Water Current, Volume 42, No. 1, Winter 2010

Meet the Faculty (Tala Awada and Cody Knutson) Above Average Precipitation Causes Groundwater Level Rises $3.1 million NSF Grant Funds Innovative Grad Education Program From the Interim Director: Getting a Feel for the Job With Lots Ahead for the Water Center Free Water and Resources Lectures Continue Planning Continues for Platte Basin Tour October River Basins Symposium and Law Conference Feds Mull Regulating Drugs in Water Sediments and Emerging Contaminants: On the Menu and in the Air Watching Water Consumption Improved Site Adds New Features Featured Partner: Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership Wastewater Treatment Education Helps Protect Nebraska’s Water Resources Water Resources Advisory Panel Sets Course for 2010 USGS Report: Pesticide Levels Decline in Corn Belt Rivers News Brief

Gender, migration and human security: HIV vulnerability among rural to urban migrants in the People's Republic of China

The ‘human security’ paradigm emerged in the early 1990s as a means of refocusing the security referent away from the state to the individual. It is a theory that is grounded in human rights and the provision of basic needs for all of humanity, regardless of their locale, identity or citizenship status. As a theory, it was not intended to replace notions of traditional security, but was instead intended to be a complementary theory on security as it has been argued that human insecurity actually threatens state security. While the concept itself remains somewhat contested in the political sciences, human security nonetheless provides a useful analysis of non-state security issues and dilemmas, particularly those that concern the human condition. In recent years there has been increasing recognition that the human security paradigm has overlooked the vulnerabilities often faced by women, many of which are gender-based and thereby not shared by men. To counter this, there have been attempts to ‘engender’ human security discourse in academic literature. This paper considers the vulnerabilities faced by female rural to urban migrants in the People’s Republic of China and intersects the mainstream discourse on human security in an attempt to contribute further to the engendering of human security discourse

A Memristor as Multi-Bit Memory: Feasibility Analysis

The use of emerging memristor materials for advanced electrical devices such as multi-valued logic is expected to outperform today's binary logic digital technologies. We show here an example for such non-binary device with the design of a multi-bit memory. While conventional memory cells can store only 1 bit, memristors-based multi-bit cells can store more information within single device thus increasing the information storage density. Such devices can potentially utilize the non-linear resistance of memristor materials for efficient information storage. We analyze the performance of such memory devices based on their expected variations in order to determine the viability of memristor-based multi-bit memory. A design of read/write scheme and a simple model for this cell, lay grounds for full integration of memristor multi-bit memory cell

Māori & Psychology Research Unit annual report 2011

Annual report of the Māori and Psychology Research Unit (MPRU) 2011. The unit was established in August of 1997. The unit is designed to provide a catalyst and support network for enhancing research concerning the psychological needs, aspirations, and priorities of Maori people. The MPRU is well situated to draw together skilled and experienced interdisciplinary research groups by networking and establishing working relationships with staff and students within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the University, and the wider community

Web Science: expanding the notion of Computer Science

Academic disciplines which practice in the context of rapid external change face particular problems when seeking to maintain timely, current and relevant teaching programs. In different institutions faculty will tune and update individual component courses while more radical revisions are typically departmental-wide strategic responses to perceived needs. Internationally, the ACM has sought to define curriculum recommendations since the 1960s and recognizes the diversity of the computing disciplines with its 2005 overview volume. The consequent rolling program of revisions is demanding in terms of time and effort, but an inevitable response to the change inherent is our family of specialisms. Preparation for the Computer Curricula 2013 is underway, so it seems appropriate to ask what place Web Science will have in the curriculum landscape. Web Science has been variously described; the most concise definition being the ‘science of decentralized information systems’. Web science is fundamentally interdisciplinary encompassing the study of the technologies and engineering which constitute the Web, alongside emerging associated human, social and organizational practices. Furthermore, to date little teaching of Web Science is at undergraduate level. Some questions emerge - is Web Science a transient artifact? Can Web Science claim a place in the ACM family, Is Web Science an exotic relative with a home elsewhere? This paper discusses the role and place of Web Science in the context of the computing disciplines. It provides an account of work which has been established towards defining an initial curriculum for Web Science with plans for future developments utilizing novel methods to support and elaborate curriculum definition and review. The findings of a desk survey of existing related curriculum recommendations are presented. The paper concludes with recommendations for future activities which may help us determine whether we should expand the notion of computer science