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Plethodon ouachitae
Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science
Socio-hydrological modelling: a review asking “why, what and how?”
Interactions between humans and the environment are occurring on a scale that
has never previously been seen; the scale of human interaction with the water
cycle, along with the coupling present between social and hydrological
systems, means that decisions that impact water also impact people. Models
are often used to assist in decision-making regarding hydrological systems,
and so in order for effective decisions to be made regarding water resource
management, these interactions and feedbacks should be accounted for in
models used to analyse systems in which water and humans interact. This paper
reviews literature surrounding aspects of socio-hydrological modelling. It
begins with background information regarding the current state of
socio-hydrology as a discipline, before covering reasons for modelling and
potential applications. Some important concepts that underlie
socio-hydrological modelling efforts are then discussed, including ways of
viewing socio-hydrological systems, space and time in modelling, complexity,
data and model conceptualisation. Several modelling approaches are described,
the stages in their development detailed and their applicability to
socio-hydrological cases discussed. Gaps in research are then highlighted to
guide directions for future research. The review of literature suggests that
the nature of socio-hydrological study, being interdisciplinary, focusing on
complex interactions between human and natural systems, and dealing with long
horizons, is such that modelling will always present a challenge; it is,
however, the task of the modeller to use the wide range of tools afforded to
them to overcome these challenges as much as possible. The focus in
socio-hydrology is on understanding the human–water system in a holistic
sense, which differs from the problem solving focus of other water management
fields, and as such models in socio-hydrology should be developed with a view
to gaining new insight into these dynamics. There is an essential choice that
socio-hydrological modellers face in deciding between representing individual
system processes or viewing the system from a more abstracted level and
modelling it as such; using these different approaches has implications for
model development, applicability and the insight that they are capable of
giving, and so the decision regarding how to model the system requires
thorough consideration of, among other things, the nature of understanding
that is sought
OpenPING: A Reflective Middleware for the Construction of Adaptive Networked Game Applications
The emergence of distributed Virtual Reality (VR) applications
that run over the Internet has presented networked game
application designers with new challenges. In an environment
where the public internet streams multimedia data and is
constantly under pressure to deliver over widely heterogeneous
user-platforms, there has been a growing need that distributed VR
applications be aware of and adapt to frequent variations in their
context of execution. In this paper, we argue that in contrast to
research efforts targeted at improvement of scalability, persistence
and responsiveness capabilities, much less attempts have been
aimed at addressing the flexibility, maintainability and
extensibility requirements in contemporary distributed VR
platforms. We propose the use of structural reflection as an
approach that not only addresses these requirements but also
offers added value in the form of providing a framework for
scalability, persistence and responsiveness that is itself flexible,
maintainable and extensible. We also present an adaptive
middleware platform implementation called OpenPING1 that
supports our proposal in addressing these requirements
The Role of Structural Reflection in Distributed Virtual Reality
The emergence of collaborative virtual world applications that run over the Internet has presented Virtual Reality (VR) application designers with new challenges. In an environment where the public internet streams multimedia data and is constantly under pressure to deliver over widely heterogeneous user-platforms, there has been a growing need that distributed virtual world applications be aware of and adapt to frequent variations in their context of execution. In this paper, we argue that in contrast to research efforts targeted at improvement of scalability, persistence and responsiveness capabilities, much less attempts have been aimed at addressing the flexibility, maintainability and extensibility requirements in contemporary Distributed VR applications. We propose the use of structural reflection as an approach that not only addresses these requirements but also offers added value in the form of providing a framework for scalability, persistence and responsiveness that is itself flexible, maintainable and extensible
FUSE Observations of the Cygnus Loop: OVI Emission from a Nonradiative Shock
We present Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) observations of a
Balmer filament in the northeast region of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant.
The data consist of one spectrum obtained through the 30"x30" (LWRS) aperture
and three spectra at adjacent positions obtained through the 4"x20" (MDRS)
aperture. The nonradiative shocks in the region giving rise to these faint
optical filaments produce strong OVI 1032,1038 emission, which is detected in
all the spectra. The OVI emission is resolved by FUSE into a strong component
centered at 0 km/s, and weaker components centered at +/- 140 km/s. The MDRS
spectra allow us to study the variation of OVI emission in the post-shock
structure. We find that the zero velocity emission is associated directly with
the Balmer filament shock, while the high velocity emission comes from a more
uniformly distributed component elsewhere along the line of sight. We also find
that the shocks producing the emission at +/- 140 km/s have velocities between
180 km/s and 220 km/s, if we assume that the ram pressure driving them is the
same as for the zero velocity component shock. In the context of the cavity
model for the Cygnus Loop, the interaction of the blast wave with the spherical
shell that forms most of the cavity wall can naturally give rise to the similar
red and blue-shifted components that are observed.Comment: LaTeX uses aaspp4.sty, 18 pages + 5 PostScript figures. Accepted for
publication in the Astrophysical Journa
Interoperating with heterogeneous Mobile Services
Mobile applications are now developed upon a wide range of service development platforms, commonly referred to as middleware. However, the diversity of those available presents a problem for mobile client development. How can a single client implementation interoperate with heterogeneous service implementations
The Projected Gross-Pitaevskii Equation for harmonically confined Bose gases
We extend the Projected Gross Pitaevskii equation formalism of Davis et al.
[Phys. Rev. Lett. \bf{87}, 160402 (2001)] to the experimentally relevant case
of harmonic potentials. We outline a robust and accurate numerical scheme that
can efficiently simulate this system. We apply this method to investigate the
equilibrium properties of a harmonically trapped three-dimensional Bose gas at
finite temperature, and consider the dependence of condensate fraction,
position and momentum distributions, and density fluctuations on temperature.
We apply the scheme to simulate an evaporative cooling process in which the
preferential removal of high energy particles leads to the growth of a
Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that a condensate fraction can be inferred
during the dynamics even in this non-equilibrium situation.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
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