Collaborative Research: Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence - Oceans in the Earth-Sun System

This award establishes a new Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE) via awards to the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences (0528706), the University of Maine (0528702), and the University of New Hampshire (0528686). The main goals of this thematic Center are to broaden understanding of the oceans in the context of the earth and solar systems and to help the COSEE network reach rural and inland audiences. The PIs will pioneer a system of interfaces, tools, and resources to reach underserved and underrepresented groups, and to bring ocean sciences to inland audiences by presenting it in the context of more familiar components of the earth system, including environmental and space sciences. One goal is to explore the effectiveness of expanding knowledge of the ocean\u27s role beyond being a driver of earth\u27s climate to placing the earth in the context of its unique place in the solar system. Activities include building and training educator-scientist teams to work towards specific goals, e.g., testing strategies for effective use of ocean data, training in the use of concept mapping, and the identification and evaluation of high-quality resources. Evaluation of products, models and information is integrated throughout, with continuous self-assessment. Formal education partners at the University of Maine and University of New Hampshire will test the efficacy of materials with educators whose knowledge of ocean-related content ranges from novice to expert. Maine will be a test bed for the COSEE network to start reaching inland rural populations. The team includes scientists and educators with expertise in the hydrosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere. The team will develop concept maps and case studies that show application of ocean topics to the National Science Education Standards. The Center will develop a formal mechanism for scientific review of materials to ensure the products they recommend are of the highest quality and meet rigorous standards, as well as to provide feedback from educators and scientists to product developers. They will select resources from DLESE, the BRIDGE, NOAA and others and evaluate these for classroom readiness and scientific accuracy using their team of well-trained resource evaluators with first-hand knowledge of earth systems science. They also will do a gap analysis of missing resources. The Gap Analysis will also inform the science community about avoiding developing materials for well-covered topics. The review process developed by COSEE-OESS, from initial use of NASA\u27s education product review, will be disseminated nationally as a model for evaluating best practices and assessment and evaluation guidelines for education materials. In-service teacher programs will focus on expansion of University of New Hampshire\u27s Coastal Observing Center summer in-service teacher workshops to incorporate OESS content and evaluation of activities ( test bed for novel materials and activities). These workshops have annual themes focusing on ocean observing systems and the integration of buoy, shipboard, and satellite data (GoMOOS). Pre-service teachers and general science students at the University of Maine will take a new course created by OESS to learn ocean research methods by focusing on using physical principles, concepts and approaches to explain phenomena in aquatic sciences that are aligned to the NSES. The course will be developed for distribution to teachers after rigorous evaluation. Intellectual Merit of the Center: This thematic center focuses on creating and evaluating a series of interconnected tools and techniques designed to broaden understanding of the ocean in the context of the earth and solar systems. Results will be translated into innovative multimedia products that showcase the ocean in the earth-sun system. Educational resources will be evaluated for science and education impact, and gaps in these resources will be identified and filled. A new undergraduate course to teach about ocean phenomena will be developed, tested, and disseminated nationally. The proposed Center will help COSEE reach inland and rural audiences. Broader impact: This Center will serve as a learning organization to deliver excellent products, models, and information that can be applied virtually anywhere. The final products, publication of Best Practices (a document that describes the value of system context in terms of learning) and Strategies to reach inland audiences will be disseminated throughout and beyond the COSEE network

Software sustainability from a user perspective: A case study of a developing country (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

Interest in sustainable development is increasing. Understanding the user’s perspective toward software sustainability helps to enhance understanding of the concept. The need for developing countries to enhance their ICT infrastructure to align with United Nation (UN) sustainable development goals increases the necessity to understand the current perception of software users, industry and sustainability experts, to improve the level of software sustainability. Software sustainability has a number of challenges with regard to adoption by software users. This study investigates software sustainability from the point of view of users in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) by addressing four scales, namely beliefs, intention, attitude and perceptions toward using sustainable software. It also addresses key barriers to sustainable software, such as lack of awareness and difficulty of recognising sustainable software

A REVIEW OF PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF USING MULTIPLE CONCEPTUAL MODELS

Conceptual models are used to visualise, envisage, and communicate the requirements, structure, and behaviour of a system. Particularly, during design and analysis phases, a model can serve as a tool to recognise different components, elements, actors, and relationships involved in a system. However, as a domain becomes complex, multiple models are needed to capture different aspects of a system. Further, each conceptual model develops using different grammars, methods, and tools. Therefore, using multiple models to represent a complex system may result in several problems, and challenges. This research aims to identify, analyse, and classify the different problems and issues encountered when using multiple models during information systems analysis and design through a structured literature review. Several problems are identified and are classified into seven main categories based on their common characteristics. The results of this study may serve as a baseline information for researchers in further understand-ing different modelling approaches and how multiple models can be used in harmony and reduce risks and issues. Also, the list of problems gathered will give insights to professionals on which issues they may possibly encounter when inter-relating various models

Water Current, Volume 31, No. 5, October 1999

Fall NWCC Meeting Well Attended From the Director Wyoming Development Fund Highlighted on Four States Irrigation Summer Tour Center Pivot Inventory Map Husker Harvest Days Winners Status of Cooperative Agreement After Two Years The Definitions of Science Water News Briefs New EPA Bioremediation Site GovSpot Offers Best in Government and Civic Web Info Source Water Assessment and Protection Workshop Guide Available Free from the Groundwater Foundation Hazard Web Sites Watershed 2000 Call for Papers Water Resources Lecture Series Addresses Interstate Water Commitment

Mind the chasm: A UK fisheye lens view of sustainable software engineering

Requirements that express the needs of all stakeholders and cover the key aspects of a software system (such as those addressing sustainability) are critical to the system’s successful development and adoption. For practitioners who want to develop sustainable software-intensive systems, it is also argued that software requirements are the key leverage point. But what do software developers know about broader sustainability and sustainability requirements in particular? As part of the University of Huddersfield’s ’Student as a Researcher’ initiative, this paper provides a FishEye Lens View on how novice software developers who design and develop software systems at software companies relate to the notions of sustainability and sustainability requirements. The study has found that although sustainability is valued highly by the novice software developers, the concept of sustainability and sustainability requirements are not fully understood. This lack of knowledge in the software industry and organizations must be addressed to enable delivery of truly sustainability enabling software systems

Situational Management Support Systems: Accommodating the Growing Range ofWorking Styles, Use Cases, and Access Modes

Digital natives increasingly populate organizations' management. These new-generation managers more naturally accept management support systems (MSS), but also have higher expectations about how they should accommodate their individual user preferences. As a result, managers question MSS that have been developed without configuration mechanisms to accommodate their working style, relevant MSS use cases, and different MSS access modes. The objective of this article is to reveal managers' different MSS use situations and propose levers for tailoring (conceptual) MSS design to them. Use situations generalize classes of similar user-group preferences. We first apply findings from a literature review to cluster managers' user-group preferences into 36 MSS use situations. Second, we propose that the selection of end-user devices can serve as a main lever for MSS configuration. Third, we complete the configuration with a MSS user-interface design. Finally, we demonstrate utility of our configuration model by presenting and evaluating a prototyp

The phylogeography, epidemiology and determinants of Maize streak virus dispersal across Africa and the adjacent Indian Ocean Islands

>Magister Scientiae - MScMaize streak disease (MSD), caused by variants of the Maize streak virus (MSV) A strain, is the world's third and Africa’s most important maize foliar disease. Outbreaks of the disease occur frequently and in an erratic fashion across Africa and Islands in the Indian Ocean causing devastating yield losses such that the emergence, resurgence and rapid diffusion of MSV-A variants in this region presents a serious threat to maize production, farmer livelihoods and food security. To compliment current MSD management systems, a total of 689 MSV-A full genomes sampled over a 32 year period (1979-2011) from 20 countries across Africa and the adjacent Indian Ocean Islands, 286 of which were novel, were used to estimate: (i) the levels of genetic diversity using MEGA and the Sequence Demarcation Tool v1.2 (SDT); (ii) the times of occurrence and distribution of recombination using the recombination detection program (RDP v.4) and the genetic algorithm for recombination detection (GARD); (iii) selection pressure on codon positions using PARRIS and FUBAR methods implemented on the DATAMONKEY web server; (iv) reconstruct the history of spatio-temporal diffusion for MSV-A using the discrete phylogeographic models implemented in BEAST v1.8.1; (v) characterize source-sink dynamics and identify predictor variables driving MSV-A dispersal using the generalized linear models, again implemented in BEAST v1.8.1. Isolates used displayed low levels of genetic diversity (0.017 mean pairwise distance and ≥ 98% nucleotide sequence identities), and a well-structured geographical distribution where all of the 233 novel isolates clustered together with the -A1 strains. A total of 34 MSV inter-strain recombination events and 33 MSV-A intra-strain recombination events, 15 of which have not been reported in previous analyses (Owor et al., 2007, Varsani et al., 2008 and Monjane et al., 2011), were detected. The majority of intra-strain MSV-A recombination events detected were inferred to have occurred within the last six decades, the oldest and most conserved of these being events 19, 26 and 28 whereas the most recent events were 8, 16, 17, 21, 23, and 29. Intra-strain recombination events 20, 25 and 33, were widely distributed amongst East African MSV-A samples, whereas events 16, 21 and 23, occurred more frequently within West African MSV-A samples. Events 1, 4, 8, 10, 14, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, and 29 were more widely distributed across East, West and Southern Africa and the adjacent Indian Ocean Islands. Whereas codon positions 12 and 19 within motif I in the coat protein transcript, and four out of the seven codon positions (147, 166, 195, 203, 242, 262, 267) in the Rep transcript (codons 195 and 203 in the Rb motif and codons 262 and 267 in site B of motif IV), evolved under strong positive selection pressure, those in the movement protein (MP) and RepA protein encoding genes evolved neutrally and under negative selection pressure respectively. Phylogeographic analyses revealed that MSV-A first emerged in Zimbabwe around 1938 (95% HPD 1904 - 1956), and its dispersal across Africa and the adjacent Indian Ocean Islands was achieved through approximately 34 migration events, 19 of which were statistically supported using Bayes factor (BF) tests. The higher than previously reported mean nucleotide substitution rate [9.922 × 10-4 (95% HPD 8.54 × 10-4 to 1.1317 × 10-3) substitutions per site per year)] for the full genome recombination-free MSV-A dataset H estimated was possibly a result of high nucleotide substitution rates being conserved among geminiviruses such as MSV as previously suggested. Persistence of MSV-A was highest in source locations that include Zimbabwe, followed by South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya. These locations were characterized by high average annual precipitation; moderately high average annual temperatures; high seasonal changes; high maize yield; high prevalence of undernourishment; low trade imports and exports; high GDP per capita; low vector control pesticide usage; high percentage forest land area; low percentage arable land; high population densities, and were in close proximity to sink locations. Dispersal of MSV-A was frequent between locations that received high average annual rainfall, had high percentage forest land area, occupied high latitudes and experienced similar climatic seasons, had high GDP per capita and had balanced maize import to export ratios, and were in close geographical proximity.National Research Foundation (NRF), the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation (PRF), and the Thuthuka Boar

Towards sustainability : direction for life cycle assessment

Abstract unavailable please refer to PD