1,241,525 research outputs found

    Climate-Change Views of New Hampshire Primary Voters

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    In this brief, author Lawrence Hamilton discusses the results of an April 2019 Granite State Poll conducted by the UNH Survey Center that asked 549 New Hampshire residents whether they planned to vote in the state’s 2020 presidential primary election and, if so, which candidate they favored. The survey also asked residents about their views on climate change. Hamilton reports that regardless of their candidate preferences, prospective voters in the New Hampshire Democratic primary agree with the scientific consensus that humans are changing Earth’s climate. Three-quarters of Republican primary voters favor President Trump, and most in this group do not believe that humans are changing the climate. Among Republicans who favor candidates other than Trump, majorities do think that humans are changing the climate. Climate-change views correlate with approval of President Trump more strongly than they do with political party. Climate change appears to be a unifying issue among Democrats, but a potential wedge issue for the minority of Republicans who are not Trump supporters

    Data Flow Abstractions and Adaptations through Updatable Process Views

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    The increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAISs) has resulted in large process model collections. To support users having different perspectives on these processes and related data, a PAIS should enable personalized views on process models. Existing PAISs, however, do not provide mechanisms for creating such process views or even changing them. Especially, changing process models is a frequent use case in PAISs due to evolving needs or unplanned situations. While process views have been used as abstractions for visualizing process models, no work exists on how to change process models based on related views. This paper extends our approach for abstracting and changing process models based on updatable process views with a focus on the data perspective. In the context, of a view change we ensure up-to-dateness and consistency of all process views related to the same process model. To define process abstractions well-defined view creation operations can be applied. Further, updates on process views (including the data perspective) are correctly propagated to the underlying process model. Then, all other views related to this process model are migrated to the new version of the process model. Overall, our view framework enables domain experts to not only evolve the behavior of large processes based on appropriate model abstractions, but also the data perspective

    Updatable Process Views for User-centered Adaption of Large Process Models

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    The increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAISs) has resulted in large process model collections. To support users having different perspectives on these processes and related data, a PAIS should provide personalized views on process models. Existing PAISs, however, do not provide mechanisms for creating or even changing such process views. Especially, changing process models is a frequent use case in PAISs due to changing needs or unplanned situations. While process views have been used as abstractions for visualizing large process models, no work exists on how to change process models based on respective views. This paper presents an approach for changing large process models through updates of corresponding process views, while ensuring up-to-dateness and consistency of all other process views on the process model changed. Respective update operations can be applied to a process view and corresponding changes be correctly propagated to the underlying process model. Furthermore, all other views related to this process model are then migrated to the new version of the process model as well. Overall, our view framework enables domain experts to evolve large process models over time based on appropriate model abstractions

    Does it matter if people think climate change is human caused?

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    There is a growing consensus that climate is changing, but beliefs about the causal factors vary widely among the general public. Current research shows that such causal beliefs are strongly influenced by cultural, political, and identity-driven views. We examined the influence that local perceptions have on the acceptance of basic facts about climate change. We also examined the connection to wildfire by local people. Two recent telephone surveys found that 37% (in 2011) and 46% (in 2014) of eastern Oregon (USA) respondents accept the scientific consensus that human activities are now changing the climate. Although most do not agree with that consensus, large majorities (85–86%) do agree that climate is changing, whether by natural or human causes. Acceptance of anthropogenic climate change generally divides along political party lines, but acceptance of climate change more generally, and concerns about wildfire, transcend political divisions. Support for active forest management to reduce wildfire risks is strong in this region, and restoration treatments could be critical to the resilience of both communities and ecosystems. Although these immediate steps involve adaptations to a changing climate, they can be motivated without necessarily invoking human-caused climate change, a divisive concept among local landowners

    Citizen beliefs concerning wood as a construction material under extreme weather events

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    Climate change places great pressure on the construction sector to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions and to create solutions that perform well in changing weather conditions. Our study explores citizen perceptions on wood usage as a building material under expected mitigation and adaptation measures aimed at a changing climate and extreme weather events. The data are founded on an internet-based survey material collected from a consumer panel from Finland and Sweden during May-June 2021, with a total of 2015 responses. By employing exploratory factor analysis, we identified similar belief structures for the two countries, consisting of both positive and negative views on wood construction. In linear regression models for predicting these beliefs, the perceived seriousness of climate change was found to increase positive views on wood construction but was insignificant for negative views. Both in Finland and Sweden, higher familiarity with wooden multistory construction was found to connect with more positive views on the potential of wood in building, e.g., due to carbon storage and material properties. Our findings underline the potential of wood material use as one avenue of climate change adaptation in the built environment. Future research should study how citizens' concerns for extreme weather events affect their future material preferences in their everyday living environments, also beyond the Nordic region.Peer reviewe

    On Renewable Energy and Climate, Trump Voters Stand Apart

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    In this brief, author Larry Hamilton discusses the results of pre- and post-election Polar, Environment, and Science surveys carried out by Carsey School researchers in August and November–December 2016, asking people about their general views on climate change and renewable energy. Almost three-fourths of Americans surveyed said that renewable energy should be a higher national priority than more drilling for oil. About two-thirds agree with the scientific consensus that humans are changing Earth’s climate. Priority for renewable energy development and recognition of human-caused climate change are majority opinions within every voter group except Trump supporters. On renewable energy, the reality of climate change, and doing something about it, Trump voters stand apart not only from Clinton voters but also from voters for third-party candidates and from nonvoters

    What is a scientific experiment?: The impact of a professional development course on teachers’ ability to design an inquiry-based science curriculum

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    Designing inquiry-based science lessons can be a challenge for secondary school teachers. In this study we evaluated the development of in-service teachers’ lesson plans as they took part in a 10-month professional development course in Peru which engaged teachers in the design of inquiry-based lessons. At the beginning, most teachers designed either confirmatory or structured inquiry activities. As the course progressed, however, they started designing guided and open inquiry lesson plans. We found four factors that accounted for this change: re-evaluating the need for lab materials, revising their views on the nature of science, engaging in guided and open inquiry activities themselves, and trying out inquiry-based lessons with their own students. Our results point to the importance of engaging teachers in prolonged and varied opportunities for inquiry as part of teacher education programs in order to achieve the challenge of changing teachers’ views and practices in science education.Fil: Pérez, María del Carmen B.. Universidad de Piura; PerúFil: Furman, Melina Gabriela. Universidad de San Andrés. Escuela de Educación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

    A view-based deformation tool-kit, Master\u27s Thesis, August 2006

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    Camera manipulation is a hard problem since a graphics camera is defined by specifying 11 independent parameters. Manipulating such a high-dimensional space to accomplish specific tasks is difficult and requires a certain amount of expertise. We present an intuitive interface that allows novice users to perform camera operations in terms of the change they want see in the image. In addition to developing a natural means for camera interaction, our system also includes a novel interface for viewing and organizing previously saved views. When exploring complex 3D data-sets a single view is not sufficient. Instead, a composite view built from multiple views may be more useful. While changing a single camera is hard enough, manipulating several cameras in a single scene is still harder. In this thesis, we also present a framework for creating composite views and an interface that allows users to manipulate such views in real-time

    Long-term experiments with an adaptive spherical view representation for navigation in changing environments

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    Real-world environments such as houses and offices change over time, meaning that a mobile robot’s map will become out of date. In this work, we introduce a method to update the reference views in a hybrid metric-topological map so that a mobile robot can continue to localize itself in a changing environment. The updating mechanism, based on the multi-store model of human memory, incorporates a spherical metric representation of the observed visual features for each node in the map, which enables the robot to estimate its heading and navigate using multi-view geometry, as well as representing the local 3D geometry of the environment. A series of experiments demonstrate the persistence performance of the proposed system in real changing environments, including analysis of the long-term stability

    Views and behaviours of municipal actors relating to climate change and water management: the case of local municipal water management and social networks

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    Climate change is projected to impact the hydrological cycle and have a negative effect on water supply. In South Africa, water to the end user is supplied by local municipalities, and thus municipalities are likely to benefit from adapting to these climate impacts. This research aims to understand the views and behaviours of local municipal actors towards water management and climate change, and how these views and behaviours influence the resilience of their water supply system in the face of climate change. A secondary aim of the thesis was to determine if the advice networks, where the actors receive the bulk of their information from, influenced the actor’s views and behaviours around water management, climate change, and adaptation, using a social network approach. The study area focused on five local municipalities in the West Coast District of South Africa. This research made use of a mixed methods approach, utilising both qualitative and quantitative data, obtained using semi-structured interviews with a structured component. Qualitative data were used to collect water management-related views and behaviours of municipal actors, whilst quantitative data were collected to determine social network characteristics. The views and behaviours on water demand and supply management of the actors interviewed tended to differ. Actors’ views on ideal water management approaches were more concerned with the long-term sustainability of water resources through raising awareness and managing existing infrastructure better. Actor’s preferred behaviours however focused on immediate relief to water shortages, by augmenting existing supply and enforcing restrictions. These findings imply that actors respond reactively to drought, and not proactively. In terms of climate change, actors showed a clear understanding of climate change and its risks to water management. Actors understood how climate change adaptation could be used to make their municipalities’ water supply more resilient, by utilising sustainable sources of water or through ecosystem-based adaptation, however it was found that municipal plans and behaviours did not generally reflect these views. Social network characteristics such as strengths of ties, and the existence of multiplex ties, did not appear to influence the sharing of behaviours or views between the actor and their given advice network. It was thus theorised that institutional lock-in and hierarchical governance might play a larger role in influencing views and behaviours than the actors’ social networks. The reactive responses by actors to issues of water demand or supply can lead to poor resilience in the face of climate change, where cases of drought and water shortages may become more frequent. Whilst municipal actors are aware of these changing conditions and risks, the limitations placed on them by governance structures and lock-in impact their ability to be proactive. More work needs to be done to ensure sustainable and resilient water management interventions are implemented at the local municipal level. Additionally, lockin, both institutional and technological, could usefully be challenged to allow for innovative ideas to enter the realm of water management at the local municipal level
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