Assessing the efficacy of phenological spectral differences to detect invasive alien acacia dealbata using Sentinel-2 data in Southern Europe

Invasive alien plants are transforming the landscapes, threatening the most vulnerable elements of local biodiversity across the globe. The monitoring of invasive species is paramount for minimizing the impact on biodiversity. In this study, we aim to discriminate and identify the spatial extent of Acacia dealbata Link from other species using RGB-NIR Sentinel-2 data based on phenological spectral peak differences. Time series were processed using the Earth Engine platform and random forest importance was used to select the most suitable Sentinel-2 derived metrics. Thereafter, a random forest machine learning algorithm was trained to discriminate between A. dealbata and native species. A flowering period was detected in March and metrics based on the spectral difference between blooming and the pre flowering (January) or post flowering (May) months were highly suitable for A. dealbata discrimination. The best-fitted classification model shows an overall accuracy of 94%, including six Sentinel-2 derived metrics. We find that 55% of A. dealbata presences were widely widespread in patches replacing Pinus pinaster Ait. stands. This invasive alien species also creates continuous monospecific stands representing 33% of the presences. This approach demonstrates its value for detecting and mapping A. dealbata based on RGB-NIR bands and phenological peak differences between blooming and pre or post flowering months providing suitable information for an early detection of invasive species to improve sustainable forest management

Embracing the Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education

Each year, hundreds of early childhood educators from the many parts of the world travel to a small town in the northern part of Italy to study the arts-based, project focused, a child-initiated method known as the Reggio Emilia approach. This unique approach focuses on infant-toddler through preschool and primary education. While teachers are engaged in professional learning and growth, it is hard to determine how many early childhood programs and classrooms are truly influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach. The purpose of this study was to explore and examine the experiences of five teachers from West Virginia who have implemented the Reggio Emilia approach in early childhood. This study examined the question: How is the Reggio Emilia approach being implemented by educators in both the public and private school settings and what are the challenges and supports that occur during implementation? The study revealed educators value this type of experiential learning and project work for children. There are critical supports that need to be in place to ensure effective implementation such as administrative and collegial support. The data also show that barriers such as curriculum mandates and other regulations make this type of implementation difficult. Also, children show great learning leaps when experiencing this type of learning approach. Future research recommendations include studying children longitudinally who have experienced a Reggio-inspired classroom environment to determine long-lasting impacts

Plug-in healthcare:Development, ruination, and repair in health information exchange

This dissertation explores the work done by people and things in emerging infrastructures for health information exchange. It shows how this work relates to processes of development, production, and growth, as well as to abandonment, ruination, and loss. It argues for a revaluation of repair work: a form of articulation work that attends to gaps and disruptions in the margins of technological development. Often ignored by engineers, policy makers, and researchers, repair sensitizes us to different ways of caring for people and things that do not fit, fall in between categories, and resist social norms and conventions. It reminds us that infrastructures emerge in messy and unevenly distributed sociotechnical configurations, and that technological solutions cannot be simply ‘plugged in’ at will, but require all kinds of work. With that, repair emphasizes the need for more democratic, critical, and reflexive engagements with (and interventions in) health information exchange. Empirically, this study aims to understand how ‘integration’ in health information exchange is done in practice, and to develop concepts and insights that may help us to rethink technological development accordingly. It starts from the premise that the introduction of IT in healthcare is all too often regarded as a neutral process, and as a rational implementation challenge. These widespread views among professionals, managers, and policy makers need to be addressed, as they have very real – and mostly undesirable – consequences. Spanning a period of more than ten years, this study traces the birth and demise of an online regional health portal in the Netherlands (2009-2019). Combining ethnographic research with an experimental form of archive work, it describes sociotechnical networks that expanded, collapsed, and reconfigured around a variety of problems – from access to information and data ownership to business cases, financial sustainability, and regional care. It puts a spotlight on the integration of standards, infrastructures, and users in the portal project, and on elements of collapsing networks that quietly resurfaced elsewhere. The reconstruction of these processes foregrounds different instances of repair work in the portal’s development and subsequent abandonment, repurposing, and erasure. Conceptually, this study contributes to academic debates in health information exchange, including the politics of technology, practices of participatory design, and the role of language in emerging information infrastructures. It latches on to ethnographic studies on information systems and infrastructural work, and brings together insights from actor-network theory, science and technology studies, and figurational sociology to rethink and extend current (reflexive and critical) understandings of technological development. It raises three questions: What work is done in the development and demise of an online health portal? How are relations between people and things shaped in that process? And how can insights from this study help us to understand changing sociotechnical figurations in health information exchange? The final analysis includes five key concepts: the act of building network extensions, the method of tracing phantom networks, the notion of sociotechnical figurations, the logic of plug-in healthcare, and repair as a heuristic device.<br/

Availability of Coastal and Marine Data and Potential Applications for Development Co-operation

This report summarise the availability of coastal and marine data and highlights some of the potential applications such data may have in the context of development co-operation. The focus is on the data and the applications which already exist at the Global Environment Monitoring (GEM) Unit of the Institute of Environment and Sustainability (IES), and is not intended as a global overview of all possible use of data. The report also emphasises some potential new activities targeted to provision of information relevant for thematic policies and actions in EC and beneficiary countries and regions.JRC.H.3-Global environement monitorin

Promoting Bee Communities Through Habitat Enhancements On Public And Private Lands In Nebraska

Wild and managed bees are the most effective pollinators, accounting for about 80% of the pollination of flowering plants and 75% of fruits, nuts, and vegetables in the United States (USDA, 2019; USFWS, 2019). An estimated 4,000 species of bees reside in North America, the majority of which are wild and unmanaged. Wild bee communities are critical for maintaining healthy ecosystems, as they sustain native flora that provides soil stability and habitat for other wildlife. In a changing landscape, floral enhancements on privately and publicly-owned lands may have great impact for improving habitat for pollinators across the United States. Planting diverse flowering vegetation on otherwise low-yielding farmland provides refuge for wildlife and can help connect fragmented habitats when combined with other conservation efforts. Further, planting pollinator-friendly native wildflowers on roadsides provides nutrient-rich forage and nesting resources for bees and is aesthetically pleasing to humans. This thesis focuses on the impact of habitat enhancements on private agricultural margins and public roadsides on wild bee communities by reviewing the current literature on bee decline and pollinator habitats (chapter 1), examining the effect of establishing conservation habitats in private pivot-irrigated crop fields (chapter 2) and public roadsides (chapter 3), and synthesizing best management recommendations and current available conservation programs for landowners and managers (chapter 4). In chapter 2, pivot corners planted to habitat (HC) had significantly higher bee abundance compared to all non-corner locations as well as significantly higher bee richness compared to all non-corner location in mid & late seasons. In chapter 3, conventional roadside seeding methods had lower abundance and richness for forbs & bees compared to wildflower only treatments. Roughly 50% of seeded forbs established during the first two years. Bee richness on the roadside plots was highest in the late season, while forb abundance and richness were highest in the mid-season. This research demonstrates that planting high diversity vegetation on underutilized and low-yielding farmland and roadsides can have positive impacts on wild bee pollinator communities and further provides recommendations on how to better manage these lands to promote and sustain wild bee communities. Advisor: Judy Wu-Smar

Developing Measurable Cross-Departmental Learning Objectives for Requirements Elicitation in an Information Systems Curriculum

The ability to elicit information systems requirements is a necessary learning objective for students in a contemporary information systems curriculum, and is a skill vital to their careers. Common challenges in teaching this skill include both the lack of structure and guidance in information systems textbooks as well as the view that a student’s education consists of a disparate set of unrelated courses. These challenges are exacerbated by faculty who focus only on their taught courses and by textbooks that often promote an isolated, passing glance at both the importance of and the idea behind requirements elicitation. In this paper, we describe a multi-year, faculty-led effort to create and refine learning activities that are aligned to requirements elicitation learning objectives both within and scaffolded across courses in a modern information systems curriculum. To achieve success in developing this marketable skill within information systems students, learning activities were integrated across the entire information systems major in a process we call Bloomification, where learning objectives, aligned learning activities, and courses are related and connected across the curriculum. This cross-departmental process is presented and lessons learned by the faculty are discussed

Landscape Pattern and Wild Bee Communities in Maine

Commercial production of lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton) in Maine relies primarily on managed honeybee hives; however, naturally occurring wild bees are more efficient pollinators of the crop. Wild bees have short foraging distances and must nest near crop fields to provide pollination services. After crop bloom, the surrounding landscape must provide sufficient forage to maintain wild bee populations for the remainder of the growing season. Lowbush blueberries in Maine are produced in a mixed-use landscape with two distinct landscape contexts. Here, we document bee communities and habitat resources (nesting and floral) in power line rights-of-way and eight land cover types including and surrounding lowbush blueberry fields. We assess landscape pattern surrounding crop fields in the two contrasting contexts and determine any effect of arrangement of habitat patches on wild bee abundance or diversity. Additionally, we use our field data to inform and validate predictions of wild bee abundance from a spatial model applied to the lowbush blueberry production landscape and assess any influence of landscape pattern on prediction accuracy. Finally, we describe a collaboration with lowbush blueberry growers to develop an interactive web mapping tool that provides maps of habitat resources and predicted wild bee abundance. We documented 168 wild bee species across 72 study sites; three bee species had not been previously recorded in Maine. Power line rights-of-way had diverse and abundant bee communities owing to high habitat quality, especially within resource-poor landscapes near lowbush blueberry fields. We observed abundant floral resources in lowbush blueberry fields, forest edges, and small towns and found ample nesting resources in lowbush blueberry fields and shrubby wetlands. Bees were less abundant and diverse in a homogeneous landscape context; however, that homogeneity led to more accurate model predictions of bee abundance in crop fields. We improved prediction accuracy in a mixed-use landscape and produced accurate predictions in non-crop land cover types in a heterogeneous landscape context; however, we found that predictions of wild bee abundance in crop fields are influenced by landscape heterogeneity. The maps we share through the web tool aid growers and other stakeholders in developing pollination management and conservation plans