Promoting Geoethics in Society: A New Challenge for Geoscientists

The Geoscience community is called to play an important role in society: helping in the defense against natural risks, orienting on global issues like climate change, looking for new ways to source natural resources from a sustainable perspective, building a knowledgeable society and help to improve the living conditions of human life especially in low income countries. This implies geoscientists are more aware of their social responsibility and capable of working by the principles of integrity, honesty with respect for land, water and air..

Re-examining and re-conceptualising enterprise search and discovery capability: towards a model for the factors and generative mechanisms for search task outcomes.

Many organizations are trying to re-create the Google experience, to find and exploit their own corporate information. However, there is evidence that finding information in the workplace using search engine technology has remained difficult, with socio-technical elements largely neglected in the literature. Explication of the factors and generative mechanisms (ultimate causes) to effective search task outcomes (user satisfaction, search task performance and serendipitous encountering) may provide a first step in making improvements. A transdisciplinary (holistic) lens was applied to Enterprise Search and Discovery capability, combining critical realism and activity theory with complexity theories to one of the worlds largest corporations. Data collection included an in-situ exploratory search experiment with 26 participants, focus groups with 53 participants and interviews with 87 business professionals. Thousands of user feedback comments and search transactions were analysed. Transferability of findings was assessed through interviews with eight industry informants and ten organizations from a range of industries. A wide range of informational needs were identified for search filters, including a need to be intrigued. Search term word co-occurrence algorithms facilitated serendipity to a greater extent than existing methods deployed in the organization surveyed. No association was found between user satisfaction (or self assessed search expertise) with search task performance and overall performance was poor, although most participants had been satisfied with their performance. Eighteen factors were identified that influence search task outcomes ranging from user and task factors, informational and technological artefacts, through to a wide range of organizational norms. Modality Theory (Cybersearch culture, Simplicity and Loss Aversion bias) was developed to explain the study observations. This proposes that at all organizational levels there are tendencies for reductionist (unimodal) mind-sets towards search capability leading to fixes that fail. The factors and mechanisms were identified in other industry organizations suggesting some theory generalizability. This is the first socio-technical analysis of Enterprise Search and Discovery capability. The findings challenge existing orthodoxy, such as the criticality of search literacy (agency) which has been neglected in the practitioner literature in favour of structure. The resulting multifactorial causal model and strategic framework for improvement present opportunities to update existing academic models in the IR, LIS and IS literature, such as the DeLone and McLean model for information system success. There are encouraging signs that Modality Theory may enable a reconfiguration of organizational mind-sets that could transform search task outcomes and ultimately business performance

Mashups: An Approach to Overcoming the Business/IT Gap in Service-Oriented Architectures

For quite a long time already, great importance has been attached to the concept of Service-Oriented Architectures for future IT-architectures. However, a major challenge in implementing this concept lies in the gap between the functional department and IT department. Mashups, an architecture also based on services, try to avoid this gap by letting the user himself integrate the services. The following article analyzes similarities and differences between both architecture approaches, and explains to what extent and in which cases Mashups could complement a Service-Oriented Architecture

Workshop on Science Opportunities for a Multidisciplinary Long-Range Aircraft for Antarctic Research: Program and Abstract Volume

Organizing Committee: Bea Csatho, David H. Bromwich, Michael Studinger, Thomas R. Parish, Robin Muench, and Jeff StithOffice of Polar Programs, National Science Foundatio

Visual Analytics for Linked Open Data in Marine Sciences

The purpose of data exploration and data visualization (DV) is to offer ways of perceiving and manipulating information, as well as extracting and inferring knowledge. In this short paper we present advances in visual representations and intuitive interaction techniques based on artificial intelligence. This contributes significantly to the exploration and understanding of information related to marine sciences represented by ontologies and linked data. This preliminary research allows scientists and non-expert users to analyze sets with information related to oceanography, meteorology and environmental parameters to promote scientific knowledge and productive innovation in the South Atlantic ocean using Linked Open Data (LOD).Instituto de Investigación en Informátic

Regulation, Climate Change, and the Electric Grid

In Part I of this essay, I outline some of the background characteristics of the electric grid, the way it is operated, and the way regulators and grid operators manage the sale and transmission of electricity across it. In Part II, I explore the opportunities and potential problems associated with integrating intermittent, renewable sources of electric generation into the grid. This discussion includes a review of a number of recent studies examining the GHG emissions effects of using fossil fueled generation to back up wind power, as well as the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission?s (FERC) recent rulemakings addressing this issue. Part III explores the potential cost and pollution reduction savings associated with better management of our electricity demand, and why many of those opportunities remain unrealized. This discussion includes a review of the behavioral economics literature addressing this phenomenon, as well as FERCs recent rulemakings aimed at reducing the growth in peak demand by encouraging demand response. Part IV offers some concluding thoughts

Geoscience data publication: practices and perspectives on enabling the FAIR guiding principles

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Kinkade, D., & Shepherd, A. Geoscience data publication: practices and perspectives on enabling the FAIR guiding principles. Geoscience Data Journal, (2021): https://doi.org/10.1002/gdj3.120.ntroduced in 2016, the FAIR Guiding Principles endeavour to significantly improve the process of today's data-driven research. The Principles present a concise set of fundamental concepts that can facilitate the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse (FAIR) of digital research objects by both machines and human beings. The emergence of FAIR has initiated a flurry of activity within the broader data publication community, yet the principles are still not fully understood by many community stakeholders. This has led to challenges such as misinterpretation and co-opted use, along with persistent gaps in current data publication culture, practices and infrastructure that need to be addressed to achieve a FAIR data end-state. This paper presents an overview of the practices and perspectives related to the FAIR Principles within the Geosciences and offers discussion on the value of the principles in the larger context of what they are trying to achieve. The authors of this article recommend using the principles as a tool to bring awareness to the types of actions that can improve the practice of data publication to meet the needs of all data consumers. FAIR Guiding Principles should be interpreted as an aspirational guide to focus behaviours that lead towards a more FAIR data environment. The intentional discussions and incremental changes that bring us closer to these aspirations provide the best value to our community as we build the capacity that will support and facilitate new discovery of earth systems.The writing of this article was supported by the NSF, grant no. 1924618

The role of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in information and communication in science. A conceptual framework and empirical study

Problem This dissertation presents a literature-based framework for communication in science (with the elements partners, purposes, message, and channel), which it then applies in and amends through an empirical study of how geoscientists use two social computing technologies (SCTs), blogging and Twitter (both general use and tweeting from conferences). How are these technologies used and what value do scientists derive from them? Method The empirical part used a two-pronged qualitative study, using (1) purposive samples of ~400 blog posts and ~1000 tweets and (2) a purposive sample of 8 geoscientist interviews. Blog posts, tweets, and interviews were coded using the framework, adding new codes as needed. The results were aggregated into 8 geoscientist case studies, and general patterns were derived through cross-case analysis. Results A detailed picture of how geoscientists use blogs and twitter emerged, including a number of new functions not served by traditional channels. Some highlights: Geoscientists use SCTs for communication among themselves as well as with the public. Blogs serve persuasion and personal knowledge management; Twitter often amplifies the signal of traditional communications such as journal articles. Blogs include tutorials for peers, reviews of basic science concepts, and book reviews. Twitter includes links to readings, requests for assistance, and discussions of politics and religion. Twitter at conferences provides live coverage of sessions. Conclusions Both blogs and Twitter are routine parts of scientists' communication toolbox, blogs for in-depth, well-prepared essays, Twitter for faster and broader interactions. Both have important roles in supporting community building, mentoring, and learning and teaching. The Framework of Communication in Science was a useful tool in studying these two SCTs in this domain. The results should encourage science administrators to facilitate SCT use of scientists in their organization and information providers to search SCT documents as an important source of information

Transformando datos de biodiversidad en linked data

La biodiversidad es esencial para la vida en la tierra y motiva muchos esfuerzos en la recopilación de datos sobre especies, que son utilizados por investigadores para el estudio de los seres vivos. Sin embargo, dados que estos datos se extraen desde diferentes lugares geográficos y se almacenan en distintos formatos, su recuperación, combinación e integración es aún un problema abierto. El objetivo general de este trabajo de investigación es desarrollar una arquitectura para convertir y publicar datos de biodiversidad utilizando tecnologías de la Web Semántica, en particular los principios establecidos por la iniciativa Linked Open Data (LOD) para compartir y relacionar información. Esta línea de investigación se desarrolla en forma colaborativa entre docentes-investigadores de la Universidad Nacional del Comahue y de la Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco, en el marco de proyectos de investigación financiados por las universidades antes mencionadas.Eje: Bases de datos y Minería de datos.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI