkorta, Itziar; Garbisu, Carlos

2014-01-01

Phytostabilization is a promising option for the remediation of metal contaminated soils which requires the implementation of long-term monitoring programs. We here propose to incorporate the paradigm of "adaptive monitoring", which enables monitoring programs to evolve iteratively as new information emerges and research questions change, to metal phytostabilization. Posing good questions that cover the chemical, toxicological and ecological concerns associated to metal contaminated soils is critical for an efficient long-term phytostabilization monitoring program. Regarding the ecological concerns, soil microbial parameters are most valuable indicators of the effectiveness of metal phytostabilization processes in terms of recovery of soil health. We suggest to group soil microbial parameters in higher-level categories such as "ecological attributes" (vigor, organization, stability) or "ecosystem services" in order to facilitate interpretation and, most importantly, to provide long-term phytostabilization monitoring programs with the required stability through time against changes in techniques, methods, interests, etc. that will inevitably occur during the monitoring program. Finally, a Phytostabilization Monitoring Card, based on both ecological attributes and ecosystem services, for soil microbial properties is provided.

Resilience and adaptability of rice terrace social-ecological systems: a case study of a local community's perception in Banaue, Philippines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam C. Castonguay

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The social-ecological systems of rice terraces across Southeast Asia are the result of centuries of long-term interactions between human communities and their surrounding ecosystems. Processes and structures in these systems have evolved to provide a diversity of ecosystem services and benefits to human societies. However, as Southeast Asian countries experience rapid economic growth and related land-use changes, the remaining extensive rice cultivation systems are increasingly under pressure. We investigated the long-term development of ecosystem services and the adaptive capacity of the social-ecological system of rice terrace landscapes using a case study of Banaue (Ifugao Province, Northern-Luzon, Philippines. A set of indicators was used to describe and assess changes in the social-ecological state of the study system. The resilience of the rice terraces and the human communities that maintain them was examined by comparing the current state of the system with results from the literature. Our findings indicate that, although the social-ecological system has not yet shifted to an alternative state, pressures are increasing and some cultural ecosystem services have already been lost.

Using ecological production functions to link ecological ...

Science.gov (United States)

Ecological production functions (EPFs) link ecosystems, stressors, and management actions to ecosystem services (ES) production. Although EPFs are acknowledged as being essential to improve environmental management, their use in ecological risk assessment has received relatively little attention. Ecological production functions may be defined as usable expressions (i.e., models) of the processes by which ecosystems produce ES, often including external influences on those processes. We identify key attributes of EPFs and discuss both actual and idealized examples of their use to inform decision making. Whenever possible, EPFs should estimate final, rather than intermediate, ES. Although various types of EPFs have been developed, we suggest that EPFs are more useful for decision making if they quantify ES outcomes, respond to ecosystem condition, respond to stressor levels or management scenarios, reflect ecological complexity, rely on data with broad coverage, have performed well previously, are practical to use, and are open and transparent. In an example using pesticides, we illustrate how EPFs with these attributes could enable the inclusion of ES in ecological risk assessment. The biggest challenges to ES inclusion are limited data sets that are easily adapted for use in modeling EPFs and generally poor understanding of linkages among ecological components and the processes that ultimately deliver the ES. We conclude by advocating for the incorporation into E

Technology and ecological economics. Promethean technology, Pandorian potential

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Small, Bruce [AgResearch Ltd., Private Bag 3123, Hamilton (New Zealand); Jollands, Nigel [New Zealand Centre for Ecological Economics, Massey University and Landcare Research Ltd, Private Bag 11052, Palmerston North (New Zealand)

2006-03-15

In considering social, economic and ecological impacts of new technologies it is essential to start from an understanding of human nature. This paper explores this issue drawing out some implications for ecological and neoclassical economics. The paper presents two key arguments. First, we argue that there is a growing tension between our evolved human nature and social structures and our emerging technological prowess. Modern technologies give us increasing power to manipulate the very axes of nature: space, time, energy, matter, and life. Technologies are now so powerful they give us abilities our ancestors would consider godlike. The question is posed: Are humans ready to wield the power of the gods? We have the knowledge, but do we have the wisdom? The myth of Prometheus and Pandora is considered as a metaphor for the interaction between technology, nature and universal aspects of human nature developed over eons of evolution. Second, we argue that even a 'technologically optimistic' scenario (employed by some economists) may not actually deliver Utopian outcomes. With technological advancement and diffusion there is a 'technological trickle down effect' whereby potent technologies, once available only to governments and powerful elites, become available to greater numbers of groups and individuals. The more accessible a technology, the more likely its social and ecological impacts will be shaped by the full range and extremes of human nature. These issues have implications for the development and regulation of Promethean technologies such as nuclear energy, genetic engineering and nanotechnology; technologies with unprecedented power and reach through nature. Development and diffusion of such technologies may also have implications for the ethics of the social structure of society. (author)

Interactively Evolving Compositional Sound Synthesis Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jónsson, Björn Þór; Hoover, Amy K.; Risi, Sebastian

2015-01-01

the space of potential sounds that can be generated through such compositional sound synthesis networks (CSSNs). To study the effect of evolution on subjective appreciation, participants in a listener study ranked evolved timbres by personal preference, resulting in preferences skewed toward the first......While the success of electronic music often relies on the uniqueness and quality of selected timbres, many musicians struggle with complicated and expensive equipment and techniques to create their desired sounds. Instead, this paper presents a technique for producing novel timbres that are evolved...

Evolving effective incremental SAT solvers with GP

OpenAIRE

Bader, Mohamed; Poli, R.

2008-01-01

Hyper-Heuristics could simply be defined as heuristics to choose other heuristics, and it is a way of combining existing heuristics to generate new ones. In a Hyper-Heuristic framework, the framework is used for evolving effective incremental (Inc*) solvers for SAT. We test the evolved heuristics (IncHH) against other known local search heuristics on a variety of benchmark SAT problems.

Thinking ahead essays on big data, digital revolution, and participatory market society

CERN Document Server

Helbing, Dirk

2015-01-01

The rapidly progressing digital revolution is now touching the foundations of the governance of societal structures. Humans are on the verge of evolving from consumers to prosumers, and old, entrenched theories - in particular sociological and economic ones - are falling prey to these rapid developments. The original assumptions on which they are based are being questioned. Each year we produce as much data as in the entire human history - can we possibly create a global crystal ball to predict our future and to optimally govern our world? Do we need wide-scale surveillance to understand and

Digital forensics digital evidence in criminal investigations

CERN Document Server

Marshall, Angus McKenzie

2009-01-01

The vast majority of modern criminal investigations involve some element of digital evidence, from mobile phones, computers, CCTV and other devices. Digital Forensics: Digital Evidence in Criminal Investigations provides the reader with a better understanding of how digital evidence complements "traditional" scientific evidence and examines how it can be used more effectively and efficiently in a range of investigations. Taking a new approach to the topic, this book presents digital evidence as an adjunct to other types of evidence and discusses how it can be deployed effectively in s

Use of ecological exposure units in ecological risk assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ferenbaugh, R.; Myers, O.; Gallegos, A.; Breshears, D.; Ebinger, M.

1995-01-01

The traditional approach to ecological risk assessment at hazardous waste sites that are being evaluated for cleanup under CERCLA or RCRA requirements is to focus on the immediate impacts at or adjacent to a site. While this may be acceptable in some situations, it is not ecologically defensible in situations where there are numerous contaminated sites in proximity to each other. In the latter case, transport from the sites, potential cumulative effects, and wide-ranging receptors must be considered. The concept of the Ecological Exposure Unit (EEU) has been proposed to address this situation. Ecological Exposure Units are defined on the basis of ecological considerations and each EEU may contain several to many contaminated sites. The initial steps involved in performing ecological risk assessments using the EEU approach include (1) selection of appropriate receptors and assessment endpoints, and (2) geographical definition of EEUs. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, receptors have been identified and EEUs have been defined for these receptors. GIS is being used as a tool to map EEUs. Receptors include representatives from threatened or endangered species, species reflecting status of ecological health, species with social or cultural relevance, and other species of concern. After definition of EEUs, cumulative impacts of all stressors at all sites within each EEU must be evaluated. The two major advantages to performing ecological risk assessments using this approach are that risk assessments are performed in a more scientifically defensible manner because they are performed on ecologically defined units and that resources are used optimally by minimizing redundant remedial activities

Digital radiology and digitally formatted image management systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cox, G.G.; Dwyer, S.J. III; Templeton, A.W.

1987-01-01

The number of diagnostic examinations performed with digitally formatted imaging equipment is increasing. Digital general-purpose and fluoroscopic radiology systems are being clinically evaluated. Digitizing conventional x-ray films, such as mammograms, frequently improves the diagnostic quality of the images. The digitizing process with laser has also afforded the opportunity to document required spatial resolution for digital imaging and network systems. The use of digitally formatted image instrumentation imposes new requirements on the acquisition, display and manipulation, transmission, hard copy image recording, and archiving of diagnostic data. Networking of digitally formatted image data offers many advantages for managing digital information. This paper identifies and describes digital radiographic systems. Parameters required for designing and implementing a digital image management system are outlined. Spatial and contrast resolution requirements are identified. The key parameters include the amount of image data generated each working day, the retrieval rate of the generated data, the display hardware and software needed for interactive diagnosis display stations, the requirements for analog hard copy generation, and on-line and long-term archiving requirements. These image management systems are often called PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication Systems)

The role of ecological theory in microbial ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Prosser, James I; Bohannan, Brendan J M; Curtis, Tom P; Ellis, Richard J; Firestone, Mary K; Freckleton, Rob P; Green, Jessica L; Green, Laura E; Killham, Ken; Lennon, Jack J; Osborn, A Mark; Solan, Martin; van der Gast, Christopher J; Young, J Peter W

2007-05-01

Microbial ecology is currently undergoing a revolution, with repercussions spreading throughout microbiology, ecology and ecosystem science. The rapid accumulation of molecular data is uncovering vast diversity, abundant uncultivated microbial groups and novel microbial functions. This accumulation of data requires the application of theory to provide organization, structure, mechanistic insight and, ultimately, predictive power that is of practical value, but the application of theory in microbial ecology is currently very limited. Here we argue that the full potential of the ongoing revolution will not be realized if research is not directed and driven by theory, and that the generality of established ecological theory must be tested using microbial systems.

Comparison of conventional study model measurements and 3D digital study model measurements from laser scanned dental impressions

Science.gov (United States)

Nugrahani, F.; Jazaldi, F.; Noerhadi, N. A. I.

2017-08-01

The field of orthodontics is always evolving,and this includes the use of innovative technology. One type of orthodontic technology is the development of three-dimensional (3D) digital study models that replace conventional study models made by stone. This study aims to compare the mesio-distal teeth width, intercanine width, and intermolar width measurements between a 3D digital study model and a conventional study model. Twelve sets of upper arch dental impressions were taken from subjects with non-crowding teeth. The impressions were taken twice, once with alginate and once with polivinylsiloxane. The alginate impressions used in the conventional study model and the polivinylsiloxane impressions were scanned to obtain the 3D digital study model. Scanning was performed using a laser triangulation scanner device assembled by the School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics at the Institut Teknologi Bandung and David Laser Scan software. For the conventional model, themesio-distal width, intercanine width, and intermolar width were measured using digital calipers; in the 3D digital study model they were measured using software. There were no significant differences between the mesio-distal width, intercanine width, and intermolar width measurments between the conventional and 3D digital study models (p>0.05). Thus, measurements using 3D digital study models are as accurate as those obtained from conventional study models

Evolving Intelligent Systems Methodology and Applications

CERN Document Server

Angelov, Plamen; Kasabov, Nik

2010-01-01

From theory to techniques, the first all-in-one resource for EIS. There is a clear demand in advanced process industries, defense, and Internet and communication (VoIP) applications for intelligent yet adaptive/evolving systems. Evolving Intelligent Systems is the first self- contained volume that covers this newly established concept in its entirety, from a systematic methodology to case studies to industrial applications. Featuring chapters written by leading world experts, it addresses the progress, trends, and major achievements in this emerging research field, with a strong emphasis on th

The ecological economics: An ecological economics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Castiblanco R, Carmenza

2007-01-01

Ecological Economics arise as a scientific discipline aimed to integrate concepts of economics, ecology, thermodynamics, ethic and other natural and social sciences in order to incorporate a biophysical and integrated perspective of the inter dependences between economies and environment, from a plural conception and a methodology beyond disciplines. Ecological Economics studies the black box of economic processes usually excluded of the traditional economics: thermodynamics and ecology. Although it is relatively a new field of study, it has been strengthening its theoretical framework with scientific basis and analytic principles that lead to its identification as a new discipline that show a whole new paradigm. The scope of this article is to show the conceptual and methodological bases, the main founders, approaches and central debates of this new discipline. This brief introduction is a preamble to the papers of the meeting Ecological Economics: a perspective for Colombia included in this number, that took place on September 22 - 27 of 2007, at the National University of Colombia at Bogota. During tree days national and international experts, professors, researchers, workers of environmental sector and people interested on environmental issues joined together to know the conceptual and methodological achievements reached of this discipline; as well as to analyse and evaluate the environmental problems of the country, from the systemic, interdisciplinary and general perspective that it promotes

Methods Evolved by Observation

Science.gov (United States)

Montessori, Maria

2016-01-01

Montessori's idea of the child's nature and the teacher's perceptiveness begins with amazing simplicity, and when she speaks of "methods evolved," she is unveiling a methodological system for observation. She begins with the early childhood explosion into writing, which is a familiar child phenomenon that Montessori has written about…

Digital citizenship and neoliberalization: governing digital citizens in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schou, Jannick; Hjelholt, Morten

2018-01-01

Digital citizenship is becoming increasingly normalized within advanced democratic states. As society and governmental institutions become reliant on digital technologies, citizens are expected to be and act digitally. This article examines the governance of digital citizens through a case study...... this case study, the article contributes to current critical perspectives on the digital citizen as a new political figure. It adds new insights into digital citizenship by connecting this figure to wider processes of neoliberalization and state restructuring, pushing for a more pronounced focus...... of digitalization efforts in Denmark. Drawing on multiple forms of data, the article showcases how digital citizens are governed through a combination of discursive, legal and institutional means. The article highlights the political, but also institutional work that goes into making citizens digital. Providing...

Survey Report – State Of The Art In Digital Steganography Focusing ASCII Text Documents

OpenAIRE

Khan Farhan Rafat; Muhammad Sher

2010-01-01

Digitization of analogue signals has opened up new avenues for information hiding and the recent advancements in the telecommunication field has taken up this desire even further. From copper wire to fiber optics, technology has evolved and so are ways of covert channel communication. By “Covert” we mean “anything not meant for the purpose for which it is being used”. Investigation and detection of existence of such cover channel communication has always remained a serious concern of informat...

Digital radiography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brody, W.R.

1984-01-01

Digital Radiography begins with an orderly introduction to the fundamental concepts of digital imaging. The entire X-ray digital imagining system is described, from an overall characterization of image quality to specific components required for a digital radiographic system. Because subtraction is central to digital radiographic systems, the author details the use of various subtraction methods for image enhancement. Complex concepts are illustrated with numerous examples and presented in terms that can readily be understood by physicians without an advanced mathematics background. The second part of the book discusses implementations and applications of digital imagining systems based on area and scanned detector technologies. This section includes thorough coverage of digital fluoroscopy, scanned projection radiography, and film-based digital imaging systems, and features a state-of-the-art synopsis of the applications of digital subtraction angiography. The book concludes with a timely assessment of anticipated technological advances

Ecologies of Learning, Ecologies of Creativity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Høyrup, Helene

in the light of the new Danish school reform. How can different learning institutions contribute to a “joint” ecology of learning? What would the benefits be from this in terms of young people’s literacies? On what theoretical basis can such an ecology and co-creation take place? And what kind of didactics...

Putting agricultural equipment and digital technologies at the cutting edge of agroecology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bellon Maurel Véronique

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The agro-ecological transition is an ambitious challenge. It can be met by implementing the fundamentals of agroecology (use of biodiversity, integration of agriculture in landscapes, closure of flow loops in the context of a broad and renewed offer of technologies: agro-equipment, biotechnology, digital technologies… This article explores the role that agro-equipment and digital services can play in this transition. These technologies contribute through various levers to the agro-ecological transition: by improving farming efficiency (more service rendered for the same environmental impact, by precision farming (adaptation of the operations to the needs of the plant or the animal based on a monitoring–diagnosis–recommendation cycle and by the development of specialized machinery helping the farmer to achieve “flow loop-closing” (at the plot level, by maintaining the soil quality, or at the farm level, with the recycling of organic effluents or to take advantage of biodiversity (e.g., with agro-equipment adapted to mixed crops. The technological bricks that are requested and for which advances are expected are: sensors (to measure plant or animal needs and associated digital technologies (information transfer, data processing, precision technologies for input application, robotics, specialized machines to manage soil cover and weeds, or for agroforestry. The brakes and engines for innovation in agro-equipment are studied. The brakes are the generally small structure of the farm manufacturing companies, the deficit of the demand from farmers and the complexity − either real or perceived − of these equipments. To encourage innovation, several levers are to be used: involving users in the design of agro-equipments, creating financial incentives for innovative equipment purchase, and training end-users, prescribers and dealers to the high potential of these new technologies. In conclusion, putting agro-equipment and digital technology

A B2C Digital Media Marketing Communications Plan for a Mobile Application Commercial Launch

OpenAIRE

Collin, Markus

2013-01-01

The thesis focuses on a B2C Digital Marketing Communications plan on a mobile gamification application. The marketing communications plan takes a clear step away from the traditional views on marketing planning and PR, above all because of the evolvement of social media and the massive cultural shift that has deeply affected the way societies use the most widely spread communications platform ever invented, the Internet. The project for which the marketing communications plan is made, is ...

Enlightening Butterfly Conservation Efforts: The Importance of Natural Lighting for Butterfly Behavioral Ecology and Conservation

Science.gov (United States)

2018-01-01

Light is arguably the most important abiotic factor for living organisms. Organisms evolved under specific lighting conditions and their behavior, physiology, and ecology are inexorably linked to light. Understanding light effects on biology could not be more important as present anthropogenic effects are greatly changing the light environments in which animals exist. The two biggest anthropogenic contributors changing light environments are: (1) anthropogenic lighting at night (i.e., light pollution); and (2) deforestation and the built environment. I highlight light importance for butterfly behavior, physiology, and ecology and stress the importance of including light as a conservation factor for conserving butterfly biodiversity. This review focuses on four parts: (1) Introducing the nature and extent of light. (2) Visual and non-visual light reception in butterflies. (3) Implications of unnatural lighting for butterflies across several different behavioral and ecological contexts. (4). Future directions for quantifying the threat of unnatural lighting on butterflies and simple approaches to mitigate unnatural light impacts on butterflies. I urge future research to include light as a factor and end with the hopeful thought that controlling many unnatural light conditions is simply done by flipping a switch. PMID:29439549

Enlightening Butterfly Conservation Efforts: The Importance of Natural Lighting for Butterfly Behavioral Ecology and Conservation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brett M Seymoure

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Light is arguably the most important abiotic factor for living organisms. Organisms evolved under specific lighting conditions and their behavior, physiology, and ecology are inexorably linked to light. Understanding light effects on biology could not be more important as present anthropogenic effects are greatly changing the light environments in which animals exist. The two biggest anthropogenic contributors changing light environments are: (1 anthropogenic lighting at night (i.e., light pollution; and (2 deforestation and the built environment. I highlight light importance for butterfly behavior, physiology, and ecology and stress the importance of including light as a conservation factor for conserving butterfly biodiversity. This review focuses on four parts: (1 Introducing the nature and extent of light. (2 Visual and non-visual light reception in butterflies. (3 Implications of unnatural lighting for butterflies across several different behavioral and ecological contexts. (4. Future directions for quantifying the threat of unnatural lighting on butterflies and simple approaches to mitigate unnatural light impacts on butterflies. I urge future research to include light as a factor and end with the hopeful thought that controlling many unnatural light conditions is simply done by flipping a switch.

Evolving artificial metalloenzymes via random mutagenesis

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Hao; Swartz, Alan M.; Park, Hyun June; Srivastava, Poonam; Ellis-Guardiola, Ken; Upp, David M.; Lee, Gihoon; Belsare, Ketaki; Gu, Yifan; Zhang, Chen; Moellering, Raymond E.; Lewis, Jared C.

2018-03-01

Random mutagenesis has the potential to optimize the efficiency and selectivity of protein catalysts without requiring detailed knowledge of protein structure; however, introducing synthetic metal cofactors complicates the expression and screening of enzyme libraries, and activity arising from free cofactor must be eliminated. Here we report an efficient platform to create and screen libraries of artificial metalloenzymes (ArMs) via random mutagenesis, which we use to evolve highly selective dirhodium cyclopropanases. Error-prone PCR and combinatorial codon mutagenesis enabled multiplexed analysis of random mutations, including at sites distal to the putative ArM active site that are difficult to identify using targeted mutagenesis approaches. Variants that exhibited significantly improved selectivity for each of the cyclopropane product enantiomers were identified, and higher activity than previously reported ArM cyclopropanases obtained via targeted mutagenesis was also observed. This improved selectivity carried over to other dirhodium-catalysed transformations, including N-H, S-H and Si-H insertion, demonstrating that ArMs evolved for one reaction can serve as starting points to evolve catalysts for others.

The iconic image in a digital age: Editorial mediations over the Alan Kurdi photographs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Mette; Allan, Stuart; Peters, Chris

2017-01-01

This article investigates selected newspapers’ editorial mediations over contrasting perceptions regarding the significance of a controversial set of “iconic” news photographs, namely images of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee, whose drowned corpse washed ashore in September, 2015. Spe......-reflexivity within a convergent digital media ecology, this article offers original insights into how and why the epistemic values governing visual communication are being reconsidered and redrawn under pressure from institutional imperatives....

[Regional ecological planning and ecological network construction: a case study of "Ji Triangle" Region].

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Bo; Han, Zeng-Lin; Tong, Lian-Jun

2009-05-01

By the methods of in situ investigation and regional ecological planning, the present ecological environment, ecosystem vulnerability, and ecological environment sensitivity in "Ji Triangle" Region were analyzed, and the ecological network of the study area was constructed. According to the ecological resources abundance degree, ecological recovery, farmland windbreak system, environmental carrying capacity, forestry foundation, and ecosystem integrity, the study area was classified into three regional ecological function ecosystems, i. e., east low hill ecosystem, middle plain ecosystem, and west plain wetland ecosystem. On the basis of marking regional ecological nodes, the regional ecological corridor (Haerbin-Dalian regional axis, Changchun-Jilin, Changchun-Songyuan, Jilin-Songyuan, Jilin-Siping, and Songyuan-Siping transportation corridor) and regional ecological network (one ring, three links, and three belts) were constructed. Taking the requests of regional ecological security into consideration, the ecological environment security system of "Ji Triangle" Region, including regional ecological conservation district, regional ecological restored district, and regional ecological management district, was built.

Civic Ecology: A Postmodern Approach to Ecological Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Lopes, V. L.

2013-12-01

Human agency is transforming the planetary processes at unprecedented rates risking damaging essential life-support systems. Climate change, massive species extinction, land degradation, resources depletion, overpopulation, poverty and social injustice are all the result of human choices and non-sustainable ways of life. The survival of our modern economic systems depends upon insatiable consumption - a simple way of life no longer satisfies most people. Detached, instrumental rationality has created an ideal of liberalism based on individual pursuit of self-interest, leading the way into unprecedented material progress but bringing with it human alienation, social injustice, and ecological degradation. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce a community-based systems response to a growing sense that the interlocked social-ecological crisis is as much a problem of human thought and behavior as it is about identifying carrying capacities and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. This approach, referred to here as civic ecology, presents a new and important paradigm shift in sustainability practice that attempts to bring together and integrate ecological ideas and postmodern thinking. As such, it is as much a holistic, dynamic, and synergistic approach to ecological sustainability, as it is a philosophy of life and ethical perspective born of ecological understanding and insight. Civic ecology starts with the proposition that the key factor determining the health of the ecosphere is the behavior of human beings, and therefore many of the most important issues related to sustainability lie in the areas of human thought and culture. Thus, the quest for sustainability must include as a central concern the transformation of psychological and behavioral patterns that have become an imminent danger to planetary health. At the core of this understanding is a fundamental paradigm shift from the basic commitments of modern Western culture to its model of mechanism

Ranking in evolving complex networks

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Hao; Mariani, Manuel Sebastian; Medo, Matúš; Zhang, Yi-Cheng; Zhou, Ming-Yang

2017-05-01

Complex networks have emerged as a simple yet powerful framework to represent and analyze a wide range of complex systems. The problem of ranking the nodes and the edges in complex networks is critical for a broad range of real-world problems because it affects how we access online information and products, how success and talent are evaluated in human activities, and how scarce resources are allocated by companies and policymakers, among others. This calls for a deep understanding of how existing ranking algorithms perform, and which are their possible biases that may impair their effectiveness. Many popular ranking algorithms (such as Google's PageRank) are static in nature and, as a consequence, they exhibit important shortcomings when applied to real networks that rapidly evolve in time. At the same time, recent advances in the understanding and modeling of evolving networks have enabled the development of a wide and diverse range of ranking algorithms that take the temporal dimension into account. The aim of this review is to survey the existing ranking algorithms, both static and time-aware, and their applications to evolving networks. We emphasize both the impact of network evolution on well-established static algorithms and the benefits from including the temporal dimension for tasks such as prediction of network traffic, prediction of future links, and identification of significant nodes.

Introduction to the Special Volume on "Ecology and Ecological Modeling in R"

OpenAIRE

Kneib, Thomas; Petzoldt, Thomas

2007-01-01

The third special volume in the "Foometrics in R" series of the Journal of Statistical Software collects a number of contributions describing statistical methodology and corresponding implementations related to ecology and ecological modelling. The scope of the papers ranges from theoretical ecology and ecological modelling to statistical methodology relevant for data analyses in ecological applications.

Prospects for resilience and sustainability of urban socio-techno-ecological systems to evolving stressors at global, regional, and local scales (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Grimm, N. B.

2013-12-01

Urbanization is occurring at an accelerating rate against a backdrop of the numerous other globally significant environmental changes that are the hallmark of the Anthropocene. Thus an understanding of the environmental impacts of urbanization must recognize the multiscalar context of other environmental changes. Cities are focal points of human population, production, and consumption, including the generation of waste and most of the critical emissions to the atmosphere. They are highly modified and dominated by built structure. They are generally depauperate of species and harbor their own microclimates and hot spots of pollutants. But they also are centers of human creative activities, and in that capacity may provide platforms for the transition to a more sustainable world. A view of the city, a complex social-technological-ecological system, as both driver and responder to these multiple stressors is key to developing appropriate conceptual frameworks for understanding urban ecosystem change. The convergence of global environmental change, including climate change, and worldwide urbanization presents numerous challenges for sustainability that are manifest at global, regional, and local scales. This presentation will explore the current reality and future prospects for resilience of cities and, more specifically, urban water systems, to extant and changing stressors at these three scales. At the global scale, challenges of supplying water for three billion new urban residents in the coming decades are explored through a geography of water availability, quality, and accessibility. At regional scales, I highlight differences in solutions to climate change-related challenges that derive from geophysical and socioecological gradients. And, at the local scale, blended technological and ecological solutions to the challenges of urban stormwater and the 'new normal' are discussed, based on a case study in an arid urban ecosystem. Urban resilience and sustainability

Adaptation of Escherichia coli to glucose promotes evolvability in lactose.

Science.gov (United States)

Phillips, Kelly N; Castillo, Gerardo; Wünsche, Andrea; Cooper, Tim F

2016-02-01

The selective history of a population can influence its subsequent evolution, an effect known as historical contingency. We previously observed that five of six replicate populations that were evolved in a glucose-limited environment for 2000 generations, then switched to lactose for 1000 generations, had higher fitness increases in lactose than populations started directly from the ancestor. To test if selection in glucose systematically increased lactose evolvability, we started 12 replay populations--six from a population subsample and six from a single randomly selected clone--from each of the six glucose-evolved founder populations. These replay populations and 18 ancestral populations were evolved for 1000 generations in a lactose-limited environment. We found that replay populations were initially slightly less fit in lactose than the ancestor, but were more evolvable, in that they increased in fitness at a faster rate and to higher levels. This result indicates that evolution in the glucose environment resulted in genetic changes that increased the potential of genotypes to adapt to lactose. Genome sequencing identified four genes--iclR, nadR, spoT, and rbs--that were mutated in most glucose-evolved clones and are candidates for mediating increased evolvability. Our results demonstrate that short-term selective costs during selection in one environment can lead to changes in evolvability that confer longer term benefits. © 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

Digitization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Finnemann, Niels Ole

2014-01-01

what a concept of digital media might add to the understanding of processes of mediatization and what the concept of mediatization might add to the understanding of digital media. It is argued that digital media open an array of new trajectories in human communication, trajectories which were...

The New Digital Divide For Digital BioMarkers.

Science.gov (United States)

Torous, John; Rodriguez, Jorge; Powell, Adam

2017-09-01

As smartphone and sensors continue to become more ubiquitous across the world, digital biomarkers have emerged as a scalable and practical tool to explore disease states and advance health. But as the digital divide of access and ownership begins to fade, a new digital divide is emerging. Who are the types of people that own smartphones or smart watches, who are the types of people that download health apps or partake in digital biomarker studies, and who are the types of people that are actually active with digital biomarkers apps and sensors - the people providing the high quality and longitudinal data that this field is being founded upon? Understanding the people behind digital biomarkers, the very people this emerging field aims to help, may actually be the real challenge as well as opportunity for digital biomarkers.

Evolving fuzzy rules for relaxed-criteria negotiation.

Science.gov (United States)

Sim, Kwang Mong

2008-12-01

In the literature on automated negotiation, very few negotiation agents are designed with the flexibility to slightly relax their negotiation criteria to reach a consensus more rapidly and with more certainty. Furthermore, these relaxed-criteria negotiation agents were not equipped with the ability to enhance their performance by learning and evolving their relaxed-criteria negotiation rules. The impetus of this work is designing market-driven negotiation agents (MDAs) that not only have the flexibility of relaxing bargaining criteria using fuzzy rules, but can also evolve their structures by learning new relaxed-criteria fuzzy rules to improve their negotiation outcomes as they participate in negotiations in more e-markets. To this end, an evolutionary algorithm for adapting and evolving relaxed-criteria fuzzy rules was developed. Implementing the idea in a testbed, two kinds of experiments for evaluating and comparing EvEMDAs (MDAs with relaxed-criteria rules that are evolved using the evolutionary algorithm) and EMDAs (MDAs with relaxed-criteria rules that are manually constructed) were carried out through stochastic simulations. Empirical results show that: 1) EvEMDAs generally outperformed EMDAs in different types of e-markets and 2) the negotiation outcomes of EvEMDAs generally improved as they negotiated in more e-markets.

DrawCompileEvolve: Sparking interactive evolutionary art with human creations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Jinhong; Taarnby, Rasmus; Liapis, Antonios

2015-01-01

This paper presents DrawCompileEvolve, a web-based drawing tool which allows users to draw simple primitive shapes, group them together or define patterns in their groupings (e.g. symmetry, repetition). The user’s vector drawing is then compiled into an indirectly encoded genetic representation......, which can be evolved interactively, allowing the user to change the image’s colors, patterns and ultimately transform it. The human artist has direct control while drawing the initial seed of an evolutionary run and indirect control while interactively evolving it, thus making DrawCompileEvolve a mixed...

Bacterial signaling ecology and potential applications during aquatic biofilm construction.

Science.gov (United States)

Vega, Leticia M; Alvarez, Pedro J; McLean, Robert J C

2014-07-01

In their natural environment, bacteria and other microorganisms typically grow as surface-adherent biofilm communities. Cell signal processes, including quorum signaling, are now recognized as being intimately involved in the development and function of biofilms. In contrast to their planktonic (unattached) counterparts, bacteria within biofilms are notoriously resistant to many traditional antimicrobial agents and so represent a major challenge in industry and medicine. Although biofilms impact many human activities, they actually represent an ancient mode of bacterial growth as shown in the fossil record. Consequently, many aquatic organisms have evolved strategies involving signal manipulation to control or co-exist with biofilms. Here, we review the chemical ecology of biofilms and propose mechanisms whereby signal manipulation can be used to promote or control biofilms.

Digitization errors using digital charge division positionsensitive detectors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berliner, R.; Mildner, D.F.R.; Pringle, O.A.

1981-01-01

The data acquisition speed and electronic stability of a charge division position-sensitive detector may be improved by using digital signal processing with a table look-up high speed multiply to form the charge division quotient. This digitization process introduces a positional quantization difficulty which reduces the detector position sensitivity. The degree of the digitization error is dependent on the pulse height spectrum of the detector and on the resolution or dynamic range of the system analog-to-digital converters. The effects have been investigated analytically and by computer simulation. The optimum algorithm for position sensing determination using 8-bit digitization and arithmetic has a digitization error of less than 1%. (orig.)

Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world.

Science.gov (United States)

2017-11-01

The digital landscape is evolving more quickly than research on the effects of screen media on the development, learning and family life of young children. This statement examines the potential benefits and risks of screen media in children younger than 5 years, focusing on developmental, psychosocial and physical health. Evidence-based guidance to optimize and support children's early media experiences involves four principles: minimizing, mitigating, mindfully using and modelling healthy use of screens. Knowing how young children learn and develop informs best practice strategies for health care providers.

Structured Course Objects in a Digital Library

Science.gov (United States)

Maly, K.; Zubair, M.; Liu, X.; Nelson, M.; Zeil, S.

1999-01-01

We are developing an Undergraduate Digital Library Framework (UDLF) that will support creation/archiving of courses and reuse of existing course material to evolve courses. UDLF supports the publication of course materials for later instantiation for a specific offering and allows the addition of time-dependent and student-specific information and structures. Instructors and, depending on permissions, students can access the general course materials or the materials for a specific offering. We are building a reference implementation based on NCSTRL+, a digital library derived from NCSTRL. Digital objects in NCSTRL+ are called buckets, self-contained entities that carry their own methods for access and display. Current bucket implementations have a two level structure of packages and elements. This is not a rich enough structure for course objects in UDLF. Typically, courses can only be modeled as a multilevel hierarchy and among different courses, both the syntax and semantics of terms may vary. Therefore, we need a mechanism to define, within a particular library, course models, their constituent objects, and the associated semantics in a flexible, extensible way. In this paper, we describe our approach to define and implement these multilayered course objects. We use XML technology to emulate complex data structures within the NCSTRL+ buckets. We have developed authoring and browsing tools to manipulate these course objects. In our current implementation a user downloading an XML based course bucket also downloads the XML-aware tools: an applet that enables the user to edit or browse the bucket. We claim that XML provides an effective means to represent multi-level structure of a course bucket.

Design mobile satellite system architecture as an integral part of the cellular access digital network

Science.gov (United States)

Chien, E. S. K.; Marinho, J. A.; Russell, J. E., Sr.

1988-01-01

The Cellular Access Digital Network (CADN) is the access vehicle through which cellular technology is brought into the mainstream of the evolving integrated telecommunications network. Beyond the integrated end-to-end digital access and per call network services provisioning of the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the CADN engenders the added capability of mobility freedom via wireless access. One key element of the CADN network architecture is the standard user to network interface that is independent of RF transmission technology. Since the Mobile Satellite System (MSS) is envisioned to not only complement but also enhance the capabilities of the terrestrial cellular telecommunications network, compatibility and interoperability between terrestrial cellular and mobile satellite systems are vitally important to provide an integrated moving telecommunications network of the future. From a network standpoint, there exist very strong commonalities between the terrestrial cellular system and the mobile satellite system. Therefore, the MSS architecture should be designed as an integral part of the CADN. This paper describes the concept of the CADN, the functional architecture of the MSS, and the user-network interface signaling protocols.

[Ecological carrying capacity and Chongming Island's ecological construction].

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Kaiyun; Zou, Chunjing; Kong, Zhenghong; Wang, Tianhou; Chen, Xiaoyong

2005-12-01

This paper overviewed the goals of Chongming Island's ecological construction and its background, analyzed the current eco-economic status and constraints of the Island, and put forward some scientific issues on its ecological construction. It was suggested that for the resources-saving and sustainable development of the Island, the researches on its ecological construction should be based on its ecological carrying capacity, fully take the regional characteristics into consideration, and refer the successful development modes at home and abroad. The carrying capacity study should ground on systemic and dynamic views, give a thorough evaluation of the Island's present carrying capacity, simulate its possible changes, and forecast its demands and risks. Operable countermeasures to promote the Island's carrying capacity should be worked out, new industry structure, population scale, and optimized distribution projects conforming to regional carrying capacity should be formulated, and effective ecological security alarming and control system should be built, with the aim of providing suggestions and strategic evidences for the decision-making of economic development and sustainable environmental resources use of the region.

Philosophy of ecology

CERN Document Server

Brown, Bryson; Peacock, Kent A

2011-01-01

The most pressing problems facing humanity today - over-population, energy shortages, climate change, soil erosion, species extinctions, the risk of epidemic disease, the threat of warfare that could destroy all the hard-won gains of civilization, and even the recent fibrillations of the stock market - are all ecological or have a large ecological component. in this volume philosophers turn their attention to understanding the science of ecology and its huge implications for the human project. To get the application of ecology to policy or other practical concerns right, humanity needs a clear and disinterested philosophical understanding of ecology which can help identify the practical lessons of science. Conversely, the urgent practical demands humanity faces today cannot help but direct scientific and philosophical investigation toward the basis of those ecological challenges that threaten human survival. This book will help to fuel the timely renaissance of interest in philosophy of ecology that is now oc...

Research on Digital Product Modeling Key Technologies of Digital Manufacturing

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

DING Guoping; ZHOU Zude; HU Yefa; ZHAO Liang

2006-01-01

With the globalization and diversification of the market and the rapid development of Information Technology (IT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the digital revolution of manufacturing is coming. One of the key technologies in digital manufacturing is product digital modeling. This paper firstly analyzes the information and features of the product digital model during each stage in the product whole lifecycle, then researches on the three critical technologies of digital modeling in digital manufacturing-product modeling, standard for the exchange of product model data and digital product data management. And the potential signification of the product digital model during the process of digital manufacturing is concluded-product digital model integrates primary features of each stage during the product whole lifecycle based on graphic features, applies STEP as data exchange mechanism, and establishes PDM system to manage the large amount, complicated and dynamic product data to implement the product digital model data exchange, sharing and integration.

Origin of life in a digital microcosm

Science.gov (United States)

C G, Nitash; LaBar, Thomas; Hintze, Arend; Adami, Christoph

2017-11-01

While all organisms on Earth share a common descent, there is no consensus on whether the origin of the ancestral self-replicator was a one-off event or whether it only represented the final survivor of multiple origins. Here, we use the digital evolution system Avida to study the origin of self-replicating computer programs. By using a computational system, we avoid many of the uncertainties inherent in any biochemical system of self-replicators (while running the risk of ignoring a fundamental aspect of biochemistry). We generated the exhaustive set of minimal-genome self-replicators and analysed the network structure of this fitness landscape. We further examined the evolvability of these self-replicators and found that the evolvability of a self-replicator is dependent on its genomic architecture. We also studied the differential ability of replicators to take over the population when competed against each other, akin to a primordial-soup model of biogenesis, and found that the probability of a self-replicator outcompeting the others is not uniform. Instead, progenitor (most-recent common ancestor) genotypes are clustered in a small region of the replicator space. Our results demonstrate how computational systems can be used as test systems for hypotheses concerning the origin of life. This article is part of the themed issue 'Reconceptualizing the origins of life'.

Digital Pulser for Characterization and Diagnostic of Digital Spectrometers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jordanov, V.T.

2013-01-01

The concept and the realization of the digital pulser are presented. The digital pulser is implemented as a functional block of a digital spectrometer. The digital pulser provides noise free and distortion free measurement of the inherent electronic noise of the entire spectroscopy system. The digital pulser is introduced at the end of the signal processing chain and allows separate evaluation of the individual spectroscopy blocks. It offers the ability to characterize and diagnose problems of the digital pulse height analysers by grounding their inputs. The digital pulser does not interfere with the processing of the detector signals and does not contribute to the dead time and the pulse pile-up of the system. The digital pulser peaks are not affected by the presence of detector pulses and are stored in a separate histogram memory leaving the detector spectrum undistorted. (author)

Digital Ethics/Going Digital.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, Bradley

1996-01-01

Finds that the recent National Press Photographers Association code of ethics can serve as a model for any photography staff. Discusses how digital imaging is becoming commonplace in classrooms, due to decreasing costs and easier software. Explains digital terminology. Concludes that time saved in the darkroom and at the printer is now spent on…

World-Ecology and Ireland: The Neoliberal Ecological Regime

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sharae Deckard

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Since the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, the socio-economic particularity of neoliberal capitalism in its Irish manifestation has increasingly been critiqued, but little attention has been paid to neoliberalism as ecology within Ireland. This article conducts an exploratory survey of the characteristics of the Irish neoliberal ecological regime during and after the Celtic Tiger, identifying the opening of new commodity frontiers (such as fracking, water, agro-biotechnology, and biopharma constituted in the neoliberal drive to appropriate and financialize nature. I argue for the usefulness of applying not only the tools of world-systems analysis, but also Jason W. Moore’s world-ecological paradigm, to analysis of Ireland as a semi-periphery. What is crucial to a macro-ecological understanding of Ireland’s role in the neoliberal regime of the world-ecology is the inextricability of its financial role as a tax haven and secrecy jurisdiction zone from its environmental function as a semi-peripheral pollution and water haven. We can adapt Jason W. Moore’s slogan that “Wall Street…becomes a way of organizing all of nature, characterized by the financialization of any income-generating activity” (Moore 2011b: 39 to say that to say that the “IFSC is a way of organizing nature,” with pernicious consequences for water, energy, and food systems in Ireland. Financial service centers and pharmaceutical factories, plantations and cattle ranches, tax havens and pollution havens, empires and common markets are all forms of environment-making that constellate human relations and extra-human processes into new ecological regimes. More expansive, dialectical understandings of “ecology” as comprising the whole of socio-ecological relations within the capitalist world-ecology—from farming to pharma to financialization—are crucial to forming configurations of knowledge able not only to take account of Ireland’s role in the environmental

Can We Teach Digital Natives Digital Literacy?

Science.gov (United States)

Ng, Wan

2012-01-01

In recent years, there has been much debate about the concept of digital natives, in particular the differences between the digital natives' knowledge and adoption of digital technologies in informal versus formal educational contexts. This paper investigates the knowledge about educational technologies of a group of undergraduate students…

A guideline to improve qualitative social science publishing in ecology and conservation journals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katie Moon

2016-09-01

Full Text Available A rise in qualitative social science manuscripts published in ecology and conservation journals speaks to the growing awareness of the importance of the human dimension in maintaining and improving Earth's ecosystems. Given the rise in the quantity of qualitative social science research published in ecology and conservation journals, it is worthwhile quantifying the extent to which this research is meeting established criteria for research design, conduct, and interpretation. Through a comprehensive review of this literature, we aimed to gather and assess data on the nature and extent of information presented on research design published qualitative research articles, which could be used to judge research quality. Our review was based on 146 studies from across nine ecology and conservation journals. We reviewed and summarized elements of quality that could be used by reviewers and readers to evaluate qualitative research (dependability, credibility, confirmability, and transferability; assessed the prevalence of these elements in research published in ecology and conservation journals; and explored the implications of sound qualitative research reporting for applying research findings. We found that dependability and credibility were reasonably well reported, albeit poorly evolved in relation to critical aspects of qualitative social science such as methodology and triangulation, including reflexivity. Confirmability was, on average, inadequately accounted for, particularly with respect to researchers' ontology, epistemology, or philosophical perspective and their choice of methodology. Transferability was often poorly developed in terms of triangulation methods and the suitability of the sample for answering the research question/s. Based on these findings, we provide a guideline that may be used to evaluate qualitative research presented in ecology and conservation journals to help secure the role of qualitative research and its application

Ecological and general systems an introduction to systems ecology

CERN Document Server

Odum, Howard T.

1994-01-01

Using an energy systems language that combines energetics, kinetics, information, cybernetics, and simulation, Ecological and General Systems compares models of many fields of science, helping to derive general systems principles. First published as Systems Ecology in 1983, Ecological and General Systems proposes principles of self-organization and the designs that prevail by maximizing power and efficiency. Comparisons to fifty other systems languages are provided. Innovative presentations are given on earth homeostasis (Gaia); the inadequacy of presenting equations without network relationships and energy constraints; the alternative interpretation of high entropy complexity as adaptive structure; basic equations of ecological economics; and the energy basis of scientific hierarchy.

Global ecological success of Thalassoma fishes in extreme coral reef habitats

KAUST Repository

Fulton, Christopher J.

2016-12-20

Phenotypic adaptations can allow organisms to relax abiotic selection and facilitate their ecological success in challenging habitats, yet we have relatively little data for the prevalence of this phenomenon at macroecological scales. Using data on the relative abundance of coral reef wrasses and parrotfishes (f. Labridae) spread across three ocean basins and the Red Sea, we reveal the consistent global dominance of extreme wave-swept habitats by fishes in the genus Thalassoma, with abundances up to 15 times higher than any other labrid. A key locomotor modification-a winged pectoral fin that facilitates efficient underwater flight in high-flow environments-is likely to have underpinned this global success, as numerical dominance by Thalassoma was contingent upon the presence of high-intensity wave energy. The ecological success of the most abundant species also varied with species richness and the presence of congeneric competitors. While several fish taxa have independently evolved winged pectoral fins, Thalassoma appears to have combined efficient high-speed swimming (to relax abiotic selection) with trophic versatility (to maximize exploitation of rich resources) to exploit and dominate extreme coral reef habitats around the world.

Global ecological success of Thalassoma fishes in extreme coral reef habitats.

Science.gov (United States)

Fulton, Christopher J; Wainwright, Peter C; Hoey, Andrew S; Bellwood, David R

2017-01-01

Phenotypic adaptations can allow organisms to relax abiotic selection and facilitate their ecological success in challenging habitats, yet we have relatively little data for the prevalence of this phenomenon at macroecological scales. Using data on the relative abundance of coral reef wrasses and parrotfishes (f. Labridae) spread across three ocean basins and the Red Sea, we reveal the consistent global dominance of extreme wave-swept habitats by fishes in the genus Thalassoma , with abundances up to 15 times higher than any other labrid. A key locomotor modification-a winged pectoral fin that facilitates efficient underwater flight in high-flow environments-is likely to have underpinned this global success, as numerical dominance by Thalassoma was contingent upon the presence of high-intensity wave energy. The ecological success of the most abundant species also varied with species richness and the presence of congeneric competitors. While several fish taxa have independently evolved winged pectoral fins, Thalassoma appears to have combined efficient high-speed swimming (to relax abiotic selection) with trophic versatility (to maximize exploitation of rich resources) to exploit and dominate extreme coral reef habitats around the world.

Organising a safe space for navigating social-ecological transformations to sustainability.

Science.gov (United States)

Pereira, Laura; Karpouzoglou, Timothy; Doshi, Samir; Frantzeskaki, Niki

2015-05-28

The need for developing socially just living conditions for the world's growing population whilst keeping human societies within a 'safe operating space' has become a modern imperative. This requires transformative changes in the dominant social norms, behaviours, governance and management regimes that guide human responses in areas such as urban ecology, public health, resource security (e.g., food, water, energy access), economic development and biodiversity conservation. However, such systemic transformations necessitate experimentation in public arenas of exchange and a deepening of processes that can widen multi-stakeholder learning. We argue that there is an emergent potential in bridging the sustainability transitions and resilience approaches to create new scientific capacity that can support large-scale social-ecological transformations (SETs) to sustainability globally, not just in the West. In this article, we elucidate a set of guiding principles for the design of a 'safe space' to encourage stronger interactions between these research areas and others that are relevant to the challenges faced. We envisage new opportunities for transdisciplinary collaboration that will develop an adaptive and evolving community of practice. In particular, we emphasise the great opportunity for engaging with the role of emerging economies in facilitating safe space experimentation.

Global ecological success of Thalassoma fishes in extreme coral reef habitats

KAUST Repository

Fulton, Christopher J.; Wainwright, Peter C.; Hoey, Andrew; Bellwood, David R.

2016-01-01

Phenotypic adaptations can allow organisms to relax abiotic selection and facilitate their ecological success in challenging habitats, yet we have relatively little data for the prevalence of this phenomenon at macroecological scales. Using data on the relative abundance of coral reef wrasses and parrotfishes (f. Labridae) spread across three ocean basins and the Red Sea, we reveal the consistent global dominance of extreme wave-swept habitats by fishes in the genus Thalassoma, with abundances up to 15 times higher than any other labrid. A key locomotor modification-a winged pectoral fin that facilitates efficient underwater flight in high-flow environments-is likely to have underpinned this global success, as numerical dominance by Thalassoma was contingent upon the presence of high-intensity wave energy. The ecological success of the most abundant species also varied with species richness and the presence of congeneric competitors. While several fish taxa have independently evolved winged pectoral fins, Thalassoma appears to have combined efficient high-speed swimming (to relax abiotic selection) with trophic versatility (to maximize exploitation of rich resources) to exploit and dominate extreme coral reef habitats around the world.

Origins and ecological consequences of pollen specialization among desert bees.

Science.gov (United States)

Minckley, R L; Cane, J H; Kervin, L

2000-02-07

An understanding of the evolutionary origins of insect foraging specialization is often hindered by a poor biogeographical and palaeoecological record. The historical biogeography (20,000 years before present to the present) of the desert-limited plant, creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), is remarkably complete. This history coupled with the distribution pattern of its bee fauna suggests pollen specialization for creosote bush pollen has evolved repeatedly among bees in the Lower Sonoran and Mojave deserts. In these highly xeric, floristically depauperate environments, species of specialist bees surpass generalist bees in diversity, biomass and abundance. The ability of specialist bees to facultatively remain in diapause through resource-poor years and to emerge synchronously with host plant bloom in resource-rich years probably explains their ecological dominance and persistence in these areas. Repeated origins of pollen specialization to one host plant where bloom occurs least predictably is a counter-example to prevailing theories that postulate such traits originate where the plant grows best and blooms most reliably Host-plant synchronization, a paucity of alternative floral hosts, or flowering attributes of creosote bush alone or in concert may account for the diversity of bee specialists that depend on this plant instead of nutritional factors or chemical coevolution between floral rewards and the pollinators they have evolved to attract.

Evolving Procurement Organizations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bals, Lydia; Laine, Jari; Mugurusi, Godfrey

Procurement has to find further levers and advance its contribution to corporate goals continuously. This places pressure on its organization in order to facilitate its performance. Therefore, procurement organizations constantly have to evolve in order to match these demands. A conceptual model...... and external contingency factors and having a more detailed look at the structural dimensions chosen, beyond the well-known characteristics of centralization, formalization, participation, specialization, standardization and size. From a theoretical perspective, it opens up insights that can be leveraged...

Snake venoms are integrated systems, but abundant venom proteins evolve more rapidly.

Science.gov (United States)

Aird, Steven D; Aggarwal, Shikha; Villar-Briones, Alejandro; Tin, Mandy Man-Ying; Terada, Kouki; Mikheyev, Alexander S

2015-08-28

While many studies have shown that extracellular proteins evolve rapidly, how selection acts on them remains poorly understood. We used snake venoms to understand the interaction between ecology, expression level, and evolutionary rate in secreted protein systems. Venomous snakes employ well-integrated systems of proteins and organic constituents to immobilize prey. Venoms are generally optimized to subdue preferred prey more effectively than non-prey, and many venom protein families manifest positive selection and rapid gene family diversification. Although previous studies have illuminated how individual venom protein families evolve, how selection acts on venoms as integrated systems, is unknown. Using next-generation transcriptome sequencing and mass spectrometry, we examined microevolution in two pitvipers, allopatrically separated for at least 1.6 million years, and their hybrids. Transcriptomes of parental species had generally similar compositions in regard to protein families, but for a given protein family, the homologs present and concentrations thereof sometimes differed dramatically. For instance, a phospholipase A2 transcript comprising 73.4 % of the Protobothrops elegans transcriptome, was barely present in the P. flavoviridis transcriptome (king cobra genome, suggesting that rapid evolution of abundant proteins may be generally true for snake venoms. Looking more broadly at Protobothrops, we show that rapid evolution of the most abundant components is due to positive selection, suggesting an interplay between abundance and adaptation. Given log-scale differences in toxin abundance, which are likely correlated with biosynthetic costs, we hypothesize that as a result of natural selection, snakes optimize return on energetic investment by producing more of venom proteins that increase their fitness. Natural selection then acts on the additive genetic variance of these components, in proportion to their contributions to overall fitness. Adaptive

Laplacian Estrada and normalized Laplacian Estrada indices of evolving graphs.

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Yilun

2015-01-01

Large-scale time-evolving networks have been generated by many natural and technological applications, posing challenges for computation and modeling. Thus, it is of theoretical and practical significance to probe mathematical tools tailored for evolving networks. In this paper, on top of the dynamic Estrada index, we study the dynamic Laplacian Estrada index and the dynamic normalized Laplacian Estrada index of evolving graphs. Using linear algebra techniques, we established general upper and lower bounds for these graph-spectrum-based invariants through a couple of intuitive graph-theoretic measures, including the number of vertices or edges. Synthetic random evolving small-world networks are employed to show the relevance of the proposed dynamic Estrada indices. It is found that neither the static snapshot graphs nor the aggregated graph can approximate the evolving graph itself, indicating the fundamental difference between the static and dynamic Estrada indices.

Ecological security pattern construction based on ecological protection redlines in China

Science.gov (United States)

Zou, Changxin

2017-04-01

China is facing huge environmental problems with its current rapid rate of urbanization and industrialization, thus causing biodiversity loss, ecosystem service degradation on a major scale. Against this background, three previous examples (the nature reserve policy, the afforestation policy, and the zoning policy) are implemented in China. These all play important roles in protecting natural ecosystems, although they can sometimes cause new problems and lack rigorous targets for environmental outcomes. To overcome current management conflicts, China has proposed a new "ecological protection redlines" policy (EPR). EPR can be defined as the ecological baseline area needed to provide ecosystem services to guarantee and maintain ecological safety. This study analyzed the scope, objectives and technical methods of delineating EPR in China, and put forward the proposed scheme for the ecological security pattern based on EPR. We constructed three kinds of redlines in China, including key ecological function area redlines, ecological sensitive or fragile areas redlines, and forbidden development areas redlines. For the key ecological function area redlines, a total of 38 water conservation functional zones have been designated, covering a total area of 3.23 million km2; 14 soil conservation zones have been designated, covering a total area of 881700 km2; wind-prevention and sand-fixation zones across the country cover a total area of about 1.73 million km2, accounting for 57.13% of the total land area of the whole country. With respect to the ecologically vulnerable redlines, 18 ecologically vulnerable zones has been designated across the country, covering 2.19 million km2, accounting for 22.86% of the total land area of the whole country. Forbidden development areas redlines covered a total area of 3.29 million km2, accounting for 34.3% of the total land area of the whole country. We also suggest to form a complete ecological security pattern including patterns of

Ecology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kalusche, D.

1978-01-01

The book turns to the freshment, the teacher, for preparation of ecological topics for lessons, but also to pupils of the secondary stage II, and the main course ecology. The book was knowingly held simple with the restriction to: the ecosystem and its abiotic basic functions, simple articles on population biology, bioceonotic balance ith the questions of niche formation and the life form types coherent with it, of the substance and energy household, the production biology and space-wise and time-wise differentations within an ecological system form the main points. A central role in the volume is given to the illustrations. Their variety is to show and deepen the coherences shown. (orig./HP) [de

Ecological risk assessment of hydropower dam construction based on ecological network analysis

OpenAIRE

Chen, Shaoqing; Fath, Brian D.; Chen, Bin

2010-01-01

Dam construction is regarded as one of the major factors contributing to significant modifications of the river ecosystems, and the ecological risk (ER) assessment of dam construction has received growing attention in recent years. In the present study, we explored the potential ecological risk caused by dam project based on the general principles of the ecological risk assessment. Ecological network analysis was proposed as the usable analytic method for the implement of ecological risk asse...

Estimating Vegetation Height from WorldView-02 and ArcticDEM Data for Broad Ecological Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Meddens, A. J.; Vierling, L. A.; Eitel, J.; Jennewein, J. S.; White, J. C.; Wulder, M.

2017-12-01

Boreal and arctic regions are warming at an unprecedented rate, and at a rate higher than in other regions across the globe. Ecological processes are highly responsive to temperature and therefore substantial changes in these northern ecosystems are expected. Recently, NASA initiated the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), which is a large-scale field campaign that aims to gain a better understanding of how the arctic responds to environmental change. High-resolution data products that quantify vegetation structure and function will improve efforts to assess these environmental change impacts. Our objective was to develop and test an approach that allows for mapping vegetation height at a 5m grid cell resolution across the ABoVE domain. To accomplish this, we selected three study areas across a north-south gradient in Alaska, representing an area of approximately 130 km2. We developed a RandomForest modeling approach for predicting vegetation height using the ArcticDEM (a digital surface model produced across the Arctic by the Polar Geospatial Center) and high-resolution multispectral satellite data (WorldView-2) in conjunction with aerial lidar data for calibration and validation. Vegetation height was successfully predicted across the three study areas and evaluated using an independent dataset, with R2 ranging from 0.58 to 0.76 and RMSEs ranging from 1.8 to 2.4 m. This predicted vegetation height dataset also led to the development of a digital terrain model using the ArcticDEM digital surface model by removing canopy heights from the surface heights. Our results show potential to establish a high resolution pan-arctic vegetation height map, which will provide useful information to a broad range of ongoing and future ecological research in high northern latitudes.

Laplacian Estrada and normalized Laplacian Estrada indices of evolving graphs.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yilun Shang

Full Text Available Large-scale time-evolving networks have been generated by many natural and technological applications, posing challenges for computation and modeling. Thus, it is of theoretical and practical significance to probe mathematical tools tailored for evolving networks. In this paper, on top of the dynamic Estrada index, we study the dynamic Laplacian Estrada index and the dynamic normalized Laplacian Estrada index of evolving graphs. Using linear algebra techniques, we established general upper and lower bounds for these graph-spectrum-based invariants through a couple of intuitive graph-theoretic measures, including the number of vertices or edges. Synthetic random evolving small-world networks are employed to show the relevance of the proposed dynamic Estrada indices. It is found that neither the static snapshot graphs nor the aggregated graph can approximate the evolving graph itself, indicating the fundamental difference between the static and dynamic Estrada indices.

Digitization and digital archiving a practical guide for librarians

CERN Document Server

Leggett, Elizabeth R

2014-01-01

Modern library patrons are embracing the ease with which information can be accessed digitally, and so many librarians are currently working toward making information available electronically. Digitization and Digital Archiving: A Practical Guide for Librarians is a comprehensive guide with step-by-step instructions for forming digital archives.

Digital disruption ?syndromes.

Science.gov (United States)

Sullivan, Clair; Staib, Andrew

2017-05-18

The digital transformation of hospitals in Australia is occurring rapidly in order to facilitate innovation and improve efficiency. Rapid transformation can cause temporary disruption of hospital workflows and staff as processes are adapted to the new digital workflows. The aim of this paper is to outline various types of digital disruption and some strategies for effective management. A large tertiary university hospital recently underwent a rapid, successful roll-out of an integrated electronic medical record (EMR). We observed this transformation and propose several digital disruption "syndromes" to assist with understanding and management during digital transformation: digital deceleration, digital transparency, digital hypervigilance, data discordance, digital churn and post-digital 'depression'. These 'syndromes' are defined and discussed in detail. Successful management of this temporary digital disruption is important to ensure a successful transition to a digital platform. What is known about this topic? Digital disruption is defined as the changes facilitated by digital technologies that occur at a pace and magnitude that disrupt established ways of value creation, social interactions, doing business and more generally our thinking. Increasing numbers of Australian hospitals are implementing digital solutions to replace traditional paper-based systems for patient care in order to create opportunities for improved care and efficiencies. Such large scale change has the potential to create transient disruption to workflows and staff. Managing this temporary disruption effectively is an important factor in the successful implementation of an EMR. What does this paper add? A large tertiary university hospital recently underwent a successful rapid roll-out of an integrated electronic medical record (EMR) to become Australia's largest digital hospital over a 3-week period. We observed and assisted with the management of several cultural, behavioural and

[Tourism ecological security early warning of Zhangjiajie, China based on the improved TOPSIS method and the grey GM (1,1)model].

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Mei; Liu, Chun la; Li, Dan; Zhong, Xiao Lin

2017-11-01

Tourism ecological security early warning is of great significance both to the coordination of ecological environment protection and tourism industry rapid development in tourism destination, and the sustainable and healthy development of regional social and economy. Firstly, based on the DPSIR model, the tourism ecological security early warning index system of Zhangjiajie was constructed from 5 aspects, which were driving force, pressure, state, impact and response. Then, by using the improved TOPSIS method, the tourism ecological security situation of Zhangjiajie from 2001 to 2014 was analyzed. Lastly, by using the grey GM (1,1) model, the tourism ecological security evolution trend of 2015-2020 was predicted. The results indicated that, on the whole, the close degree of Zhangjiajie's tourism ecological security showed a slightly upward trend during 2001-2014, the warning degree was the moderate warning. In terms of each subsystem, warning degree of the driving force system and the pressure system of Zhangjiajie's tourism ecological secu-rity were on the rise, which evolved from light warning to heavy warning; warning degree of the state system and the impact system had not changed so much, and had been in the moderate warning; warning degree of the response system was on the decline, which changed from huge warning to no warning during 2001-2014. According to the current development trend, the close degree of Zhangjiajie's tourism ecological security would rise further in 2015-2020, and the warning degree would turn from moderate warning into light warning, but the task of coordinating the relationship between tourism development and ecological construction and environmental protection would be still arduous.

Digital Natives and Digital Divide: Analysing Perspective for Emerging Pedagogy

Science.gov (United States)

Onye, Uriel U.; Du, Yunfei

2016-01-01

This paper addresses the concepts of digital natives and digital divide from the perspective of the digital outsiders (part of digital natives). It takes a critical look at the implications of available ICT in both developed and underdeveloped countries in the fight against digital divide. The major contribution to literature is by drawing…

Digital subtraktion

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mussmann, Bo Redder

2004-01-01

Digital subtraktion er en metode til at fjerne uønskede oplysninger i et røntgenbillede. Subtraktionsteknikken bruges primært i forbindelse med angiografi hvor man kun er interesseret i at se selve karret. Derfor er digital subtraktion i daglig tale synonymt med DSA eller DVI – hhv. Digital...... Subtraction Angiography eller Digital Vascular Imaging. Benævnelserne er to røntgenfirmaers navn for den samme teknik. Digital subtraktion kræver speciel software, samt at apparaturet kan eksponere i serier....

Annual report of ecological research at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1984-09-01

This report summarizes research conducted at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) during the annual period ending August 1, 1984. SREL is a regional research facility at the Savannah River Plant operated by the University of Georgia through a contract with the Department of Energy. It is part of the University of Georgia's Institute of Ecology. The overall goal of the research is to develop an understanding of the impact of various energy technologies and management practices on the ecosystems of the southeastern United States. SREL research is conducted by interdisciplinary research teams organized under three major divisions: (1) Biogeochemical Ecology, (2) Wetlands Ecology, and (3) Stress and Wildlife Ecology

The evolving energy budget of accretionary wedges

Science.gov (United States)

McBeck, Jessica; Cooke, Michele; Maillot, Bertrand; Souloumiac, Pauline

2017-04-01

The energy budget of evolving accretionary systems reveals how deformational processes partition energy as faults slip, topography uplifts, and layer-parallel shortening produces distributed off-fault deformation. The energy budget provides a quantitative framework for evaluating the energetic contribution or consumption of diverse deformation mechanisms. We investigate energy partitioning in evolving accretionary prisms by synthesizing data from physical sand accretion experiments and numerical accretion simulations. We incorporate incremental strain fields and cumulative force measurements from two suites of experiments to design numerical simulations that represent accretionary wedges with stronger and weaker detachment faults. One suite of the physical experiments includes a basal glass bead layer and the other does not. Two physical experiments within each suite implement different boundary conditions (stable base versus moving base configuration). Synthesizing observations from the differing base configurations reduces the influence of sidewall friction because the force vector produced by sidewall friction points in opposite directions depending on whether the base is fixed or moving. With the numerical simulations, we calculate the energy budget at two stages of accretion: at the maximum force preceding the development of the first thrust pair, and at the minimum force following the development of the pair. To identify the appropriate combination of material and fault properties to apply in the simulations, we systematically vary the Young's modulus and the fault static and dynamic friction coefficients in numerical accretion simulations, and identify the set of parameters that minimizes the misfit between the normal force measured on the physical backwall and the numerically simulated force. Following this derivation of the appropriate material and fault properties, we calculate the components of the work budget in the numerical simulations and in the

Small unmanned aerial vehicles (micro-UAVs, drones) in plant ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Cruzan, Mitchell B; Weinstein, Ben G; Grasty, Monica R; Kohrn, Brendan F; Hendrickson, Elizabeth C; Arredondo, Tina M; Thompson, Pamela G

2016-09-01

Low-elevation surveys with small aerial drones (micro-unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs]) may be used for a wide variety of applications in plant ecology, including mapping vegetation over small- to medium-sized regions. We provide an overview of methods and procedures for conducting surveys and illustrate some of these applications. Aerial images were obtained by flying a small drone along transects over the area of interest. Images were used to create a composite image (orthomosaic) and a digital surface model (DSM). Vegetation classification was conducted manually and using an automated routine. Coverage of an individual species was estimated from aerial images. We created a vegetation map for the entire region from the orthomosaic and DSM, and mapped the density of one species. Comparison of our manual and automated habitat classification confirmed that our mapping methods were accurate. A species with high contrast to the background matrix allowed adequate estimate of its coverage. The example surveys demonstrate that small aerial drones are capable of gathering large amounts of information on the distribution of vegetation and individual species with minimal impact to sensitive habitats. Low-elevation aerial surveys have potential for a wide range of applications in plant ecology.

Digital Citizenship Means Character Education for the Digital Age

Science.gov (United States)

Ohler, Jason

2012-01-01

The reality of students' cyber lives has thrust upon educators a new approach: creating character education programs tuned to digital youth that are proactive and aggressive. This will help integrate students' digital activities within the context of the communities in which they live, both local and digital. The digital age beckons a new era of…

Education in ecology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marek, R.

1993-01-01

It is not enough to convey knowledge, insights and attitudes if education in ecology is to have fruitful effects. Space and opportunity for action and creativity must be provided in addition. This includes personal consumer habits (eating, transport, hygiene, leisure activities etc.); an individual workplace - in this case school - that can be shaped according to ecological needs. Beyond this, ecological maturation should not be confined to, but should transcend school, for instance in youth groups, citizens' committees, political parties. If school does not inspire action - including action outside school -then education in ecology could be smothered by the Midas effect, where all life is reduced to material, to the curriculum in this case. This book presents ecological projects that have been tried at schools. They aim at an education in ecology that is oriented to the pupil and open to experience. They could be an incentive for colleagues to conduct similar projects at their schools. The projects work from the pupils' own experience and aim at concrete action and activities in his or her own environment. They should encourage teachers to venture outside the classroom with the pupils and teach ecology where it takes place. (orig.) [de

The ecological law and ecological human rights: to the question on necessity of formation

OpenAIRE

Khvorostov A. J.

2012-01-01

Necessity of the ecological law is determined by presence of ecological crisis and formed at formation of ecological function of the state. Ecological human rights and the citizen are natural human rights, however should be legally fixed and guaranteed by the state. The further functioning of a society is impossible without observance of norms of the ecological law and ecological human rights.

[Ecological memory and its potential applications in ecology: a review].

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Zhong-yu; Ren, Hai

2011-03-01

Ecological memory (EM) is defined as the capability of the past states or experiences of a community to influence the present or future ecological responses of the community. As a relatively new concept, EM has received considerable attention in the study of ecosystem structure and function, such as community succession, ecological restoration, biological invasion, and natural resource management. This review summarized the definition, components, and categories of EM, and discussed the possible mechanisms and affecting factors of EM. Also, the potential applications of EM were proposed, in order to further understand the mechanisms of community succession and to guide ecological restoration.

Recently evolved diversity and convergent radiations of rainforest mahoganies (Meliaceae) shed new light on the origins of rainforest hyperdiversity.

Science.gov (United States)

Koenen, Erik J M; Clarkson, James J; Pennington, Terence D; Chatrou, Lars W

2015-07-01

Tropical rainforest hyperdiversity is often suggested to have evolved over a long time-span (the 'museum' model), but there is also evidence for recent rainforest radiations. The mahoganies (Meliaceae) are a prominent plant group in lowland tropical rainforests world-wide but also occur in all other tropical ecosystems. We investigated whether rainforest diversity in Meliaceae has accumulated over a long time or has more recently evolved. We inferred the largest time-calibrated phylogeny for the family to date, reconstructed ancestral states for habitat and deciduousness, estimated diversification rates and modeled potential shifts in macro-evolutionary processes using a recently developed Bayesian method. The ancestral Meliaceae is reconstructed as a deciduous species that inhabited seasonal habitats. Rainforest clades have diversified from the Late Oligocene or Early Miocene onwards. Two contemporaneous Amazonian clades have converged on similar ecologies and high speciation rates. Most species-level diversity of Meliaceae in rainforest is recent. Other studies have found steady accumulation of lineages, but the large majority of plant species diversity in rainforests is recent, suggesting (episodic) species turnover. Rainforest hyperdiversity may best be explained by recent radiations from a large stock of higher level taxa. © 2015 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2015 New Phytologist Trust.

Digital Insights

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Knudsen, Gry Høngsmark

, by incorporating media as both channel, frame, and apparatus for advertising response, the dissertation brings into attention that more aspects than the text-reader relationship influence ad response. Finally, the dissertation proposes the assemblage approach for exploring big data in consumer culture research...... and practices with digital media, when they meet and interpret advertising. Through studies of advertising response on YouTube and experiments with consumers’ response to digitally manipulated images, the dissertation shows how digital media practices facilitate polysemic and socially embedded advertising......This dissertation forwards the theory of digital consumer-response as a perspective to examine how digital media practices influence consumers’ response to advertising. Digital consumer-response is a development of advertising theory that encompasses how consumers employ their knowledge...

Digital information culture the individual and society in the digital age

CERN Document Server

Tredinnick, Luke

2008-01-01

Digital Information Culture is an introduction to the cultural, social and political impact of digital information and digital resources. The book is organised around themes, rather than theories and is arranged into three sections: culture, society and the individual. Each explores key elements of the social, cultural and political impact of digital information. The culture section outlines the origins of cyber culture in fifties pulp-fiction through to the modern day. It explores the issues of information overload, the threat of a digital dark age, and the criminal underbelly of digital culture. Section two, society, explores the economic and social impact of digital information, outlining key theories of the Information Age. Section three explores the impact of digital information and digital resources on the individual, exploring the changing nature of identity in a digital world. Written by a leading author in the field Focuses on digital information and its social, cultural and political impact is uniqu...

Evolvable mathematical models: A new artificial Intelligence paradigm

Science.gov (United States)

Grouchy, Paul

We develop a novel Artificial Intelligence paradigm to generate autonomously artificial agents as mathematical models of behaviour. Agent/environment inputs are mapped to agent outputs via equation trees which are evolved in a manner similar to Symbolic Regression in Genetic Programming. Equations are comprised of only the four basic mathematical operators, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, as well as input and output variables and constants. From these operations, equations can be constructed that approximate any analytic function. These Evolvable Mathematical Models (EMMs) are tested and compared to their Artificial Neural Network (ANN) counterparts on two benchmarking tasks: the double-pole balancing without velocity information benchmark and the challenging discrete Double-T Maze experiments with homing. The results from these experiments show that EMMs are capable of solving tasks typically solved by ANNs, and that they have the ability to produce agents that demonstrate learning behaviours. To further explore the capabilities of EMMs, as well as to investigate the evolutionary origins of communication, we develop NoiseWorld, an Artificial Life simulation in which interagent communication emerges and evolves from initially noncommunicating EMM-based agents. Agents develop the capability to transmit their x and y position information over a one-dimensional channel via a complex, dialogue-based communication scheme. These evolved communication schemes are analyzed and their evolutionary trajectories examined, yielding significant insight into the emergence and subsequent evolution of cooperative communication. Evolved agents from NoiseWorld are successfully transferred onto physical robots, demonstrating the transferability of EMM-based AIs from simulation into physical reality.

ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS ONE OF THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF ECOLOGICAL POLICY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Diana O. Dushkova

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The article presents the concept of ecological consciousness and analyzes main features of its development and implementation in the environmental policy in European practice on the example of Germany. The study of German experience is conditioned by the fact that among the other developed countries of the world Germany is the leading country in its active work carried out at all levels of the environmental policy. It is shown that actions aimed at the development of ecological culture and environmental education of the civil society in Germany are of the same priority as the use of renewable energy, development of green technologies, etc. The article provides an overview of the most important publications devoted to the phenomenon of ecological consciousness and highlights different approaches to this definition. Based on the German experience, it defines the prerequisites, main roots and sources of ecological consciousness creation and the ways in which it can be involved in the regional programs on sustainable development and ecological policy. It analyzes the main practical approaches to the implementation of the principles of ecological consciousness in Germany as well as the role of environmental organizations in the realization of environmentally oriented activities. Therefore, it presents the main results of socio-ecological surveys conducted in Germany and Russia and gives their comparative analysis. It indicates possible ways to transfer the German experience in the Russian context to improve the ecological awareness of the Russian society and to arise its ecological activity in addressing environmental issues.

The fascinating facets of plant selenium accumulation - biochemistry, physiology, evolution and ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Schiavon, Michela; Pilon-Smits, Elizabeth A H

2017-03-01

Contents 1582 I. 1582 II. 1583 III. 1588 IV. 1590 V. 1592 1592 References 1592 SUMMARY: The importance of selenium (Se) for medicine, industry and the environment is increasingly apparent. Se is essential for many species, including humans, but toxic at elevated concentrations. Plant Se accumulation and volatilization may be applied in crop biofortification and phytoremediation. Topics covered here include beneficial and toxic effects of Se on plants, mechanisms of Se accumulation and tolerance in plants and algae, Se hyperaccumulation, and ecological and evolutionary aspects of these processes. Plant species differ in the concentration and forms of Se accumulated, Se partitioning at the whole-plant and tissue levels, and the capacity to distinguish Se from sulfur. Mechanisms of Se hyperaccumulation and its adaptive significance appear to involve constitutive up-regulation of sulfate/selenate uptake and assimilation, associated with elevated concentrations of defense-related hormones. Hyperaccumulation has evolved independently in at least three plant families, probably as an elemental defense mechanism and perhaps mediating elemental allelopathy. Elevated plant Se protects plants from generalist herbivores and pathogens, but also gives rise to the evolution of Se-resistant specialists. Plant Se accumulation affects ecological interactions with herbivores, pollinators, neighboring plants, and microbes. Hyperaccumulation tends to negatively affect Se-sensitive ecological partners while facilitating Se-resistant partners, potentially affecting species composition and Se cycling in seleniferous ecosystems. © 2016 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2016 New Phytologist Trust.

Digital printing

Science.gov (United States)

Sobotka, Werner K.

1997-02-01

Digital printing is described as a tool to replace conventional printing machines completely. Still this goal was not reached until now with any of the digital printing technologies to be described in the paper. Productivity and costs are still the main parameters and are not really solved until now. Quality in digital printing is no problem anymore. Definition of digital printing is to transfer digital datas directly on the paper surface. This step can be carried out directly or with the use of an intermediate image carrier. Keywords in digital printing are: computer- to-press; erasable image carrier; image carrier with memory. Digital printing is also the logical development of the new digital area as it is pointed out in Nicholas Negropotes book 'Being Digital' and also the answer to networking and Internet technologies. Creating images text and color in one country and publishing the datas in another country or continent is the main advantage. Printing on demand another big advantage and last but not least personalization the last big advantage. Costs and being able to coop with this new world of prepress technology is the biggest disadvantage. Therefore the very optimistic growth rates for the next few years are really nonexistent. The development of complete new markets is too slow and the replacing of old markets is too small.

A simple experiment with Microsoft Office 2010 and Windows 7 utilizing digital forensic methodology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gregory H. Carlton

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Digital forensic examiners are tasked with retrieving data from digital storage devices, and frequently these examiners are expected to explain the circumstances that led to the data being in its current state. Through written reports or verbal, expert testimony delivered in court, digital forensic examiners are expected to describe whether data have been altered, and if so, then to what extent have data been altered. Addressing these expectations results from opinions digital forensic examiners reach concerning their understanding of electronic storage and retrieval methods. The credibility of these opinions evolves from the scientific basis from which they are drawn using forensic methodology.   Digital forensic methodology, being a scientific process, is derived from observations and repeatable findings in controlled environments. Furthermore, scientific research methods have established that causal conclusions can be drawn only when observed in controlled experiments. With this in mind, it seems beneficial that digital forensic examiners have a library of experiments from which they can perform, observe results, and derive conclusions. After having conducted an experiment on a specific topic, a digital forensic examiner will be in a better position to express with confidence the state of the current data and perhaps the conditions that led to its current state.   This study provides a simple experiment using the contemporary versions of the most widely used software applications running on the most commonly installed operation system. Here, using the Microsoft Office 2010 applications, a simple Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation, and an Access database are created and then modified. A forensic analysis is performed to determine the extent in which the changes to the data are identified. The value in this study is not that it yields new forensic analysis techniques, but rather that it illustrates a

Digital squares

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Forchhammer, Søren; Kim, Chul E

1988-01-01

Digital squares are defined and their geometric properties characterized. A linear time algorithm is presented that considers a convex digital region and determines whether or not it is a digital square. The algorithm also determines the range of the values of the parameter set of its preimages....... The analysis involves transforming the boundary of a digital region into parameter space of slope and y-intercept...

Digital skrivedidaktik

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Digital skrivedidaktik består af to dele. Første del præsenterer teori om skrivekompetence og digital skrivning. Digital skrivning er karakteriseret ved at tekster skrives på computer og med digitale værktøjer, hvilket ændrer skrivningens traditionelle praksis, produkt og processer. Hvad er digital...... om elevens skriveproces) og Blogskrivning (der styrker eleverne i at bruge blogs i undervisningen)....

Cost Model for Digital Curation: Cost of Digital Migration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kejser, Ulla Bøgvad; Nielsen, Anders Bo; Thirifays, Alex

2009-01-01

The Danish Ministry of Culture is currently funding a project to set up a model for costing preservation of digital materials held by national cultural heritage institutions. The overall objective of the project is to provide a basis for comparing and estimating future financial requirements...... for digital preservation and to increase cost effectiveness of digital preservation activities. In this study we describe an activity based costing methodology for digital preservation based on the OAIS Reference Model. In order to estimate the cost of digital migrations we have identified cost critical...

Digital preservation

CERN Document Server

Deegan, Marilyn

2013-01-01

Digital preservation is an issue of huge importance to the library and information profession right now. With the widescale adoption of the internet and the rise of the world wide web, the world has been overwhelmed by digital information. Digital data is being produced on a massive scale by individuals and institutions: some of it is born, lives and dies only in digital form, and it is the potential death of this data, with its impact on the preservation of culture, that is the concern of this book. So how can information professionals try to remedy this? Digital preservation is a complex iss

Taxon and trait recognition from digitized herbarium specimens using deep convolutional neural networks

KAUST Repository

Younis, Sohaib; Weiland, Claus; Hoehndorf, Robert; Dressler, Stefan; Hickler, Thomas; Seeger, Bernhard; Schmidt, Marco

2018-01-01

Herbaria worldwide are housing a treasure of hundreds of millions of herbarium specimens, which are increasingly being digitized and thereby more accessible to the scientific community. At the same time, deep-learning algorithms are rapidly improving pattern recognition from images and these techniques are more and more being applied to biological objects. In this study, we are using digital images of herbarium specimens in order to identify taxa and traits of these collection objects by applying convolutional neural networks (CNN). Images of the 1000 species most frequently documented by herbarium specimens on GBIF have been downloaded and combined with morphological trait data, preprocessed and divided into training and test datasets for species and trait recognition. Good performance in both domains suggests substantial potential of this approach for supporting taxonomy and natural history collection management. Trait recognition is also promising for applications in functional ecology.

Taxon and trait recognition from digitized herbarium specimens using deep convolutional neural networks

KAUST Repository

Younis, Sohaib

2018-03-13

Herbaria worldwide are housing a treasure of hundreds of millions of herbarium specimens, which are increasingly being digitized and thereby more accessible to the scientific community. At the same time, deep-learning algorithms are rapidly improving pattern recognition from images and these techniques are more and more being applied to biological objects. In this study, we are using digital images of herbarium specimens in order to identify taxa and traits of these collection objects by applying convolutional neural networks (CNN). Images of the 1000 species most frequently documented by herbarium specimens on GBIF have been downloaded and combined with morphological trait data, preprocessed and divided into training and test datasets for species and trait recognition. Good performance in both domains suggests substantial potential of this approach for supporting taxonomy and natural history collection management. Trait recognition is also promising for applications in functional ecology.

Hormones and phenotypic plasticity in an ecological context: linking physiological mechanisms to evolutionary processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Lema, Sean C

2014-11-01

Hormones are chemical signaling molecules that regulate patterns of cellular physiology and gene expression underlying phenotypic traits. Hormone-signaling pathways respond to an organism's external environment to mediate developmental stage-specific malleability in phenotypes, so that environmental variation experienced at different stages of development has distinct effects on an organism's phenotype. Studies of hormone-signaling are therefore playing a central role in efforts to understand how plastic phenotypic responses to environmental variation are generated during development. But, how do adaptive, hormonally mediated phenotypes evolve if the individual signaling components (hormones, conversion enzymes, membrane transporters, and receptors) that comprise any hormone-signaling pathway show expressional flexibility in response to environmental variation? What relevance do these components hold as molecular targets for selection to couple or decouple correlated hormonally mediated traits? This article explores how studying the endocrine underpinnings of phenotypic plasticity in an ecologically relevant context can provide insights into these, and other, crucial questions into the role of phenotypic plasticity in evolution, including how plasticity itself evolves. These issues are discussed in the light of investigations into how thyroid hormones mediate morphological plasticity in Death Valley's clade of pupfishes (Cyprinodon spp.). Findings from this work with pupfish illustrate that the study of hormone-signaling from an ecological perspective can reveal how phenotypic plasticity contributes to the generation of phenotypic novelty, as well as how physiological mechanisms developmentally link an organism's phenotype to its environmental experiences. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Digital rights management for digital cinema

Science.gov (United States)

Kirovski, Darko; Peinado, Marcus; Petitcolas, Fabien A. P.

2001-12-01

There is a wide consensus among the feature film production studios that the Internet era brings a new paradigm for film distribution to cinemas worldwide. The benefits of digital cinema to both producers and cinemas are numerous: significantly lower distribution and maintenance costs, immediate access to film libraries, higher presentation quality, and strong potential for developing new business models. Despite these advantages, the studios are still reluctant to jump into the digital age. The main showstopper for digital cinema is the danger of widespread piracy. Piracy already costs Hollywood an estimated two billion dollars annually and digital cinema without proper copyright enforcement could increase this number. In this paper, we present a copyright management system that aims at providing the set of necessary security tools: standard cryptographic primitives and copyright protection mechanisms that enable a reliable and secure feature film delivery system.

Defense-in-depth and diversity evaluation to cope with design bases events concurrent with common mode failure in digital plant protection system for KNGR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shin, Lee Cheol; Park, Chan Eok; Jin, Choi Chul; Tae, Seo Jong

2001-01-01

The Korean Next Generation Reactor (KNGR) has been evolved to adopt an advanced design feature, a digital Plant Protection System (PPS) as an effort of enhancing reliability and safety of the plant. Although the digital PPS can be designed with high reliability, it is considered to be vulnerable to the Common Mode Failure (CMF) in the system software resulting in a total loss of the built-in hardware redundancy. Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation has been performed to demonstrate the intrinsic capability of the KNGR design in coping with the design basis events concurrent with CMF in the digital PPS. Instead of the conservative bounding analysis methodology, a best-estimate analysis methodology has been developed and utilized since the design basis events accompanied by CMF in the digital PPS are categorized as beyond design bases events. A variety of diverse means such as Alternate Protection System (APS), process control systems, and timely operator actions have been verified to be effective in mitigating the design basis events with CMF in the digital PPS

Ecological palaeoecology: a missing link between ecology and evolution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rull, V.

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Palaeoecology is more than a palaeoenvironmental discipline; it is a science that is well-suited for supplying the empirical evidence necessary to test ecological hypotheses and contributes to our understanding of the interface of ecology and evolution. A critical time frame in palaeoecology is the often-overlooked Q-time dimension (centuries to millennia, which tends to be the most appropriate time dimension to examine ecology–evolution interactions. This paper discusses these topics from a conceptual perspective and provides examples of the contributions of palaeoecology to the study of ecology–evolution interactions. It also admonishes researchers about the threats of overlooking palaeoecology. Specifically, this paper argues that the neglect of palaeoecology may result in the loss of empirical support for ecology and its interactions with evolution as DNA-based phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies become more and more prevalent. The main concepts discussed are the time continuum, the notion of ecological palaeoecology and the empirical nature of palaeoecology in the face of more hypothetical approaches. More practically speaking, several examples are provided that highlight the utility of ecological palaeoecology for understanding a variety of processes, including ecological succession, community– environment equilibria, community assembly, biotic responses to environmental change, speciation and extinction, and biodiversity conservation. The ecology–evolution interface is analysed using two processes in which these disciplines interact intensively: ecological succession and long-range migration. This work concludes that both ecological palaeoecology (including ancient DNA records and DNA-based phylogenetics and phylogeography are needed to better understand the biosphere ecologically and the processes occurring at the ecology–evolution interface.La paleoecología es más que una disciplina ambiental, ya que proporciona las

Cognitive Hacking and Digital Government: Digital Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paul Thompson

2004-04-01

Full Text Available Recently the National Center for Digital Government held a workshop on "The Virtual Citizen: Identity, Autonomy, and Accountability: A Civic Scenario Exploration of the Role of Identity in On-Line. Discussions at the workshop focused on five scenarios for future authentication policies with respect to digital identity. The underlying technologies considered for authentication were: biometrics: cryptography, with a focus on digital signatures; secure processing/computation; and reputation systems. Most discussion at the workshop focused on issues related to authentication of users of digital government, but, as implied by the inclusion of a scenario related to ubiquitous identity theft, there was also discussion of problems related to misinformation, including cognitive hacking. Cognitive hacking refers to a computer or information system attack that relies on changing human users' perceptions and corresponding behaviors in order to succeed. This paper describes cognitive hacking, suggests countermeasures, and discusses the implications of cognitive hacking for identity in digital government. In particular, spoofing of government websites and insider misuse are considered.

Cognitive Hacking and Digital Government: Digital Identity

OpenAIRE

Paul Thompson

2004-01-01

Recently the National Center for Digital Government held a workshop on "The Virtual Citizen: Identity, Autonomy, and Accountability: A Civic Scenario Exploration of the Role of Identity in On-Line. Discussions at the workshop focused on five scenarios for future authentication policies with respect to digital identity. The underlying technologies considered for authentication were: biometrics: cryptography, with a focus on digital signatures; secure processing/computation; and reputation syst...

PCBA demand forecasting using an evolving Takagi-Sugeno system

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Rooijen, M.; Almeida, R.J.; Kaymak, U.

2016-01-01

This paper investigates the use of using an evolving fuzzy system for printed circuit board (PCBA) demand forecasting. The algorithm is based on the evolving Takagi-Sugeno (eTS) fuzzy system, which has the ability to incorporate new patterns by changing its internal structure in an on-line fashion.

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: Teaching with Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Ellen Marie Peterson

2011-01-01

Education is witnessing an increasing demand for technology use in the classroom. At the same time, new teachers are entering the profession in high numbers, some being labeled as "Digital Natives" while others are labeled "Digital Immigrants". This qualitative case study investigated the technology practices of Digital Native and Digital…

The role of defensive ecological interactions in the evolution of conotoxins.

Science.gov (United States)

Prashanth, J R; Dutertre, S; Jin, A H; Lavergne, V; Hamilton, B; Cardoso, F C; Griffin, J; Venter, D J; Alewood, P F; Lewis, R J

2016-01-01

Venoms comprise of complex mixtures of peptides evolved for predation and defensive purposes. Remarkably, some carnivorous cone snails can inject two distinct venoms in response to predatory or defensive stimuli, providing a unique opportunity to study separately how different ecological pressures contribute to toxin diversification. Here, we report the extraordinary defensive strategy of the Rhizoconus subgenus of cone snails. The defensive venom from this worm-hunting subgenus is unusually simple, almost exclusively composed of αD-conotoxins instead of the ubiquitous αA-conotoxins found in the more complex defensive venom of mollusc- and fish-hunting cone snails. A similarly compartmentalized venom gland as those observed in the other dietary groups facilitates the deployment of this defensive venom. Transcriptomic analysis of a Conus vexillum venom gland revealed the αD-conotoxins as the major transcripts, with lower amounts of 15 known and four new conotoxin superfamilies also detected with likely roles in prey capture. Our phylogenetic and molecular evolution analysis of the αD-conotoxins from five subgenera of cone snails suggests they evolved episodically as part of a defensive strategy in the Rhizoconus subgenus. Thus, our results demonstrate an important role for defence in the evolution of conotoxins. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

[Constructing 3-dimensional colorized digital dental model assisted by digital photography].

Science.gov (United States)

Ye, Hong-qiang; Liu, Yu-shu; Liu, Yun-song; Ning, Jing; Zhao, Yi-jiao; Zhou, Yong-sheng

2016-02-18

To explore a method of constructing universal 3-dimensional (3D) colorized digital dental model which can be displayed and edited in common 3D software (such as Geomagic series), in order to improve the visual effect of digital dental model in 3D software. The morphological data of teeth and gingivae were obtained by intra-oral scanning system (3Shape TRIOS), constructing 3D digital dental models. The 3D digital dental models were exported as STL files. Meanwhile, referring to the accredited photography guide of American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD), five selected digital photographs of patients'teeth and gingivae were taken by digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR) with the same exposure parameters (except occlusal views) to capture the color data. In Geomagic Studio 2013, after STL file of 3D digital dental model being imported, digital photographs were projected on 3D digital dental model with corresponding position and angle. The junctions of different photos were carefully trimmed to get continuous and natural color transitions. Then the 3D colorized digital dental model was constructed, which was exported as OBJ file or WRP file which was a special file for software of Geomagic series. For the purpose of evaluating the visual effect of the 3D colorized digital model, a rating scale on color simulation effect in views of patients'evaluation was used. Sixteen patients were recruited and their scores on colored and non-colored digital dental models were recorded. The data were analyzed using McNemar-Bowker test in SPSS 20. Universal 3D colorized digital dental model with better color simulation was constructed based on intra-oral scanning and digital photography. For clinical application, the 3D colorized digital dental models, combined with 3D face images, were introduced into 3D smile design of aesthetic rehabilitation, which could improve the patients' cognition for the esthetic digital design and virtual prosthetic effect. Universal 3D colorized

CMIP6 Data Citation of Evolving Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martina Stockhause

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Data citations have become widely accepted. Technical infrastructures as well as principles and recommendations for data citation are in place but best practices or guidelines for their implementation are not yet available. On the other hand, the scientific climate community requests early citations on evolving data for credit, e.g. for CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. The data citation concept for CMIP6 is presented. The main challenges lie in limited resources, a strict project timeline and the dependency on changes of the data dissemination infrastructure ESGF (Earth System Grid Federation to meet the data citation requirements. Therefore a pragmatic, flexible and extendible approach for the CMIP6 data citation service was developed, consisting of a citation for the full evolving data superset and a data cart approach for citing the concrete used data subset. This two citation approach can be implemented according to the RDA recommendations for evolving data. Because of resource constraints and missing project policies, the implementation of the second part of the citation concept is postponed to CMIP7.

Marshal: Maintaining Evolving Models, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — SIFT proposes to design and develop the Marshal system, a mixed-initiative tool for maintaining task models over the course of evolving missions. Marshal-enabled...

Dynamic expression of ancient and novel molluscan shell genes during ecological transitions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wörheide Gert

2007-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The Mollusca constitute one of the most morphologically and ecologically diverse metazoan phyla, occupying a wide range of marine, terrestrial and freshwater habitats. The evolutionary success of the molluscs can in part be attributed to the evolvability of the external shell. Typically, the shell first forms during embryonic and larval development, changing dramatically in shape, colour and mineralogical composition as development and maturation proceeds. Major developmental transitions in shell morphology often correlate with ecological transitions (e.g. from a planktonic to benthic existence at metamorphosis. While the genes involved in molluscan biomineralisation are beginning to be identified, there is little understanding of how these are developmentally regulated, or if the same genes are operational at different stages of the mollusc's life. Results Here we relate the developmental expression of nine genes in the tissue responsible for shell production – the mantle – to ecological transitions that occur during the lifetime of the tropical abalone Haliotis asinina (Vetigastropoda. Four of these genes encode evolutionarily ancient proteins, while four others encode secreted proteins with little or no identity to known proteins. Another gene has been previously described from the mantle of another haliotid vetigastropod. All nine genes display dynamic spatial and temporal expression profiles within the larval shell field and juvenile mantle. Conclusion These expression data reflect the regulatory complexity that underlies molluscan shell construction from larval stages to adulthood, and serves to highlight the different ecological demands placed on each stage. The use of both ancient and novel genes in all stages of shell construction also suggest that a core set of shell-making genes was provided by a shared metazoan ancestor, which has been elaborated upon to produce the range of molluscan shell types we see today.

Globalization and sustainable development: a political ecology strategy to realize ecological justice

OpenAIRE

Byrne, John; Glover, Leigh; Alrøe, Hugo Fjelsted

2006-01-01

Organic agriculture is, like mainstream agriculture, faced with the challenges of globalization and sustainable development. Ecological justice, the fair distribution of livelihoods and environments, has emerged as a key concept in efforts, on the one hand, to resist negative consequences of globalization and ecological modernization and, on the other to propose new agenda and institutional arrangements. This chapter investigates the role that ecological justice as a political ecology strateg...

Materialising digital collecting: An extended view of digital materiality

OpenAIRE

Mardon, Rebecca; Belk, Russell

2018-01-01

If digital objects are abundant and ubiquitous, why should consumers pay for, much less collect them? The qualities of digital code present numerous challenges for collecting, yet digital collecting can and does occur. We explore the role of companies in constructing digital consumption objects that encourage and support collecting behaviours, identifying material configuration techniques that materialise these objects as elusive and authentic. Such techniques, we argue, may facilitate those ...

Digital Natives: Creating Emergent Exhibitions through Digital Technologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Smith, Rachel Charlotte; Iversen, Ole Sejer; Dindler, Christian

2011-01-01

. In this way, digital technology can contribute to the creation of emergent exhibitions in which the exhibition is created in dialogue between audiences and the museum. We present experiences from a current research project, the Digital Natives exhibition, in which digital technology was designed......Digital Technology can support the creation of dialogical spaces in the museum, both playful and reflective, that allow audiences to engage in the ongoing construction and reproduction of cultural heritage creating novel connections between self and others and between past, present and future...... as an integral part of the exhibition to encourage dialogue between audiences and the exhibition materials and thereby investigate how the exhibition emerge as a result of this dialogic co-construction inside the exhibition space. In short, the opportunities offered by digital technologies prompts us to consider...

Enabling Digital Literacy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ryberg, Thomas; Georgsen, Marianne

2010-01-01

There are some tensions between high-level policy definitions of “digital literacy” and actual teaching practice. We need to find workable definitions of digital literacy; obtain a better understanding of what digital literacy might look like in practice; and identify pedagogical approaches, which...... support teachers in designing digital literacy learning. We suggest that frameworks such as Problem Based Learning (PBL) are approaches that enable digital literacy learning because they provide good settings for engaging with digital literacy. We illustrate this through analysis of a case. Furthermore......, these operate on a meso-level mediating between high-level concepts of digital literacy and classroom practice....

Opportunities for systematic change in the academic research library: elements of the post-digital library

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James G Neal

2012-03-01

Full Text Available This paper, based on a talk delivered at the University of Leeds on 19 April 2011, seeks to outline a series of important trends that are influencing the roles and responsibilities of the academic research library, and a program of radical collaboration that would enable deeper integration of resources and a more systemic approach to the critical collection and service challenges. The academic research library must sustain its core responsibilities, albeit in an increasingly digitized, networked and mobile condition, enrich fundamental relationships with its user communities, and assume powerful new roles in support of learning and scholarship. New measures of quality, impact, productivity, innovation and leadership must be advanced. The paper suggests that the evolution of the academic library will focus more on an evolving period of polygamy, parabiosis and particularism, as we think beyond the transition to electronic and more about a post-digital context.

Digital Preservation in Open-Source Digital Library Software

Science.gov (United States)

Madalli, Devika P.; Barve, Sunita; Amin, Saiful

2012-01-01

Digital archives and digital library projects are being initiated all over the world for materials of different formats and domains. To organize, store, and retrieve digital content, many libraries as well as archiving centers are using either proprietary or open-source software. While it is accepted that print media can survive for centuries with…

Digital Density as the Driving Force of Digital Transformation Processes

OpenAIRE

Bush, Xavier

2016-01-01

Digital technologies have increased the influence of technology in business, even changing business models and strategies of organisations. This influence, called Digital Transformation of Business (DT), happens when there is an increase of the number of digital connections, information and interactions. This phenom-ena has been defined as Digital Density (DD) and aims to provide an assessment of the digitalization status of an organization. With the concept of DD we pro-pose the DD Framework, t...

Digital Tectonics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Karl; Borup, Ruben; Søndergaard, Asbjørn

2014-01-01

Digital Tectonics treats the architectonical possibilities in digital generation of form and production. The publication is the first volume of a series, in which aspects of the strategic focus areas of the Aarhus School of Architecture will be disseminated.......Digital Tectonics treats the architectonical possibilities in digital generation of form and production. The publication is the first volume of a series, in which aspects of the strategic focus areas of the Aarhus School of Architecture will be disseminated....

Digital Literacy Learning in Higher Education through Digital Storytelling Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, Banny S. K.; Churchill, Daniel; Chiu, Thomas K. F.

2017-01-01

It is necessary to develop digital literacy skills with which students can communicate and express their ideas effectively using digital media. The educational sectors around the world are beginning to incorporate digital literacy into the curriculum. Digital storytelling, one of the possible classroom activities, is an approach which may help…

Digital mammography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bick, Ulrich; Diekmann, Felix

2010-01-01

This state-of-the-art reference book provides in-depth coverage of all aspects of digital mammography, including detector technology, image processing, computer-aided diagnosis, soft-copy reading, digital workflow, and PACS. Specific advantages and disadvantages of digital mammography in comparison to screen-film mammography are thoroughly discussed. By including authors from both North America and Europe, the book is able to outline variations in the use, acceptance, and quality assurance of digital mammography between the different countries and screening programs. Advanced imaging techniques and future developments such as contrast mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis are also covered in detail. All of the chapters are written by internationally recognized experts and contain numerous high-quality illustrations. This book will be of great interest both to clinicians who already use or are transitioning to digital mammography and to basic scientists working in the field. (orig.)

Cost Model for Digital Preservation: Cost of Digital Migration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kejser, Ulla Bøgvad; Nielsen, Anders Bo; Thirifays, Alex

2011-01-01

The Danish Ministry of Culture has funded a project to set up a model for costing preservation of digital materials held by national cultural heritage institutions. The overall objective of the project was to increase cost effectiveness of digital preservation activities and to provide a basis...... for comparing and estimating future cost requirements for digital preservation. In this study we describe an activity-based costing methodology for digital preservation based on the Open Archice Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. Within this framework, which we denote the Cost Model for Digital...... Preservation (CMDP), the focus is on costing the functional entity Preservation Planning from the OAIS and digital migration activities. In order to estimate these costs we have identified cost-critical activities by analysing the functions in the OAIS model and the flows between them. The analysis has been...

Orthogonally Evolved AI to Improve Difficulty Adjustment in Video Games

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hintze, Arend; Olson, Randal; Lehman, Joel Anthony

2016-01-01

Computer games are most engaging when their difficulty is well matched to the player's ability, thereby providing an experience in which the player is neither overwhelmed nor bored. In games where the player interacts with computer-controlled opponents, the difficulty of the game can be adjusted...... not only by changing the distribution of opponents or game resources, but also through modifying the skill of the opponents. Applying evolutionary algorithms to evolve the artificial intelligence that controls opponent agents is one established method for adjusting opponent difficulty. Less-evolved agents...... (i.e. agents subject to fewer generations of evolution) make for easier opponents, while highly-evolved agents are more challenging to overcome. In this publication we test a new approach for difficulty adjustment in games: orthogonally evolved AI, where the player receives support from collaborating...

Digital Tourism on the Way to Digital Marketing Success

OpenAIRE

RATIU, Monica Paula; PURCAREA, Ioan Matei

2015-01-01

There is a real need of digital support of the tourist experience before, during and after the tourist activity, because digitization is steadily becoming the main pathway for consumer journeys. The digital revolution changed the way consumers shop for travel products and interact with brands. Tourism businesses need to utilize digital marketing techniques in their practices and to right track consumer activity across channels and devices. Getting vital information from customers via social m...

Digital Library and Digital Reference Service: Integration and Mutual Complementarity

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Jia

2008-01-01

Both the digital library and the digital reference service were invented and have been developed under the networked environment. Among their intersections, the fundamental thing is their symbiotic interest--serving the user in a more efficient way. The article starts by discussing the digital library and its service and the digital reference…

Euthanasia—An Overview for Our Time A Report by the CMA Committee for Continuing Study of Evolving Trends in Society Affecting Life

Science.gov (United States)

1973-01-01

The Committee for the Continuing Study of Evolving Trends in Society Affecting Life was established by the CMA House of Delegates in 1971, following the consideration of a number of resolutions on the topic of abortion. The committee's charge was broadened, however, to include topics such as euthansia, biomedical engineering, medicine and religion, ecology and education. The committee's discussions, as its name indicates can cover a wide range of fields of interest to the medical profession. The following article is the first of several which the committee plans to publish, although the products of its deliberations may take the form of resolutions to future meetings of the House of Delegates. PMID:4694710

MRI and MRS on preserved samples as a tool in fish ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Bock, Christian; Wermter, Felizitas C; Mintenbeck, Katja

2017-05-01

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) gain increasing attention and importance as a tool in marine ecology. So far, studies were largely limited to morphological studies, e.g. for the creation of digital libraries. Here, the utility of MRI and MRS for ecologists is tested and exemplified using formalin preserved samples of the Antarctic silverfish, Pleuragramma antarctica. As this species lacks a swim bladder, buoyancy is attained by the deposition of large amounts of lipids that are mainly stored in subcutaneous and intermuscular lipid sacs. In this study MRI and MRS are not only used to study internal morphology, but additionally to investigate functional morphology and to measure parameters of high ecological interest. The data are compared with literature data obtained by means of traditional ecological methods. The results from this study show that MR scans are not only an alternative to histological sections (as shown before), but even allow the visualization of particular features in delicate soft tissues, such as Pleuragramma's lipid sacs. 3D rendering techniques proved to be a useful tool to study organ volumes and lipid content, which usually requires laborious chemical lipid extraction and analysis. Moreover, the application of MRS even allows for an analysis of lipids and fatty acids within lipid sacs, which wouldn't be possible using destructive methods. MRI and MRS, in particular when used in combination, have the capacity to provide useful data on parameters of high ecological relevance and thus have proven to be a highly valuable addition, if not alternative, to the classical methods. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Digital Materialisms: Frameworks for Digital Media Studies

OpenAIRE

Casemajor, Nathalie

2015-01-01

Since the 1980s, digital materialism has received increasing interest in the field of media studies. Materialism as a theoretical paradigm assumes that all things in the world are tied to physical processes and matter. Yet within digital media studies, the understanding of what should be the core object of a materialist analysis is debated. This paper proposes to untangle some of the principal theoretical propositions that compose the field of digital materialism. It outlines six frameworks t...

Evolutionary dynamics of ecological niche in three Rhinogobio fishes from the upper Yangtze River inferred from morphological traits

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Meirong; Liu, Fei; Lin, Pengcheng; Yang, Shaorong; Liu, Huanzhang

2015-01-01

In the past decades, it has been debated whether ecological niche should be conserved among closely related species (phylogenetic niche conservatism, PNC) or largely divergent (traditional ecological niche theory and ecological speciation) and whether niche specialist and generalist might remain in equilibrium or niche generalist could not appear. In this study, we employed morphological traits to describe ecological niche and test whether different niche dimensions exhibit disparate evolutionary patterns. We conducted our analysis on three Rhinogobio fish species (R. typus,R. cylindricus, and R. ventralis) from the upper Yangtze River, China. Among the 32 measured morphological traits except body length, PCA extracted the first four principal components with their loading scores >1.000. To find the PNC among species, Mantel tests were conducted with the Euclidean distances calculated from the four principal components (representing different niche dimensions) against the pairwise distances calculated from mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence variations. The results showed that the second and the third niche dimension, both related to swimming ability and behavior, exhibited phylogenetic conservatism. Further comparison on niche breadth among these three species revealed that the fourth dimension of R. typus showed the greatest width, indicating that this dimension exhibited niche generalism. In conclusion, our results suggested that different niche dimensions could show different evolutionary dynamic patterns: they may exhibit PNC or not, and some dimensions may evolve generalism. PMID:25691981

Organising a Safe Space for Navigating Social-Ecological Transformations to Sustainability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura Pereira

2015-05-01

Full Text Available The need for developing socially just living conditions for the world’s growing population whilst keeping human societies within a ‘safe operating space’ has become a modern imperative. This requires transformative changes in the dominant social norms, behaviours, governance and management regimes that guide human responses in areas such as urban ecology, public health, resource security (e.g., food, water, energy access, economic development and biodiversity conservation. However, such systemic transformations necessitate experimentation in public arenas of exchange and a deepening of processes that can widen multi-stakeholder learning. We argue that there is an emergent potential in bridging the sustainability transitions and resilience approaches to create new scientific capacity that can support large-scale social-ecological transformations (SETs to sustainability globally, not just in the West. In this article, we elucidate a set of guiding principles for the design of a ‘safe space’ to encourage stronger interactions between these research areas and others that are relevant to the challenges faced. We envisage new opportunities for transdisciplinary collaboration that will develop an adaptive and evolving community of practice. In particular, we emphasise the great opportunity for engaging with the role of emerging economies in facilitating safe space experimentation.

Organising a Safe Space for Navigating Social-Ecological Transformations to Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Pereira, Laura; Karpouzoglou, Timothy; Doshi, Samir; Frantzeskaki, Niki

2015-01-01

The need for developing socially just living conditions for the world’s growing population whilst keeping human societies within a ‘safe operating space’ has become a modern imperative. This requires transformative changes in the dominant social norms, behaviours, governance and management regimes that guide human responses in areas such as urban ecology, public health, resource security (e.g., food, water, energy access), economic development and biodiversity conservation. However, such systemic transformations necessitate experimentation in public arenas of exchange and a deepening of processes that can widen multi-stakeholder learning. We argue that there is an emergent potential in bridging the sustainability transitions and resilience approaches to create new scientific capacity that can support large-scale social-ecological transformations (SETs) to sustainability globally, not just in the West. In this article, we elucidate a set of guiding principles for the design of a ‘safe space’ to encourage stronger interactions between these research areas and others that are relevant to the challenges faced. We envisage new opportunities for transdisciplinary collaboration that will develop an adaptive and evolving community of practice. In particular, we emphasise the great opportunity for engaging with the role of emerging economies in facilitating safe space experimentation. PMID:26030471

Digital Banking: Risks of Financial Digitalization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kornіvska Valerіa O.

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The paper demonstrates the results of the research into development of the digital economy in the global financial space, shows the contradictions of these processes in the context of the growth of financial inclusion of households, identifies the risks of active introduction of digital banking in poor countries of the world. The characteristics of the processes of growth of the influence of banking institutions on the operational activity and daily life of households are given, and it is proved that under conditions of digital banking, without having any other alternative ways of economic activity in terms of money circulation than non-cash turnover, clients are forced to agree to unlimited presence of financial operators in social systems. It is substantiated that in Ukraine the global risk of digitalization of the society is gradually developing as a result of the creation of unified information systems for the control of global financial flows.

Older people and digital disengagement: a fourth digital divide?

Science.gov (United States)

Olphert, Wendy; Damodaran, Leela

2013-01-01

Digital technologies are becoming more pervasive in all areas of society. Enabling everyone to have access and capability to use the Internet and associated digital technologies, summed up in the term 'digital inclusion', is seen to have wide-ranging benefits to the individual, to the economy and to society. For older people, being digitally included can help them to maintain their independence, social connectedness and sense of worth in the face of declining health or limited capabilities, as well as also offering new opportunities to improve their quality of life. At present however, access to the technology and to the benefits is not equally distributed either between or within nations, and older people tend to be on the 'wrong' side of what is termed the 'digital divide'. Governments globally are developing strategies to promote digital inclusion and indeed Internet uptake is increasing steadily, including amongst older people. However, such strategies have focussed on getting people online, and there appears to be an assumption that once someone is online they will remain 'digitally engaged'. In fact statistics show that some users give up using the Internet, and there is emerging evidence that older people are more vulnerable to the factors which can lead to this outcome. The authors see this phenomenon as a potential but largely unrecognised 'fourth digital divide' which has serious implications for social inclusion. The objectives of this article are (a) to raise awareness of the phenomenon of digital disengagement by considering some of the emerging evidence, (b) to explore some of the potential implications of not recognising and therefore not addressing the needs of the digitally disengaged older population, and (c) to reveal the prevailing gap in knowledge which future research should address. Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Computational Genetic Regulatory Networks Evolvable, Self-organizing Systems

CERN Document Server

Knabe, Johannes F

2013-01-01

Genetic Regulatory Networks (GRNs) in biological organisms are primary engines for cells to enact their engagements with environments, via incessant, continually active coupling. In differentiated multicellular organisms, tremendous complexity has arisen in the course of evolution of life on earth. Engineering and science have so far achieved no working system that can compare with this complexity, depth and scope of organization. Abstracting the dynamics of genetic regulatory control to a computational framework in which artificial GRNs in artificial simulated cells differentiate while connected in a changing topology, it is possible to apply Darwinian evolution in silico to study the capacity of such developmental/differentiated GRNs to evolve. In this volume an evolutionary GRN paradigm is investigated for its evolvability and robustness in models of biological clocks, in simple differentiated multicellularity, and in evolving artificial developing 'organisms' which grow and express an ontogeny starting fr...

Community Ecology

CERN Document Server

1988-01-01

This book presents the proceedings of a workshop on community ecology organized at Davis, in April, 1986, sponsored by the Sloan Foundation. There have been several recent symposia on community ecology (Strong et. al., 1984, Diamond and Case, 1987) which have covered a wide range of topics. The goal of the workshop at Davis was more narrow: to explore the role of scale in developing a theoretical approach to understanding communities. There are a number of aspects of scale that enter into attempts to understand ecological communities. One of the most basic is organizational scale. Should community ecology proceed by building up from population biology? This question and its ramifications are stressed throughout the book and explored in the first chapter by Simon Levin. Notions of scale have long been important in understanding physical systems. Thus, in understanding the interactions of organisms with their physical environment, questions of scale become paramount. These more physical questions illustrate the...

Adaptive inferential sensors based on evolving fuzzy models.

Science.gov (United States)

Angelov, Plamen; Kordon, Arthur

2010-04-01

A new technique to the design and use of inferential sensors in the process industry is proposed in this paper, which is based on the recently introduced concept of evolving fuzzy models (EFMs). They address the challenge that the modern process industry faces today, namely, to develop such adaptive and self-calibrating online inferential sensors that reduce the maintenance costs while keeping the high precision and interpretability/transparency. The proposed new methodology makes possible inferential sensors to recalibrate automatically, which reduces significantly the life-cycle efforts for their maintenance. This is achieved by the adaptive and flexible open-structure EFM used. The novelty of this paper lies in the following: (1) the overall concept of inferential sensors with evolving and self-developing structure from the data streams; (2) the new methodology for online automatic selection of input variables that are most relevant for the prediction; (3) the technique to detect automatically a shift in the data pattern using the age of the clusters (and fuzzy rules); (4) the online standardization technique used by the learning procedure of the evolving model; and (5) the application of this innovative approach to several real-life industrial processes from the chemical industry (evolving inferential sensors, namely, eSensors, were used for predicting the chemical properties of different products in The Dow Chemical Company, Freeport, TX). It should be noted, however, that the methodology and conclusions of this paper are valid for the broader area of chemical and process industries in general. The results demonstrate that well-interpretable and with-simple-structure inferential sensors can automatically be designed from the data stream in real time, which predict various process variables of interest. The proposed approach can be used as a basis for the development of a new generation of adaptive and evolving inferential sensors that can address the

What is dental ecology?

Science.gov (United States)

Cuozzo, Frank P; Sauther, Michelle L

2012-06-01

Teeth have long been used as indicators of primate ecology. Early work focused on the links between dental morphology, diet, and behavior, with more recent years emphasizing dental wear, microstructure, development, and biogeochemistry, to understand primate ecology. Our study of Lemur catta at the Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve, Madagascar, has revealed an unusual pattern of severe tooth wear and frequent tooth loss, primarily the result of consuming a fallback food for which these primates are not dentally adapted. Interpreting these data was only possible by combining our areas of expertise (dental anatomy [FC] and primate ecology [MS]). By integrating theoretical, methodological, and applied aspects of both areas of research, we adopted the term "dental ecology"-defined as the broad study of how teeth respond to the environment. Specifically, we view dental ecology as an interpretive framework using teeth as a vehicle for understanding an organism's ecology, which builds upon earlier work, but creates a new synthesis of anatomy and ecology that is only possible with detailed knowledge of living primates. This framework includes (1) identifying patterns of dental pathology and tooth use-wear, within the context of feeding ecology, behavior, habitat variation, and anthropogenic change, (2) assessing ways in which dental development and biogeochemical signals can reflect habitat, environmental change and/or stress, and (3) how dental microstructure and macro-morphology are adapted to, and reflect feeding ecology. Here we define dental ecology, provide a short summary of the development of this perspective, and place our new work into this context. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Digital Accessible Knowledge and well-inventoried sites for birds in Mexico: baseline sites for measuring faunistic change

OpenAIRE

Peterson, A. Townsend; Navarro-Sig?enza, Adolfo G.; Mart?nez-Meyer, Enrique

2016-01-01

Background Faunal change is a basic and fundamental element in ecology, biogeography, and conservation biology, yet vanishingly few detailed studies have documented such changes rigorously over decadal time scales. This study responds to that gap in knowledge, providing a detailed analysis of Digital Accessible Knowledge of the birds of Mexico, designed to marshal DAK to identify sites that were sampled and inventoried rigorously prior to the beginning of major global climate change (1980). M...

An Evolving Asymmetric Game for Modeling Interdictor-Smuggler Problems

Science.gov (United States)

2016-06-01

ASYMMETRIC GAME FOR MODELING INTERDICTOR-SMUGGLER PROBLEMS by Richard J. Allain June 2016 Thesis Advisor: David L. Alderson Second Reader: W...DATES COVERED Master’s thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE AN EVOLVING ASYMMETRIC GAME FOR MODELING INTERDICTOR- SMUGGLER PROBLEMS 5. FUNDING NUMBERS 6...NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited AN EVOLVING

A soil-specific agro-ecological strategy for sustainable production in Argentina farm fields

Science.gov (United States)

Zamora, Martin; Barbera, Agustin; Castro-Franco, Mauricio; Hansson, Alejandro; Domenech, Marisa

2017-04-01

The continuous increment of frequencies and doses of pesticides, glyphosate and fertilizers, the deterioration of the structure, biotic balance and fertility of soils and the ground water pollution are characteristics of the current Argentinian agricultural model. In this context, agro-ecological innovations are needed to develop a real sustainable agriculture, enhancing the food supply. Precision agriculture technologies can strengthen the expansion of agro-ecological farming in experimental farm fields. The aim of this study was to propose a soil-specific agro-ecological strategy for sustainable production at field scale focused on the use of soil sensors and digital soil mapping techniques. This strategy has been developed in 15 hectares transition agro-ecological farm field, located at Barrow Experimental Station (Lat:-38.322844, Lon:-60.25572) Argentina. The strategy included five steps: (i) to measure apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) and elevation within agro-ecological farm field; (ii) to apply a clustering method using MULTISPATI-PCA algorithm to delimitate three soil-specific zones (Z1, Z2 and Z3); (iii) to determine three soil sampling points by zone, using conditioned Latin hypercube method, in addition to elevation and ECa as auxiliary information; (iv) to collect soil samples at 2-10 cm depth in each point and to determine in laboratory: total organic carbon content (TOC), cation-exchange capacity (CEC), pH and phosphorus availability (P-Bray). In addition, soil bulk density (SBD) was measured at 0-20 cm depth. Finally, (v) according to each soil-specific zone, a management strategy was recommended. Important differences in soil properties among zones could suggest that the strategy developed was able to apply an agro ecological soil-specific practice management. pH and P-Bray were significantly (pfertilizer and also rotating plots with high stocking rate. The aim is to increase soil organic matter content and CEC. Furthermore, P content will be

Sports Digitalization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Xiao, Xiao; Hedman, Jonas; Tan, Felix Ter Chian

2017-01-01

evolution, as digital technologies are increasingly entrenched in a wide range of sporting activities and for applications beyond mere performance enhancement. Despite such trends, research on sports digitalization in the IS discipline is surprisingly still nascent. This paper aims at establishing...... a discourse on sports digitalization within the discipline. Toward this, we first provide an understanding of the institutional characteristics of the sports industry, establishing its theoretical importance and relevance in our discipline; second, we reveal the latest trends of digitalization in the sports...

Digitized mammograms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bruneton, J.N.; Balu-Maestro, C.; Rogopoulos, A.; Chauvel, C.; Geoffray, A.

1988-01-01

Two observers conducted a blind evaluation of 100 mammography files, including 47 malignant cases. Films were read both before and after image digitization at 50 μm and 100 μm with the FilmDRSII. Digitization permitted better analysis of the normal anatomic structures and moderately improved diagnostic sensitivity. Searches for microcalcifications before and after digitization at 100 μm and 50 μm showed better analysis of anatomic structures after digitization (especially for solitary microcalcifications). The diagnostic benefit, with discovery of clustered microcalcifications, was more limited (one case at 100 μm, nine cases at 50 μm). Recognition of microcalcifications was clearly improved in dense breasts, which can benefit from reinterpretation after digitization at 50 μm rather 100μm

Digital radiography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coulomb, M.; Dal Soglio, S.; Pittet-Barbier, L.; Ranchoup, Y.; Thony, F.; Ferretti, G.; Robert, F.

1992-01-01

Digital projection radiography may replace conventional radiography some day, provided it can meet several requirements: equal or better diagnostic effectiveness of the screen-film systems; reasonable image cost; real improvement in the productivity of the Departments of Imaging. All digital radiographic systems include an X-ray source, an image acquisition and formatting sub-system, a display and manipulation sub-system, and archiving subsystem and a laser editing system, preferably shared by other sources of digital images. Three digitization processes are available: digitization of the radiographic film, digital fluorography and phospholuminescent detectors with memory. The advantages of digital fluoroscopy are appealing: real-time image acquisition, suppression of cassettes; but its disadvantages are far from negligible: it cannot be applied to bedside radiography, the field of examination is limited, and the wide-field spatial resolution is poor. Phospholuminescent detectors with memory have great advantages: they can be used for bedside radiographs and on all the common radiographic systems; spatial resolution is satisfactory; its current disadvantages are considerable. These two systems, have common properties making up the entire philosophy of digital radiology and specific features that must guide our choice according to the application. Digital fluorography is best applied in pediatric radiology. However, evaluation works have showed that it was applicable with sufficient quality to many indications of general radiology in which a fluoroscopic control and fast acquisition of the images are essential; the time gained on the examination may be considerable, as well as the savings on film. Detectors with memory are required for bedside radiographs, in osteoarticular and thoracic radiology, in all cases of traumatic emergency and in the resuscitation and intensive care departments

A Common, Conceptual Framework for Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Psychology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Donald W. White

2007-04-01

Full Text Available Since evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology have much in common despite their using different objects for their study, one might expect these disciplines to share a common conceptual framework with associated definitions. Unfortunately, such agreement does not entirely exist. To address the problem, we propose a common, conceptual framework, the Adaptive Behavioral System (ABS, which organizes behavior within an evolutionary framework around an organism's life history tasks. An ABS includes strategies that use decision rules and employs tactics administered by a hypothesized construct, the Evolved Processing Unit (EPU. The ABS also includes observed or predicted behavior which can be tested experimentally – the ultimate test of construct validity. Use of the proposed framework should help the two disciplines focus on their common, core business of behavior and, ultimately, be to the benefit of both.

Digital Sensor Technology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ted Quinn; Jerry Mauck; Richard Bockhorst; Ken Thomas

2013-07-01

The nuclear industry has been slow to incorporate digital sensor technology into nuclear plant designs due to concerns with digital qualification issues. However, the benefits of digital sensor technology for nuclear plant instrumentation are substantial in terms of accuracy, reliability, availability, and maintainability. This report demonstrates these benefits in direct comparisons of digital and analog sensor applications. It also addresses the qualification issues that must be addressed in the application of digital sensor technology.

Civic Ecology: Linking Social and Ecological Approaches in Extension

Science.gov (United States)

Krasny, Marianne E.; Tidball, Keith G.

2010-01-01

Civic ecology refers to the philosophy and science of community forestry, community gardening, watershed enhancement, and other volunteer-driven restoration practices in cities and elsewhere. Such practices, although often viewed as initiatives to improve a degraded environment, also foster social attributes of resilient social-ecological systems,…

La convergencia cultural a través de la ecología de medios Understanding Cultural Convergence through Media Ecology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Octavio Islas

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Antes de Internet cada medio de comunicación tenía funciones y mercados perfectamente definidos. Sin embargo, a consecuencia del formidable desarrollo de Internet y de las comunicaciones digitales, el mismo contenido hoy puede circular a través de distintos medios de comunicación. Esa es la convergencia cultural. El relato transmediático anticipa el advenimiento de nuevos mercados de consumo cultural. Con base en la ecología de medios y particularmente considerando las tesis de Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman y Henry Jenkins, es analizada la convergencia cultural como complejo ambiente comunicativo. La convergencia cultural modifica los procedimientos de operación de las industrias mediáticas. Los cambios más significativos, sin embargo, se presentan en las comunidades de conocimiento. Before the Internet, the different media had specifically defined functions and markets. However, since the emergence of the Internet and digital communication, the same content can be found right across the media; this is known as cultural convergence. This media crossing anticipates the coming of new markets of cultural consumption. Based on media ecology, with specific reference to the thesis developed by Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, and Henry Jenkins, cultural convergence is studied as a complex communication environment. Cultural convergence modifies the operative procedures of media industries. However, the most significant changes can be found within the knowledge communities.

PROMOTION OF ECOLOGIC PRODUCT CERTIFICATION AS INSTRUMENT TO SPEED UP THE ECOLOGIC AGRICULTURE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

George MOISE

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This paper present a vision about the possibility to speed up the conversion process to an ecological agriculture in Romania. The link from ecological products consumer and ecologic agricultural producer is also explained from point of view of certification process. Presenting the consumer mentality and principles and rules of organic farming and certification can open the way to a sustainable and ecological agriculture.

Interim balance: Ecology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kogon, E.; Jungk, R.

1981-01-01

Subjects: The ecology problem - world wide. Sectoral balances: The examples of energy, transportation, chemistry, agriculture and food industry, water supply. Destruction of nature and human discord. Conservatives in our political parties and their views on environmental protection. Alliance between reds and 'greens', integration between reds and greens. The Rhine initiative. Lead respects no borders, experiences of citizens' action groups in Lothringia and the Saar district. International airport Munich-II/comments by a protestant. 'Give priority to life'/A hearing on environmental protection. 4:96 - 'greens' in the Bremen Senate. Policy in a hard-hearing world/psychology of citizens' action groups. Critical ecological research and scientific establishment. Full productivity and ecology. The deluge to follow/Hints on how to build an ark. Symbiosis is more than coexistence/Ecologists' social theory. Throwing in two hundred elementary particles/on the way to an ecological concept of science. Scientific journals. Alternative literature. Teaching model for a teaching subject 'ecology'. (orig.) [de

Predictive systems ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Matthew R; Bithell, Mike; Cornell, Stephen J; Dall, Sasha R X; Díaz, Sandra; Emmott, Stephen; Ernande, Bruno; Grimm, Volker; Hodgson, David J; Lewis, Simon L; Mace, Georgina M; Morecroft, Michael; Moustakas, Aristides; Murphy, Eugene; Newbold, Tim; Norris, K J; Petchey, Owen; Smith, Matthew; Travis, Justin M J; Benton, Tim G

2013-11-22

Human societies, and their well-being, depend to a significant extent on the state of the ecosystems that surround them. These ecosystems are changing rapidly usually in response to anthropogenic changes in the environment. To determine the likely impact of environmental change on ecosystems and the best ways to manage them, it would be desirable to be able to predict their future states. We present a proposal to develop the paradigm of predictive systems ecology, explicitly to understand and predict the properties and behaviour of ecological systems. We discuss the necessary and desirable features of predictive systems ecology models. There are places where predictive systems ecology is already being practised and we summarize a range of terrestrial and marine examples. Significant challenges remain but we suggest that ecology would benefit both as a scientific discipline and increase its impact in society if it were to embrace the need to become more predictive.

Symbiotic Composition and Evolvability

OpenAIRE

Watson, Richard A.; Pollack, Jordan B.

2001-01-01

Several of the Major Transitions in natural evolution, such as the symbiogenic origin of eukaryotes from prokaryotes, share the feature that existing entities became the components of composite entities at a higher level of organisation. This composition of pre-adapted extant entities into a new whole is a fundamentally different source of variation from the gradual accumulation of small random variations, and it has some interesting consequences for issues of evolvability. In this paper we p...

SOIL ECOLOGY AS KEY TO SUSTAINABLE CROP PRODUCTION.

Science.gov (United States)

De Deyn, G B

2015-01-01

Sustainable production of food, feed and fiberwarrants sustainable soil management and crop protection. The tools available to achieve this are both in the realm of the plants and of the soil, with a key role for plant-soil interactions. At the plant level we have vast knowledge of variation within plant species with respect to pests and diseases, based on which we can breed for resistance. However, given that systems evolve this resistance is bound to be temporarily, hence also other strategies are needed. Here I plea for an integrative approach for sustainable production using ecological principles. Ecology, the study of how organisms interact with their environment, teaches us that diversity promotes productivity and yield stability. These effects are thought to be governed through resource use complementarity and reduced build-up of pests and diseases both above- and belowground. In recent years especially the role of soil biotic interactions has revealed new insights in how plant diversity and productivity are related to soil biodiversity and the functions soil biota govern. In our grassland biodiversity studies we found that root feeders can promote plant diversity and succession without reducing plant community productivity, this illustrates the role of diversity to maintain productivity. Also diversity within species offers scope for sustainable production, for example through awareness of differences between plant genotypes in chemical defense compounds that can attract natural enemies of pests aboveground- and belowground thereby providing plant protection. Plant breeding can also benefit from using complementarity between plant species in the selection for new varieties, as our work demonstrated that when growing in species mixtures plant species adapt to each other over time such that their resource acquisition traits become more complementing. Finally, in a recent meta-analysis we show that earthworms can stimulate crop yield with on average 25%, but

Digital Sensor Technology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Thomas, Ken D. [Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States); Quinn, Edward L. [Technology Resources, Dana Point, CA (United States); Mauck, Jerry L. [Technology Resources, Dana Point, CA (United States); Bockhorst, Richard M. [Technology Resources, Dana Point, CA (United States)

2015-02-01

The nuclear industry has been slow to incorporate digital sensor technology into nuclear plant designs due to concerns with digital qualification issues. However, the benefits of digital sensor technology for nuclear plant instrumentation are substantial in terms of accuracy and reliability. This paper, which refers to a final report issued in 2013, demonstrates these benefits in direct comparisons of digital and analog sensor applications. Improved accuracy results from the superior operating characteristics of digital sensors. These include improvements in sensor accuracy and drift and other related parameters which reduce total loop uncertainty and thereby increase safety and operating margins. An example instrument loop uncertainty calculation for a pressure sensor application is presented to illustrate these improvements. This is a side-by-side comparison of the instrument loop uncertainty for both an analog and a digital sensor in the same pressure measurement application. Similarly, improved sensor reliability is illustrated with a sample calculation for determining the probability of failure on demand, an industry standard reliability measure. This looks at equivalent analog and digital temperature sensors to draw the comparison. The results confirm substantial reliability improvement with the digital sensor, due in large part to ability to continuously monitor the health of a digital sensor such that problems can be immediately identified and corrected. This greatly reduces the likelihood of a latent failure condition of the sensor at the time of a design basis event. Notwithstanding the benefits of digital sensors, there are certain qualification issues that are inherent with digital technology and these are described in the report. One major qualification impediment for digital sensor implementation is software common cause failure (SCCF).

Digital work in a digitally challenged organization

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Davison, R.M.; Ou, Carol

Digitally literate employees are accustomed to having free access to digital media technologies. However, some organizations enact information technology (IT) governance structures that explicitly proscribe access to these technologies, resulting in considerable tension between employees and the

Exploring digital professionalism.

Science.gov (United States)

Ellaway, Rachel H; Coral, Janet; Topps, David; Topps, Maureen

2015-01-01

The widespread use of digital media (both computing devices and the services they access) has blurred the boundaries between our personal and professional lives. Contemporary students are the last to remember a time before the widespread use of the Internet and they will be the first to practice in a largely e-health environment. This article explores concepts of digital professionalism and their place in contemporary medical education, and proposes a series of principles of digital professionalism to guide teaching, learning and practice in the healthcare professions. Despite the many risks and fears surrounding their use, digital media are not an intrinsic threat to medical professionalism. Professionals should maintain the capacity for deliberate, ethical, and accountable practice when using digital media. The authors describe a digital professionalism framework structured around concepts of proficiency, reputation, and responsibility. Digital professionalism can be integrated into medical education using strategies based on awareness, alignment, assessment, and accountability. These principles of digital professionalism provide a way for medical students and medical practitioners to embrace the positive aspects of digital media use while being mindful and deliberate in its use to avoid or minimize any negative consequences.

Consumer Moments of Truth in the Digital Context : How "Search" and "E-Word of Mouth" Can Fuel Consumer Decision-Making

OpenAIRE

Moran, Gillian; Muzellec, Laurent; Nolan, Eoghan

2014-01-01

The consumer purchasing journey has evolved. New models need to capture the advancing digital behaviours of tech-savvy consumers. The current paper revisits the practitioner-led 'Moments of Truth' model used by a number of successful multinationals (initially Procter & Gamble and subsequently Google). 'Moments of Truth' (MOT) describe key instances of contact between a potential customer and a brand. The model now needs to be extended to integrate variables such as shared brand experience and...

Digital multilayer tomography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dueber, C.; Klose, K.J.; Thelen, M.

1991-01-01

With digital multilayer tomography a sequence of projection images is recorded by an image intensifier television system and stored as digital data during a linear run of a layer sequence. Using this data record, tomograms of the examined body region can be computed for any layer thickness by shifts and superimposition of the single projections later at a digital workstation. The qualities of digital and conventional tomograms are basically comparable. A drawback of digital tomography is its lower local resolution (512 x 512 image matrix), advantages are a lower radiation exposure, a shorter patient examination time, and the facilities of digital image processing (later processing, archive setup, transmission). (orig.) [de

Digital Citizenship

Science.gov (United States)

Isman, Aytekin; Canan Gungoren, Ozlem

2014-01-01

Era in which we live is known and referred as digital age.In this age technology is rapidly changed and developed. In light of these technological advances in 21st century, schools have the responsibility of training "digital citizen" as well as a good citizen. Digital citizens must have extensive skills, knowledge, Internet and …

Ecological Understanding 2: Transformation--A Key to Ecological Understanding.

Science.gov (United States)

Carlsson, Britta

2002-01-01

Describes the structure and general features of the phenomenon of ecological understanding. Presents qualitatively different ways of experiencing cycling of matter and the flow of energy in the context of ecosystems. The idea of transformation is key to the development of ecological understanding. (Contains 17 references.) (Author/YDS)

Quantification of ecological debt

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martinez Alier, Joan

2005-01-01

The discussion about ecological debt is important keeping in mind historical foreign trade, where natural resources exploitation and primary production exported didn't assessment the ecological damage or the environmental values of the interchange. This essay shows the debate of ecological debt on greenhouse emission, enterprise environmental debit, unequal international trade, toxic waste export, and b io piracy ; in order to present the necessity of a new ecological and equitable world economy

基于地理探测器的天津市生态用地格局演变%Pattern Evolvement of Ecological Land in Tianjin Based on Geodetector

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

李颖; 冯玉; 彭飞; 陈树登

2017-01-01

生态用地是衡量区域生态系统健康和安全的土地单元.认识和探讨生态用地时空分布和形成机理对城市制定土地管理策略和引导城市可持续发展具有深远意义.运用土地转移矩阵、核密度估计、地理探测器和生态系统服务价值系数法等,综合分析2000-2014年天津市生态用地质量及生态用地时空演变特征,并探讨其形成机理.结果表明:①天津市生态用地呈持续减少趋势,其中滨海新区表现最明显;生态用地转移对象主要为建设用地.②天津市生态用地核面积集中分布在北部和东部,且呈减少趋势.③地理探测器结果显示社会经济因素对生态用地变化的解释力高于自然因素,解释力最高的3个要素为一产比重变率(0.79)＞总人口变化率(0.73)＞二产比重变率(0.61),区域产业结构和人口数量对天津市生态用地变化影响强度最大.④天津市生态用地动态度变化均为负值,生态系统服务价值呈逐年减少趋势,其中水域群落创造的生态系统服务价值最高.%Ecological land can be used to measure the health and safety of the regional ecosystem.Understanding and discussing the spatial and temporal distribution of ecological land use and its formation mechanism have far-reaching significance to the city in formulating land management strategies and guiding the sustainable development.In this article,the land transfer matrix,kernel density estimation,geodetector and ecosystem service value coefficient were used to analyze and discuss the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of ecological land use,ecological land use and their formation mechanism in Tianjin during 2000-2014.Results showed that:1)The ecological land in Tianjin showed a continuous decreasing trend,of which New Coastal Region had the most obvious performance,the main target for the transfer of ecological land was construction land.2)The area of ecological land in Tianjin was

Digital Literacy Skills Among Librarians In University Libraries In The 21st Century In Edo And Delta States Nigeria

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emiri

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Libraries all over the world have been faced with the evolving technological advancement globalization and digitization of information. These have led to library automation digital and virtual libraries. This paper discussed the contemporary digital literacy skills DLS among librarians in university libraries the 21st century in Edo and Delta States of Southern Nigeria. The study was guided by six objectives and research questions and one hypothesis. The design of the study is descriptive survey and the population consists of all librarians from university libraries in the aforementioned states in Nigeria. The instrument used to generate data is the questionnaire and the date generated was analyzed using simple percentages and frequency count for research questions and SPSS version 14.0. The findings show that electronic mailing social networking use of PDAs mobile phones and internet surfing are the major DLS amongst librarians. It was also discovered that librarians acquired DLS through colleagues assistance trial and error IT programmes and formal education while librarians level of use of DLS is low amongst other findings. Researcher recommends that management of university libraries should provide training for librarians so as to help update their knowledge in application of digital skills and digital skill competence should be giving more attention during recruitment of librarians amongst others.

Eye-size variability in deep-sea lanternfishes (Myctophidae): an ecological and phylogenetic study.

Science.gov (United States)

de Busserolles, Fanny; Fitzpatrick, John L; Paxton, John R; Marshall, N Justin; Collin, Shaun P

2013-01-01

One of the most common visual adaptations seen in the mesopelagic zone (200-1000 m), where the amount of light diminishes exponentially with depth and where bioluminescent organisms predominate, is the enlargement of the eye and pupil area. However, it remains unclear how eye size is influenced by depth, other environmental conditions and phylogeny. In this study, we determine the factors influencing variability in eye size and assess whether this variability is explained by ecological differences in habitat and lifestyle within a family of mesopelagic fishes characterized by broad intra- and interspecific variance in depth range and luminous patterns. We focus our study on the lanternfish family (Myctophidae) and hypothesise that lanternfishes with a deeper distribution and/or a reduction of bioluminescent emissions have smaller eyes and that ecological factors rather than phylogenetic relationships will drive the evolution of the visual system. Eye diameter and standard length were measured in 237 individuals from 61 species of lanternfishes representing all the recognised tribes within the family in addition to compiling an ecological dataset including depth distribution during night and day and the location and sexual dimorphism of luminous organs. Hypotheses were tested by investigating the relationship between the relative size of the eye (corrected for body size) and variations in depth and/or patterns of luminous-organs using phylogenetic comparative analyses. Results show a great variability in relative eye size within the Myctophidae at all taxonomic levels (from subfamily to genus), suggesting that this character may have evolved several times. However, variability in eye size within the family could not be explained by any of our ecological variables (bioluminescence and depth patterns), and appears to be driven solely by phylogenetic relationships.

Ecology-driven stereotypes override race stereotypes

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Keelah E. G.; Sng, Oliver; Neuberg, Steven L.

2016-01-01

Why do race stereotypes take the forms they do? Life history theory posits that features of the ecology shape individuals’ behavior. Harsh and unpredictable (“desperate”) ecologies induce fast strategy behaviors such as impulsivity, whereas resource-sufficient and predictable (“hopeful”) ecologies induce slow strategy behaviors such as future focus. We suggest that individuals possess a lay understanding of ecology’s influence on behavior, resulting in ecology-driven stereotypes. Importantly, because race is confounded with ecology in the United States, we propose that Americans’ stereotypes about racial groups actually reflect stereotypes about these groups’ presumed home ecologies. Study 1 demonstrates that individuals hold ecology stereotypes, stereotyping people from desperate ecologies as possessing faster life history strategies than people from hopeful ecologies. Studies 2–4 rule out alternative explanations for those findings. Study 5, which independently manipulates race and ecology information, demonstrates that when provided with information about a person’s race (but not ecology), individuals’ inferences about blacks track stereotypes of people from desperate ecologies, and individuals’ inferences about whites track stereotypes of people from hopeful ecologies. However, when provided with information about both the race and ecology of others, individuals’ inferences reflect the targets’ ecology rather than their race: black and white targets from desperate ecologies are stereotyped as equally fast life history strategists, whereas black and white targets from hopeful ecologies are stereotyped as equally slow life history strategists. These findings suggest that the content of several predominant race stereotypes may not reflect race, per se, but rather inferences about how one’s ecology influences behavior. PMID:26712013