18,385 research outputs found
Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier
As universities recognize the inherent value in the data they collect and
hold, they encounter unforeseen challenges in stewarding those data in ways
that balance accountability, transparency, and protection of privacy, academic
freedom, and intellectual property. Two parallel developments in academic data
collection are converging: (1) open access requirements, whereby researchers
must provide access to their data as a condition of obtaining grant funding or
publishing results in journals; and (2) the vast accumulation of 'grey data'
about individuals in their daily activities of research, teaching, learning,
services, and administration. The boundaries between research and grey data are
blurring, making it more difficult to assess the risks and responsibilities
associated with any data collection. Many sets of data, both research and grey,
fall outside privacy regulations such as HIPAA, FERPA, and PII. Universities
are exploiting these data for research, learning analytics, faculty evaluation,
strategic decisions, and other sensitive matters. Commercial entities are
besieging universities with requests for access to data or for partnerships to
mine them. The privacy frontier facing research universities spans open access
practices, uses and misuses of data, public records requests, cyber risk, and
curating data for privacy protection. This paper explores the competing values
inherent in data stewardship and makes recommendations for practice, drawing on
the pioneering work of the University of California in privacy and information
security, data governance, and cyber risk.Comment: Final published version, Sept 30, 201
Examining Connections between Gendered Dimensions of Inequality and Deforestation in Nepal
The United Nations recognizes empowering women as a key component of achieving numerous development-related goals. Qualitative studies suggest that communities where men and women have equal levels of agency over resource allocation and land tenure sometimes experience decreases in forest degradation and deforestation, all else being equal. However, these patterns are spatially heterogeneous, as are patterns of gender inequality in terms of land tenure and agency. This paper uses data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to quantify the relationship between gender inequality and ecosystem degradation using three linear regression models, Empirical Bayesian Kriging, and mapping the intersections between gender inequality and deforestation. Results from LASSO, Ordinary Least Squares, and Stepwise regression models show that there is no linear relationship between gender inequality and deforestation. Additionally, the distributions of gender inequality as it pertains to land tenure and deforestation are highly heterogeneous over space, indicating potential sociocultural and sociodemographic factors not captured in my data. Further work should focus on identifying ways to incorporate complex gender dynamics into environmental planning at multiple levels of forest governance
The stellar mass structure of massive galaxies from z=0 to z=2.5; surface density profiles and half-mass radii
We present stellar mass surface density profiles of a mass-selected sample of
177 galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2.5, obtained using very deep HST optical and
near-infrared data over the GOODS-South field, including recent CANDELS data.
Accurate stellar mass surface density profiles have been measured for the first
time for a complete sample of high-redshift galaxies more massive than 10^10.7
M_sun. The key advantage of this study compared to previous work is that the
surface brightness profiles are deconvolved for PSF smoothing, allowing
accurate measurements of the structure of the galaxies. The surface brightness
profiles account for contributions from complex galaxy structures such as rings
and faint outer disks. Mass profiles are derived using radial rest-frame u-g
color profiles and a well-established empirical relation between these colors
and the stellar mass-to-light ratio. We derive stellar half-mass radii from the
mass profiles, and find that these are on average ~25% smaller than rest-frame
g band half-light radii. This average size difference of 25% is the same at all
redshifts, and does not correlate with stellar mass, specific star formation
rate, effective surface density, Sersic index, or galaxy size. Although on
average the difference between half-mass size and half-light size is modest,
for approximately 10% of massive galaxies this difference is more than a factor
two. These extreme galaxies are mostly extended, disk-like systems with large
central bulges. These results are robust, but could be impacted if the central
dust extinction becomes high. ALMA observations can be used to explore this
possibility. These results provide added support for galaxy growth scenarios
wherein massive galaxies at these epochs grow by accretion onto their outer
regions.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Ap
From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design
As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain
"ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in
socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a
network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run
all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback
and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the
reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying
models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy
decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of
Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but
they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of
society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The
results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into
informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis
Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources,
environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected
with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make
complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and
the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c
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