Bringing it all together

International audienceThe various elements of the hydrological cycle are discussed in outline from the point of view of making progress in analysis through appropriate simplification of these complex processes. Parallels between stochastic and deterministic analysis and between linear and non-linear conceptual models are emphasised. Reference is made to similarities and contrasts between analysis over the range of scales from the water molecule to the global water balance

Bringing it All Together: Integrating Services to Address Homelessness

Homeless-serving systems are striving for greater impact and efficiency amidst austerity. Those with lived experience, governments, funders, and service providers have consistently and increasingly called for enhanced integration across services, organizations, systems, processes and policies as a means of maximizing existing resources. Here, the discourse of integration refers to ways of working better together across diverse internal and external organizational boundaries. At the heart of these efforts lies the assumption that integration is the desired state, an ideal that will result in improved outcomes at individual and population levels.As actors actively engaged in homeless-serving system planning work, we draw from on-the-ground experiences in Calgary, Alberta to consider how a nuanced understanding of integration can shape the evolution of a systems planning response to homelessness. Our practical experience working in the homeless-serving system on diverse integration initiatives has prompted us to reconsider the evidence and critically probe the implicit link between systems integration efforts and improved individual and population outcomes. In some instances, we have experienced how integration efforts can result in the addition of new layers of complexity to the issue they were created to resolve in the first place. In other cases, integration efforts delivered marginal benefits given the amount of resources used as inputs into planning and implementation. Of course, there are also examples where integration spurs positive impacts at the system and target population levels.Rather than declaring a course of action, this paper is intended to spur discussion. We are posing questions we continue to grapple with at a praxis level, which may resonate with fellow policy makers, system planner organizations, service providers and researchers. We want to go beyond conventional wisdom to probe the merits of integration as a de facto answer to complex social issues by asking:What exactly is integration? When and how is integration appropriate?What are the pitfalls of integration and how do we manage risks?Findings suggest that while ventures to enhance integration remain important, they are not and cannot be the panacea to social challenges, including homelessness.  If integration is an appropriate response, we must understand what makes it work, what environment it thrives in, and what success looks like. We maintain that no matter how system integration is implemented or delivered, a central focus on the person served must be maintained, rather than systems themselves.

Bringing it all together: working in partnership across our University

This article tells of two library projects within our university. The first is intended to offer library-skills support to on-site students in an innovative and flexible manner. The second is intended to offer support to our growing numbers of off-site learners

Bringing It All Together: Coupling Excision Repair to the DNA Damage Checkpoint

Nucleotide excision repair and the ATR-mediated DNA damage checkpoint are two critical cellular responses to the genotoxic stress induced by ultraviolet (UV) light and are important for cancer prevention. In vivo genetic data indicate that these global responses are coupled. Aziz Sancar et al. developed an in vitro coupled repair-checkpoint system to analyze the basic steps of these DNA damage stress responses in a biochemically defined system. The minimum set of factors essential for repair-checkpoint coupling include damaged DNA, the excision repair factors (XPA, XPC, XPF-ERCC1, XPG, TFIIH, RPA), the 5'-3' exonuclease EXO1, and the damage checkpoint proteins ATR-ATRIP and TopBP1. This coupled repair-checkpoint system was used to demonstrate that the ~30 nucleotide single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) gap generated by nucleotide excision repair is enlarged by EXO1 and bound by RPA to generate the signal that activates ATR

Bringing it all together: a multi-method evaluation of Tanum 247:1

This paper presents the results of a photogrammetric survey of the rock art panel Tanum 247:1 in Kalleby, which revealed an entirely new boat that had previously been missed in a documentation history over 50 years long. Through the combined use of digital and traditional methods the results could be verified. It is therefore argued that collating documentations, both past and present, can help to create a better picture of Bronze Age rock art carvings.  In addition to using new and traditional documentation methods together, panels should be recorded beyond what is known, both in terms of discovering unknown carvings, as well as creating better data for future researchers

Bringing it All Together: Integrating Services to Address Homelessness

Homeless-serving systems are striving for greater impact and efficiency amidst austerity. Those with lived experience, governments, funders, and service providers have consistently and increasingly called for enhanced integration across services, organizations, systems, processes and policies as a means of maximizing existing resources. Here, the discourse of integration refers to ways of working better together across diverse internal and external organizational boundaries. At the heart of these efforts lies the assumption that integration is the desired state, an ideal that will result in improved outcomes at individual and population levels. As actors actively engaged in homeless-serving system planning work, we draw from on-the-ground experiences in Calgary, Alberta to consider how a nuanced understanding of integration can shape the evolution of a systems planning response to homelessness. Our practical experience working in the homeless-serving system on diverse integration initiatives has prompted us to reconsider the evidence and critically probe the implicit link between systems integration efforts and improved individual and population outcomes. In some instances, we have experienced how integration efforts can result in the addition of new layers of complexity to the issue they were created to resolve in the first place. In other cases, integration efforts delivered marginal benefits given the amount of resources used as inputs into planning and implementation. Of course, there are also examples where integration spurs positive impacts at the system and target population levels. Rather than declaring a course of action, this paper is intended to spur discussion. We are posing questions we continue to grapple with at a praxis level, which may resonate with fellow policy makers, system planner organizations, service providers and researchers. We want to go beyond conventional wisdom to probe the merits of integration as a de facto answer to complex social issues by asking: What exactly is integration? When and how is integration appropriate? What are the pitfalls of integration and how do we manage risks? Findings suggest that while ventures to enhance integration remain important, they are not and cannot be the panacea to social challenges, including homelessness. If integration is an appropriate response, we must understand what makes it work, what environment it thrives in, and what success looks like. We maintain that no matter how system integration is implemented or delivered, a central focus on the person served must be maintained, rather than systems themselves

Bringing it all together: formal and informal learning in a university guitar class

This study seeks to integrate informal and formal music learning in a university guitar class with a secondary focus on evaluating the effectiveness of this approach in meeting student's stated goals for learning the guitar. Salient features in formal music learning were discovered from an examination of guitar method books. Informal features were examined from a reading of extant research on popular music pedagogy and expounded upon through research devoted to specific areas of informal music learning and popular music pedagogy. These features were used in the creation of a guitar curriculum to aid in the integration of both formal and informal music learning in a university guitar class. Data were gathered through pre- and post-study questionnaires, interviews, and video analysis. Analysis of data shows that integrating formal and informal music learning in a beginner's guitar class is effective in meeting student stated goals for the course. Note reading was an area that was not effective in meeting student goals for the course. Data revealed that note reading should be taught slowly, in key based relationships and with fewer notes taught over the 16 week course. Integrating informal music learning procedures in a formal environment proved to be challenging for the students. A difficulty existed in the student's ability to task switch between formal and informal learning in the University setting. Implications from the study are listening should be considered a primary means for learning music and haphazard learning is beneficial, though difficult to include in a systematized curriculum