Denotation and connotation in the human-computer interface: The ‘Save as...’ command

This paper presents a semiotic technique as a means of exploring meaning and understanding in interface design and use. This is examined through a study of the interaction between the ‘file’ metaphor and ‘save as’ command metaphor. The behaviour of these (from a functional or computational basis) do not exactly match, or map onto, the meaning of the metaphor. We examine both the denotation of a term to the user, i.e. its literal meaning to that person, and the term’s connotations, i.e. any other meanings associated with the term. We suggest that the technique applied is useful in predicting future problems with understanding the use of metaphor at the interface and with designing appropriate signification for human-computer interaction. Variation in connotation was expected but a more fundamental difference in denotation was also uncovered. Moreover, the results clearly demonstrate that consistency in the denotation of a term is critical in achieving a good user understanding of the command

Embracing complexity in international forest governance: a way forward; Policy Brief

This Policy Brief summarizes the findings of a comprehensive assessment of scientific information about international forest governance carried out by an Expert Panel of over 30 of the world's leading scientists working in the areas of environmental governance and international forest law. It aims to provide policy and decision makers with essential knowledge and building blocks required for a more effective and inclusive governance of the world's forest

Salt Marsh Secrets. Lesson Plan.

The purpose of this lesson is to highlight salt marshes ecological importance tostudents. The whole activity and students’ presentations might take two class periods.The first part of this lesson can be assigned as a research activity following by a classdiscussion. In this lab activity students will read about some facts of salt marshesecology and use real-life data to make estimations about fiddler crab colonypopulation & food material consumption, practice calculations of measures ofcentral tendency, work with proportions & percents, and use basic geometry toestimate volumes of water absorbed by the marshes due to fiddler crab colonyactivity

Land carbon sequestration within the conterminous United States : regional- and state-level analyses

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 120 (2015): 379–398, doi:10.1002/2014JG002818.A quantitative understanding of the rate at which land ecosystems are sequestering or losing carbon at national-, regional-, and state-level scales is needed to develop policies to mitigate climate change. In this study, a new improved historical land use and land cover change data set is developed and combined with a process-based ecosystem model to estimate carbon sources and sinks in land ecosystems of the conterminous United States for the contemporary period of 2001–2005 and over the last three centuries. We estimate that land ecosystems in the conterminous United States sequestered 323 Tg C yr−1 at the beginning of the 21st century with forests accounting for 97% of this sink. This land carbon sink varied substantially across the conterminous United States, with the largest sinks occurring in the Southeast. Land sinks are large enough to completely compensate fossil fuel emissions in Maine and Mississippi, but nationally, carbon sinks compensate for only 20% of U.S. fossil fuel emissions. We find that regions that are currently large carbon sinks (e.g., Southeast) tend to have been large carbon sources over the longer historical period. Both the land use history and fate of harvested products can be important in determining a region's overall impact on the atmospheric carbon budget. While there are numerous options for reducing fossil fuels (e.g., increase efficiency and displacement by renewable resources), new land management opportunities for sequestering carbon need to be explored. Opportunities include reforestation and managing forest age structure. These opportunities will vary from state to state and over time across the United States.This work was supported by NSF grants 104918, 1137306, and 1237491; EPA grant XA-83600001-1; and DOE grant DE-FG02-94ER61937.2015-08-2

National socioeconomic surveys in forestry : Guidance and survey modules for measuring the multiple roles of forests in household welfare and livelihoods

Adequate information on the socioeconomic contributions of forests to household welfare, livelihoods and poverty reduction is key to national sustainable development in the post-2015 agenda. While awareness is growing regarding the multiple roles of forests in these aspects of sustainable development, the lack of systematic data in many countries limits an evidence-based demonstration of this. Lacking reliable information, forests and forestry are not always adequately considered in the development of national policies. This sourcebook is intended to help improve data collection on aspects of forests relating to household welfare and livelihoods. It offers practical guidance and measurement tools that can be included in existing social or socioeconomic surveys undertaken by a country’s national statistical office, or in independent national surveys

Towards an ontology of urban green spaces

Growing interest in Urban Green Spaces (UGSs) has led to the discovery of the wide spectrum of services that they either provide or support. Yet, there is persistent confusion about what types of green spaces exist and how they should be classified. Current Land Use (LU) and Land Cover (LC) maps both at European and national levels are either lacking or misclassify various types of UGS, thus underestimating the actual amount of green space that a city offers its citizens. In this paper, we highlight reasons for green space misclassification and suggest an ontology of UGSs. Our ontology takes into account both the physical appearance of UGSs and their semantics. We characterize the physical appearance using four different LC classes while providing semantics using unique characteristics expressed as rules. The ontology proposed emphasizes in particular frequently disregarded small and heterogeneous UGSs and can be used as a basis for their precise identification and mapping

The Changes in China's Forests: An Analysis Using the Forest Identity

Changes in forest carbon stocks are a determinant of the regional carbon budget. In the past several decades, China has experienced a pronounced increase in forest area and density. However, few comprehensive analyses have been conducted. In this study, we employed the Forest Identity concept to evaluate the changing status of China's forests over the past three decades, using national forest inventory data of five periods (1977–1981, 1984–1988, 1989–1993, 1994–1998, and 1999–2003). The results showed that forest area and growing stock density increased by 0.51% and 0.44% annually over the past three decades, while the conversion ratio of forest biomass to growing stock declined by 0.10% annually. These developments resulted in a net annual increase of 0.85% in forest carbon sequestration, which is equivalent to a net biomass carbon uptake of 43.8 Tg per year (1 Tg = 1012 g). This increase can be attributed to the national reforestation/afforestation programs, environmentally enhanced forest growth and economic development as indicated by the average gross domestic product