A Study on Local Knowledge in Adaptation to Landslide Disasters in Sri Lanka

Natural disasters are unforeseen events which occur at hydrologic, geologic, and atmospheric origins. The Policy-makers still rely on mitigation strategies based on scientific approaches. However, many scholars had emphasized the importance of incorporating local knowledge and related practices for disaster risk management. In that context, this study investigates the local knowledge in adaptation to mitigate the landslides disaster situations by studying a village in Sri Lanka which is located at the central region of Sri Lanka which is vulnerable for landslide disasters. Landslides is one of the severe types of disasters in hilly terrains and which cause to loss of lives and property damages especially in Asia region. This study employed the field surveys, questionnaire surveys and semi structured interviews for data collection. The findings of the research indicate how the local knowledge-based practices in settlement layout & planning, landscaping had enhanced disaster adaptation level of the community. Further the local knowledge-based value systems act as a strong mechanism in identifying early signs of landslide disasters. Finally, the paper discusses the possibilities of upscaling such local practices for mainstream disaster management practices

KONSEP REFORMASI BIROKRASI PELAYANAN PUBLIK DALAM PERSPEKTIF HUKUM KEPEGAWAIAN

To get a good government, bureaucratic reform is something that must be done from the beginning. Bureaucracy as a component of government must be returned to the functions, duties, and principles of public service. To develop public services that characterize good governance practice there are certainly many aspects that need to be addressed in the public bureaucracy. Writing of this scientific paper aims to know the concept of public service bureaucracy reform in the perspective of personnel law and to know the thinking of bureaucracy that can encourage good governance. Writing of this scientific paper using approach method that is normative juridical by way of researching library material which is secondary data and also referred [as] with research of library law. For data collection on the writing of this scientific paper, the author uses literature study techniques by reviewing data in the form of library materials by reading and studying literature books and legislation related to the issues discussed author. The conclusions of the writing of this scientific paper include: (1) The establishment of Regulation Number 5 of 2014 on the Civil State Apparatus enacted on January 15, 2014 which has brought new hope to accelerate the creation of a professional civil servants (ASN), free from political intervention, clean from corrupt practices, collusion and nepotism, able to provide public services for the community and able to perform the role as a glue of unity and national unity in order to achieve national goals; (2) Bureaucracy reform becomes an important part in realizing good governance. Bureaucracy reform is directed at efforts to prevent and accelerate the eradication of corruption in a sustainable manner, in creating good governance, clean governance, and free of KKN

Analysis and Synthesis of Metadata Goals for Scientific Data

The proliferation of discipline-specific metadata schemes contributes to artificial barriers that can impede interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. The authors considered this problem by examining the domains, objectives, and architectures of nine metadata schemes used to document scientific data in the physical, life, and social sciences. They used a mixed-methods content analysis and Greenberg’s (2005) metadata objectives, principles, domains, and architectural layout (MODAL) framework, and derived 22 metadata-related goals from textual content describing each metadata scheme. Relationships are identified between the domains (e.g., scientific discipline and type of data) and the categories of scheme objectives. For each strong correlation (\u3e0.6), a Fisher’s exact test for nonparametric data was used to determine significance (p \u3c .05). Significant relationships were found between the domains and objectives of the schemes. Schemes describing observational data are more likely to have “scheme harmonization” (compatibility and interoperability with related schemes) as an objective; schemes with the objective “abstraction” (a conceptual model exists separate from the technical implementation) also have the objective “sufficiency” (the scheme defines a minimal amount of information to meet the needs of the community); and schemes with the objective “data publication” do not have the objective “element refinement.” The analysis indicates that many metadata-driven goals expressed by communities are independent of scientific discipline or the type of data, although they are constrained by historical community practices and workflows as well as the technological environment at the time of scheme creation. The analysis reveals 11 fundamental metadata goals for metadata documenting scientific data in support of sharing research data across disciplines and domains. The authors report these results and highlight the need for more metadata-related research, particularly in the context of recent funding agency policy changes

The Extraction of Community Structures from Publication Networks to Support Ethnographic Observations of Field Differences in Scientific Communication

The scientific community of researchers in a research specialty is an important unit of analysis for understanding the field specific shaping of scientific communication practices. These scientific communities are, however, a challenging unit of analysis to capture and compare because they overlap, have fuzzy boundaries, and evolve over time. We describe a network analytic approach that reveals the complexities of these communities through examination of their publication networks in combination with insights from ethnographic field studies. We suggest that the structures revealed indicate overlapping sub- communities within a research specialty and we provide evidence that they differ in disciplinary orientation and research practices. By mapping the community structures of scientific fields we aim to increase confidence about the domain of validity of ethnographic observations as well as of collaborative patterns extracted from publication networks thereby enabling the systematic study of field differences. The network analytic methods presented include methods to optimize the delineation of a bibliographic data set in order to adequately represent a research specialty, and methods to extract community structures from this data. We demonstrate the application of these methods in a case study of two research specialties in the physical and chemical sciences.Comment: Accepted for publication in JASIS

Enforcing public data archiving policies in academic publishing: A study of ecology journals

To improve the quality and efficiency of research, groups within the scientific community seek to exploit the value of data sharing. Funders, institutions, and specialist organizations are developing and implementing strategies to encourage or mandate data sharing within and across disciplines, with varying degrees of success. Academic journals in ecology and evolution have adopted several types of public data archiving policies requiring authors to make data underlying scholarly manuscripts freely available. Yet anecdotes from the community and studies evaluating data availability suggest that these policies have not obtained the desired effects, both in terms of quantity and quality of available datasets. We conducted a qualitative, interview-based study with journal editorial staff and other stakeholders in the academic publishing process to examine how journals enforce data archiving policies. We specifically sought to establish who editors and other stakeholders perceive as responsible for ensuring data completeness and quality in the peer review process. Our analysis revealed little consensus with regard to how data archiving policies should be enforced and who should hold authors accountable for dataset submissions. Themes in interviewee responses included hopefulness that reviewers would take the initiative to review datasets and trust in authors to ensure the completeness and quality of their datasets. We highlight problematic aspects of these thematic responses and offer potential starting points for improvement of the public data archiving process.Comment: 35 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Undergraduate Education Abroad in Community Settings: Pedagogical Opportunities for Librarians

As undergraduate possibilities for study and service abroad increase and develop strategically to address local community needs in settings in the Global South, there is greater opportunity for academic librarians to contribute expertise in supporting and facilitating student learning and engagement with research and information concepts and processes. Education abroad experiences are considered high-impact educational practices and, as such, provide excellent vantage points from which to consider contextualizing engagement with the expanded construct of information literacy as described in ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Utilizing a case study of a pilot project, this chapter focuses on initial work to incorporate critical information literacy concepts into international applied learning settings. The setting for this case study is the Monteverde Institute (MVI) in Costa Rica, a Costa Rican non-profit organization that provides a teaching and learning setting and essential infrastructure for North American education abroad programs

Project Exploration: 10-year Retrospective Program Evaluation

Assesses the impact of a program giving low-income students of color hands-on science experience on science capacity, youth development, and engagement in communities of practice. Examines practices that support science learning by underrepresented youth