RHESSys: Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System—An Object-Oriented Approach to Spatially Distributed Modeling of Carbon, Water, and Nutrient Cycling

Process-based models that can represent multiple and interacting processes provide a framework for combining field-based measurements with evolving science-based models of specific hydroecological processes. Use of these models, however, requires that the representation of processes and key assumptions involved be understood by the user community. This paper provides a full description of process implementation in the most recent version of the Regional Hydro-Ecological Simulation System (RHESSys), a model that has been applied in a wide variety of research settings. An overview of the underlying (Geographic Information System) GISbased model framework is given followed by a description of the mathematical models used to represent various biogeochemical cycling and hydrologic processes including vertical and lateral hydrologic fluxes, microclimate variability, canopy radiation transfer, vegetation and soil microbial carbon and nitrogen cycling. An example application of RHESSys for a small forested watershed as part of the Baltimore Long-Term Ecological Research site is included to illustrate use of the model in exploring spatial-temporal dynamics and the coupling between hydrology and biogeochemical cycling

Variability in springtime thaw in the terrestrial high latitudes: Monitoring a major control on the biospheric assimilation of atmospheric CO2 with spaceborne microwave remote sensing

Evidence is presented from the satellite microwave remote sensing record that the timing of seasonal thawing and subsequent initiation of the growing season in early spring has advanced by approximately 8 days from 1988 to 2001 for the pan-Arctic basin and Alaska. These trends are highly variable across the region, with North America experiencing a larger advance relative to Eurasia and the entire region. Interannual variability in the timing of spring thaw as detected from the remote sensing record corresponded directly to seasonal anomalies in mean atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the region, including the timing of the seasonal draw down of atmospheric CO2 from terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP) in spring, and seasonal maximum and minimum CO2 concentrations. The timing of the seasonal thaw for a given year was also found to be a significant (P \u3c 0.01) predictor of the seasonal amplitude of atmospheric CO2 for the following year. These results imply that the timing of seasonal thawing in spring has a major impact on terrestrial NPP and net carbon exchange at high latitudes. The initiation of the growing season has also been occurring earlier, on average, over the time period addressed in this study and may be a major mechanism driving observed atmospheric CO2 seasonal cycle advances, vegetation greening, and enhanced productivity for the northern high latitudes

Different Approaches in Recruiting Young Professionals

Young Professionals as a significant part of Generation Y have already been examined in various studies that focused on their views, attitudes, values etc. This paper examines the differences in the importance of work and life values among peers of the same age with similar background, but from different study groups. To test the propositions, a life value inventory was distributed among 262 students and alumni from two different study programs at the same Faculty between December 2016 and May 2017. The data were analyzed in the SPSS statistical software with the use of the k-means clustering. The hypotheses expecting differences in life and work values were partially confirmed. The findings are discussed within the framework of strategic leadership and the need of engaging stakeholders

Reduced order models for fluid-structure interaction systems by mixed finite element formulation

In this work, mixed finite element formulations are introduced for acoustoelastic fluid- structure interaction (FSI) systems. For acoustic fluid, in addition to displacement- pressure (u/p) mixed formulation, a three-field formulation, namely, displacement-pressure-vorticity moment formulation (u - p -Λ) is employed to eliminate some zero frequencies. This formulation is introduced in order to compute the coupled frequencies without the contamination of nonphysical spurious non-zero frequencies. Furthermore, gravitational forces are introduced to include the coupled sloshing mode. In addition, u/p mixed formulation is the first time employed in solid. The numerical examples will demonstrate that the mixed formulations are capable of predicted coupled frequencies and mode shapes even if primary slosh, structural, and acoustic modes are within separate frequency ranges. That is to say, the mixed finite element formulations are used to deal with fluid and solid monolithically. In numerical analysis, boundary conditions, wetted surface, and skew systems are considered in order to obtain the symmetrical, nonsingular mass and stiffness matrices. An implicit time integration scheme, the Newmark method, is employed in the transient analysis. Appropriate finite elements corresponding to the mixed finite element formulations are selected based on the inf-sup condition, which is the fundamental solvability and stability condition of finite element methods. In addition, the inf-sup values of the FSI system using a sequence of three meshes are evaluated in order to identify and confirm that the \u27locking\u27 effect does not occur. The numerical examples in this work will also show that by imposing external forces near different coupled frequencies, predominant slosh, structural, and acoustic motions can be triggered in the FSI systems. Further, it is discussed that the frequency range on which energy mainly focuses can be evaluated with Fast Fourier Transform, if the system is activated by single-frequency excitations. In the second part, fluid-structure interaction systems with both immersed flexible structures and free surfaces are employed to study the traditional mode superposition methods and singular value decomposition (SVD) based model reduction methods, e.g., principal component analysis (PCA). The numerical results confirm that SVD-based model reduction methods are reliable by comparing the Rayleigh-Ritz quotients obtained by the principal singular vector and the natural frequencies of the system. If an initial excitation is loaded on a nodal points on the free surface or the structure, the corresponding natural frequency by the transient data of the first few time snapshots can be captured. Excellent agreements are confirmed between the original transient solutions and the data reconstructed with a few dominant principal components. The figures of energy are also plotted in order to verify the realization of this objective, which is recovering the transient data with a few principal components without losing dominant characteristics. The numerical results further demonstrate that different time steps lead to distinct mode shapes of the FSI system, if a combined eigenmode is given as the initial displacement. This is because the natural frequency of sloshing, structural, and acoustic modes are separated. Therefore, the errors between original transient data and recovered results vs different time steps are compared in order to find the appropriate time step and further capture all the eigenmodes. Finally, the coarse-grained system is employed to study the long-time behavior of the FSI system based on model reduction methods. The extrapolation results in coarse temporal scale can be obtained based on dominant principal components provided by PCA. The data at some time instances in fine temporal scale can be neglected. The numerical results show excellent agreement for some generic initial conditions

\u3cem\u3eGRASP News\u3c/em\u3e, Volume 8, Number 1

A report of the General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception (GRASP) Laboratory. Edited by Thomas Lindsay

Process Model For Information Retrieval Environment For Hearing Impaired

  As the Internet usage has exponential increased and the embedding of multimedia content on the Web, some of the Internet resources still remain inaccessible for disable people with disabilities. Mostly, people who are Hard of Hearing or deaf experience inaccessible Web sites because of a lack of Closed Captioning for multimedia content on the Web, there is no sign language equivalent for the content on the Web, and an unsatisfactory evaluation framework for determining that if a Web page is accessible to the Hearing Impaired society. A number of opportunities for accessing web content are needed to be rectified in order to make the Hearing Impaired community to access the full benefits of the information repository on the Internet. This research paper contributes to resolve few of the Web accessibility problems that are being faced by the Hearing Impaired community. The objectives are to generate an automated Closed Captioning for multimedia content the for Web, to develop a framework for the Hearing Impaired community in order to evaluate Web accessibility. Moreover, to build a social network for the deaf community and to embed sign language equivalent for content available on the Web

Degradable Microchannel Nerve Guidance Scaffolds for Central and Peripheral Nerve Repair - From Soft to Rigid.

Traumatic nerve injury is generally permanent and debilitating. There is no available therapy primarily owing to the lack of spontaneous axon growth in the adult human central nervous system. In this doctoral work, an interventional technology was investigated to promote and guide axons through nerve gaps to provide nerve repair. Previously, agarose hydrogel microchannel scaffolds linearly guided axons through lesion gaps of spinal cords in rats. However, these scaffolds were non-degradable. In this work, first the efficacy of degradable hydrogels such as alginate, chitosan and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEGDA) as nerve guidance scaffolds was studied. All the hydrogels, however, were concluded unstable in vivo and provided limited axon growth. To fabricate scaffolds effective for nerve repair poly caprolactone (PCL) with slow degradation rate (reported over 8 months) was selected and investigated. In addition, to increase the open volume of scaffolds, a novel scaffold architecture and fabrication process were introduced in which, both the channels open space and the interstitial space between the channels could be utilized for axon growth. A salt-leaching process was developed to optimize PCL properties such as porosity, stiffness and cell adhesion. The scaffold design entailed the fabrication of PCL tubes and their assembly inside a PCL outer tube resulting scaffolds with >60% open volume (a 3-fold improvement to state-of-the-art microchannel scaffolds). When implanted in transected spinal cords in rats, linear axon growth inside and between the channels was observed. The PCL scaffolds, with 3 orders of magnitude higher stiffness than the nerve tissue, provided the highest axon integration and growth in close proximity to the scaffold walls when compared to soft hydrogels. This observation is contradictory to the general belief that an implant with stiffness more closely matching the tissue is more effective. Indeed, this doctoral work is the first study that suggests axon/implant integration is enhanced in vivo when the substrate stiffness is orders of magnitude higher than the host tissue. This technology was translated to poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), for a higher degradation rate, and was fabricated to clinically-relevant dimensions. Overall, this dissertation introduces a promising microchannel scaffold for its translation to human nerve repair.PhDMacromolecular Science and EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133319/1/sdena_1.pd

Integrating extended theory of planned behavior and norm activation model to examine the factors affect managers intention to recycle hospital waste

Environmental pollution is a serious global issue that has received increasing attention from scholars, policymakers, regulators, environmental activists, and the public. The healthcare industry does not run away from contributing problems to the environment. Therefore, managers are seen as important people in overcoming this problem. The purpose of this study to investigate managers intention to recycle hospital waste in their organization. This study integrates the theory pf planned behaviour and Norm activation model to conceptualize the factors of managers intention to recycle hospital waste. Standardized structured questionnaires are distributed through email where the targeted respondent must be ranked manager position and above with medical background. A total of 181 respondents usable were collected and data analyse by partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM). This study revealed that managers intention is significantly affect by the attitudes towards recycling intention, ascription responsibility and personal norm. However, the finding on the factor awareness of consequences and subjective norms are not supported in affecting the intention to recycle hospital. A total 6 hypotheses was tested and four hypotheses were accepted and two hypotheses rejected. The findings of this study provide important theoretical and practical implications for scholars, managers, and policymakers

Evaluating the Impact of Live Programming on Collaborative Software Development

Collaboration is tricky, but often beneficial in the context of numerous software related activities, from learning core concepts, to the design and implementation of large software products. The growth of online classes, from small structured seminars to massive open online courses (MOOCs), and the isolation and impoverished learning experience some students report in these, points to an urgent need for tools that support remote pair programming in a distributed educational setting. In “the real world” software developers and designers work together to solve common problems, and meaningful and effective designer-developer collaboration improves the user experience. Supporting these with today’s often distributed work model presents important challenges.Two key techniques which are believed to be effective in promoting better coordination and collaboration are collaborative coding and live programming. Collaborative coding allows all the team members to get involved in the development process, and live programming enables them to see what they are building effortlessly and in real time.In this work, we first describe Jimbo, an integrated development environment (IDE) based on collaborative and live programming techniques, and a set of user studies aimed at evaluating whether these techniques are effective in promoting better coordination and collaboration in two different settings; distance learning and design-focused software development. Our results show that these techniques can improve the learning experience through pair programming and a tight code-artifact feedback loop. We will show how collaborative coding and live programming can help designers and developers bridge their knowledge and language gaps and develop mutual understanding, allowing designers to join the development process as first-class citizens – not dependent on the coders to compile and share output – or being forced to become coders.Keywords: pair programming, collaborative learning, collaboration, educational tools, live programming, remote pair-programming, programming environment, MOOC, IDE, distance learning, designer-developer collaboration, collaborative software developmen

WebVoice: Speech Access to Traditional Web Content for Blind Users

Traditional web content and navigation features are made available to blind users by converting a webpage into a speech enabled X+V application, which allows blind users to follow the links present in a web page via speech commands. Also the application can read the different paragraphs and search for a word. This X+V application runs on the Opera browser