Pretty maps: evaluating GIS adoption of cartographic design standards and best practices in professional publications

The nature of GIS maps, as tools designed for visual communication, puts them in the realm of art that is in many ways unique among scientific tools. As a visual form of communication, maps are responsive to methods of visual design, affecting the map’s appeal and function. Through cartography, a well established body of standards and best-practices exists to help GIS users avoid common design errors and create effective and meaningful maps that support their work. This research examines the adoption rate of those standards amongst professionals using GIS software for creating maps for journal publications. A selection of 80 GIS-produced maps from the AAG’s Professional Geographer were examined and compared to a uniform set of cartographic standards to look for trends in the adoption rates of map design standards amongst GIS map makers. Maps were rated by the author on their use of cartographic standards based on map content and purpose as opposed to their aesthetic quality. The data show trends in GIS cartographic design use that closely follow the inclusion of default values in common GIS software. The implication is that GIS professionals making maps are typically not applying cartographic standards on their own, but mostly following the standards set up in their software of choice. This suggests that there is still significant work to be done in teaching the value of cartographic principles to GIS students and practitioners

Cosmological analytic solutions with reduced relativistic gas

In this paper one examine analytical solutions for flat and non-flat universes composed by four components namely hot matter (ultra-relativistic), warm matter (relativistic), cold matter (non-relativistic) and cosmological constant. The warm matter is treated as a reduced relativistic gas and the other three components are treated in the usual way. The solutions achieved contains one, two or three components of which one component is of warm matter type. A solution involving all the four components was not found.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, accepted by MPL

Poetry, resistance, world-literature : Adília Lopes and Marie Buck

This essay begins an exploration of how poetry functions within the field of world-literature, drawing specifically on the Warwick Research Collective’s Combined and Uneven Development: Towards a New Theory of World-Literature and reflecting comparatively on the poetry of Adília Lopes and Marie Buck. Even though there are many differences between the two authors and their works, one common feature of their poetics is the deployment of poetry as a form of resistance. As such, both can be seen as especially significant so as to probe into the condition of poetry within a conceptualization of world-literature understood as the literature of the capitalist world-system. As the essay argues, both Adília Lopes and Marie Buck register specific conditions of oppression within a capitalist, patriarchal, society and offer ways to contest them

Eulerian digraphs and toric Calabi-Yau varieties

We investigate the structure of a simple class of affine toric Calabi-Yau varieties that are defined from quiver representations based on finite eulerian directed graphs (digraphs). The vanishing first Chern class of these varieties just follows from the characterisation of eulerian digraphs as being connected with all vertices balanced. Some structure theory is used to show how any eulerian digraph can be generated by iterating combinations of just a few canonical graph-theoretic moves. We describe the effect of each of these moves on the lattice polytopes which encode the toric Calabi-Yau varieties and illustrate the construction in several examples. We comment on physical applications of the construction in the context of moduli spaces for superconformal gauged linear sigma models.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

Realistic Cyclic Magnetic Universe

This work presents a complete cyclic cosmological scenario based on nonlinear magnetic field. It is constructed a model composed by five fluids namely baryonic matter, dark matter, radiation, neutrinos and a cosmological magnetic field. The first four fluids are treated in the standard way and the fifth fluid, the magnetic field, is described by a nonlinear electrodynamics. The free parameters are fitted by observational data (SNIa, CMB, extragalactic magnetic fields, etc) and by simple theoretical considerations. As result arises a cyclic cosmological model which preserves the main successes of standard big bang model and solve some other problems like the initial singularity, the present acceleration and the Big Rip.Comment: 13 pages and 6 figure

Improving waiting times in the Emergency Department

Waiting times in the Emergency Department cause considerable delays in care and in patient satisfaction. There are many moving parts to the ED visit with multiple providers delivering care for a single patient. Factors that have been shown to delay care in the ED have been broken down into input factors such as triaging, throughput factors during the visit, and output factors, which include discharge planning and available inpatient beds for admitted patients. Research has shown that throughput factors are an area of interest to decrease time spent in the ED that will lead to decrease waiting room times. In this Quality Improvement project, we will develop a systematic check in system with ED providers that will allow providers to identify any outstanding issues that may be delaying care or discharge. We hypothesize that this system will increase throughput in the ED by resolving any lab, radiology, or treatments that were overlooked. Reviewing the results of this QI project will allow us to see if we were effective in our timing of scheduled check-ins. Ultimately, this will reduce time spent in the waiting room by allowing more patients to be seen. In the era of the Affordable Care Act, more patients have access to affordable healthcare and will increase volume in the ED. This check-in system will allow more patients to be seen smoothly and in a timely manner that will improve and increase patient care and satisfaction in the ED

Tree-squares in Anatolia : what does an emergent public space mean?

Urban places, besides their physical characteristics, are regarded as grounds where personal or collective meanings are created and accumulated. An individual can capture the meaning of a place, or create new meanings by relying on his/her own feelings and experiences. This research, by discussing the idea of togetherness of meaning and design in urban spaces, presents trees both as place making and meaning generating features, which honors the local identity of a site. Tree-squares are, therefore, the unique urban public places where this relationship is observed clearly. The researcher’s encounter with a Çınaraltı Square - a Turkish term used to define public places under massive and historical plane trees and will be referred as Tree-Square within the scope of this paper - which is marked by a plane tree that is called Musa (Moses) Plane in Antakya/Turkey has triggered an idea of questioning the urban planning and design approaches beyond the broadly accepted role of trees as natural and aesthetic beings in cities. Later on, Yalvaç Plane in Yalvaç/Isparta site, and the outstanding public place under its tremendous branches carried this wonder one step further, since this Tree-Square was not only an attractive place with a magnificent plane tree, but also the heart of the city. It was unplanned and un-envisioned by any kind of legal planning or design authority; instead, it was emerged and developed out of the cultural beliefs and traditions. This emergent public space is a product of a long term social and historical interaction process that created the main public place of a medium-sized Turkish city, as in many Anatolian cities. It carries significant urban qualities, such as forming the heart of cities and having a visible impact on the urban macroform. Therefore, a case study research has been conducted in Yalvaç Tree-Square to gain a comprehensive grasp of the social and spatial organization of an urban place that is dominated by a historical plane tree. In this sense, the role of Yalvaç Plane in the historical and spatial development of an urban space will be evaluated by relying on socially produced meaning in the built environment

Neutrino Mixing in Unified Extended Seesaw Model

The seesaw mechanism can play a key role in the generation of the leptonic mixing in unified models. We consider an unified model with a family symmetry and extended seesaw, and obtain viable fermion masses and mixing (leptonic mixing is close to tri-bi-maximal).Comment: Proceedings submission for SUSY09, 4 pages, 1 figur