What is Information? Tiptoeing Towards The Philosophy of Information Systems

The Philosophy of Information Systems should define the components of the field and how knowledge is developed, advanced and justified. This is a bold undertaking but begins with establishing a definition for information which can provide a foundation for further definition of the field. This paper addresses the question – What is Information – and, in doing so attempts to define a core component of the field. In order to do this, we must pull away from an established definition provided by Claude Shannon and see information in a broader context as anything which ‘informs’ us, or more specifically, helps form our internal conceptual models of reality

Structural Flaws in the Ethics of Technology

We are confronted more and more with perplexing issues in the ethics of technology. This includes some obvious concerns such as issues in computer ethics and the ethics of biotechnology. However, the ethics of technology covers a wide variety of less obvious, but perhaps more troubling, concerns and issues that are coming at us in greater numbers at an increasingly rapid rate. As such, the ethics of technology is rapidly becoming the dominant ethical concern of our time. At the same time, the ethics of technology is very poorly understood and, due to structural flaws in how we approach it, we are left unable to adequately address some of the more pressing issues of today and the near future. This paper identifies some of these structural flaws, attempts a few solutions, and above all attempts to start a discussion on these problematic issues

Information Modeling and the Problem of Universals: A Preliminary Analysis of Metaphysical Assumptions

Information modeling is a technique by which a database designer determines the types of information that should be included in a database. Unknown to the database designer there are a variety of implicit metaphysical assumptions that guide the model construction and affect the quality of the resulting model. The broadest characterization of these assumptions is realism verses conceptualism. The realist believes that the object classes exist in the application domain waiting to be discovered. The conceptualist believes that object classes are abstracted from the application domain based on observations about the domain and the objectives of the information model. This paper explores these two dimensions of metaphysical assumptions and their implications

Personal Radio

With the development of new technologies that allow the broadcast of digital data over radio signals, there are many possibilities for improving upon the traditional radio station model for content delivery. The idea of Personal Radio is a system that tailors content to meet the needs of each individual. Using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to play location specific content, the listening history to play content an appropriate number of times, and user feedback to learn personal preferences, the Personal Radio provides the listener with the content that is the most useful/interesting to them. This paper will examine the general design of such a system and present solutions developed in the implementation of several pieces of the design

PUBLIC LAND POLICY EDUCATION

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Geomorphology variables predict fish assemblages for forested and endorheic rivers of two continents

Stream fishes are restricted to specific environments with appropriate habitats for feeding and reproduction. Interactions between streams and surrounding landscapes influence the availability and type of fish habitat, nutrient concentrations, suspended solids, and substrate composition. Valley width and gradient are geomorphological variables that influence the frequency and intensity that a stream interacts with the surrounding landscape. For example, in constrained valleys, canyon walls are steeply sloped and valleys are narrow, limiting the movement of water into riparian zones. Wide valleys have long, flat floodplains that are inundated with high discharge. We tested for differences in fish assemblages with geomorphology variation among stream sites. We selected rivers in similar forested and endorheic ecoregion types of the United States and Mongolia. Sites where we collected were defined as geomorphologically unique river segments (i.e., functional process zones; FPZs) using an automated ArcGIS-based tool. This tool extracts geomorphic variables at the valley and catchment scales and uses them to cluster stream segments based on their similarity. We collected a representative fish sample from replicates of FPZs. Then, we used constrained ordinations to determine whether river geomorphology could predict fish assemblage variation. Our constrained ordination approach using geomorphology to predict fish assemblages resulted in significance using fish taxonomy and traits in several watersheds. The watersheds where constrained ordinations were not successful were next analyzed with unconstrained ordinations to examine patterns among fish taxonomy and traits with geomorphology variables. Common geomorphology variables as predictors for taxonomic fish assemblages were river gradient, valley width, and valley slope. Significant geomorphology predictors of functional traits were valley width-to-floor width ratio, elevation, gradient, and channel sinuosity. These results provide evidence that fish assemblages respond similarly and strongly to geomorphic variables on two continents

Severe upper airway obstruction due to delayed retropharyngeal hematoma formation following blunt cervical trauma

BACKGROUND: We report a case of severe upper airway obstruction due to a retropharyngeal hematoma that presented nearly one day after a precipitating traumatic injury. Retropharyngeal hematomas are rare, but may cause life-threatening airway compromise. CASE PRESENTATION: A 50 year-old man developed severe dyspnea with oropharyngeal airway compression due to retropharyngeal hematoma 20 hours after presenting to the emergency department. The patient also had a fractured first cervical vertebra and was diagnosed with a left brachial plexopathy. The patient underwent emergent awake fiberoptic endotracheal intubation to provide a definitive airway. CONCLUSION: Retropharyngeal hematoma with life-threatening airway compromise can develop hours or days after a precipitating injury. Clinicians should be alert to the potential for this delayed airway collapse, and should also be prepared to rapidly secure the airway in this patient population likely to have concomitant cervical spinal or head injuries

Abundance and Distribution of Enteric Bacteria and Viruses in Coastal and Estuarine Sediments—a Review

The long term survival of fecal indicator organisms (FIOs) and human pathogenic microorganisms in sediments is important from a water quality, human health and ecological perspective. Typically, both bacteria and viruses strongly associate with particulate matter present in freshwater, estuarine and marine environments. This association tends to be stronger in finer textured sediments and is strongly influenced by the type and quantity of clay minerals and organic matter present. Binding to particle surfaces promotes the persistence of bacteria in the environment by offering physical and chemical protection from biotic and abiotic stresses. How bacterial and viral viability and pathogenicity is influenced by surface attachment requires further study. Typically, long-term association with surfaces including sediments induces bacteria to enter a viable-but-non-culturable (VBNC) state. Inherent methodological challenges of quantifying VBNC bacteria may lead to the frequent under-reporting of their abundance in sediments. The implications of this in a quantitative risk assessment context remain unclear. Similarly, sediments can harbor significant amounts of enteric viruses, however, the factors regulating their persistence remains poorly understood. Quantification of viruses in sediment remains problematic due to our poor ability to recover intact viral particles from sediment surfaces (typically <10%), our inability to distinguish between infective and damaged (non-infective) viral particles, aggregation of viral particles, and inhibition during qPCR. This suggests that the true viral titre in sediments may be being vastly underestimated. In turn, this is limiting our ability to understand the fate and transport of viruses in sediments. Model systems (e.g., human cell culture) are also lacking for some key viruses, preventing our ability to evaluate the infectivity of viruses recovered from sediments (e.g., norovirus). The release of particle-bound bacteria and viruses into the water column during sediment resuspension also represents a risk to water quality. In conclusion, our poor process level understanding of viral/bacterial-sediment interactions combined with methodological challenges is limiting the accurate source apportionment and quantitative microbial risk assessment for pathogenic organisms associated with sediments in aquatic environments