Crafting Audience Encounters

This paper documents a research project demonstrating the potential to engage audiences, promote practitioners and add value to craft work, through the use of relatively low-cost and accessible digital communications technologies in the context of a public exhibition. The project involves: filming, photographing and editing together audio-visual material; the creation of a website from which to access films and leave feedback; and a number of options for viewing web-based film footage including Quick Response (QR) codes and smartphone technology, iPads and a desktop computer to deliver internet-hosted content. ‘In the Frame’ is an interdisciplinary research project involving a team of researchers, film-makers and technologists, and Level 3 Contemporary Craft students at Falmouth University. It is a pilot study within Supercrafted, * a two year research project at Falmouth University, exploring and developing online digital interaction of benefit to craft practitioners and stakeholders in the craft value chain, including audiences, customers, makers and suppliers

The Enlightened Eye

The Enlightened Eye is a museum interactive made for the Liskeard and district Museum designed to deepen visitor experience of mineral specimens. The Enlightened Eye supports a system of planetary gears allowing mineral samples to be examined sequentially by a digital microscope. Using a touch screen and a specially designed interface, visitors can annotate and select close up views to make unique responses that can be shared online. The machine uses seemingly antiquated technology; the kinetic machine styling is an evocation of the camera obscura and the orrery, think magic lanterns and Joseph Wright of Derby’s Eighteenth century paintings of scientific enlightenment experiments. Simple Manual controls are positioned to encourage visitors to cooperate, engender collaboration and enrich participation. These compositional considerations are part of a deliberate approach. Where aesthetic design and affordances are meant to support memorable interactions and meaning making. Additionally by inviting virtual and material inspection through a drawn response, the Enlightened Eye aims to connect the objects under scrutiny persuasively to the visitor

Crafting Participation: Designing ecologies, configuring experience

ABSTRACT There is a growing interest amongst both artists and curators in designing artworks which create new forms of visual communication and enhance interaction in museums and galleries. Despite extraordinary advances in the analysis of talk and discourse, there is relatively little research concerned with conduct and collaboration with and around aesthetic objects and artefacts, and to some extent the social and cognitive sciences have paid less attention to the ways in which conduct both visual and vocal is inextricably embedded within the immediate ecology, the material realities at hand. In this paper, we examine how people in and through interaction with others, explore, examine and experience a mixed-media installation. Whilst primarily concerned with interaction with and around an art work, the paper is concerned with the ways in which people, in interaction with each other (both those they are with and others who happen to be in the same space), reflexively constitute the sense and significance of objects and artefacts, and the ways in which those material features reflexively inform the production and intelligibility of conduct and interaction. They (these lectures) will begin with aspects of invention and design that express the artist's responses to the assumed presence of the spectator. These reactions develop in a way that can be presented schematically in three stages: from awareness and acknowledgement, to the spectator entering the artists subject and completing the plot, and finally from that kind of involvement to its exploitation, the artist assuming, now, the complicity of the spectator in the very functioning of the work of art. in Only Connec

Coupling carbon allocation with leaf and root phenology predicts tree-grass partitioning along a savanna rainfall gradient

The relative complexity of the mechanisms underlying savanna ecosystem dynamics, in comparison to other biomes such as temperate and tropical forests, challenges the representation of such dynamics in ecosystem and Earth system models. A realistic representation of processes governing carbon allocation and phenology for the two defining elements of savanna vegetation (namely trees and grasses) may be a key to understanding variations in tree–grass partitioning in time and space across the savanna biome worldwide. Here we present a new approach for modelling coupled phenology and carbon allocation, applied to competing tree and grass plant functional types. The approach accounts for a temporal shift between assimilation and growth, mediated by a labile carbohydrate store. This is combined with a method to maximize long-term net primary production (NPP) by optimally partitioning plant growth between fine roots and (leaves + stem). The computational efficiency of the analytic method used here allows it to be uniquely and readily applied at regional scale, as required, for example, within the framework of a global biogeochemical model. We demonstrate the approach by encoding it in a new simple carbon–water cycle model that we call HAVANA (Hydrology and Vegetation-dynamics Algorithm for Northern Australia), coupled to the existing POP (Population Orders Physiology) model for tree demography and disturbance-mediated heterogeneity. HAVANA-POP is calibrated using monthly remotely sensed fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR) and eddy-covariance-based estimates of carbon and water fluxes at five tower sites along the North Australian Tropical Transect (NATT), which is characterized by large gradients in rainfall and wildfire disturbance. The calibrated model replicates observed gradients of fPAR, tree leaf area index, basal area, and foliage projective cover along the NATT. The model behaviour emerges from complex feedbacks between the plant physiology and vegetation dynamics, mediated by shifting above- versus below-ground resources, and not from imposed hypotheses about the controls on tree–grass co-existence. Results support the hypothesis that resource limitation is a stronger determinant of tree cover than disturbance in Australian savannas.The contributions of V. Haverd and P. Briggs were made possible by the support of the Australian Climate Change Science Program. B. Smith acknowledges funding as an OCE Distinguished Visiting Scientist to the CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere Flagship, Canberr

OzFlux data: network integration from collection to curation

Measurement of the exchange of energy and mass between the surface and the atmospheric boundary-layer by the eddy covariance technique has undergone great change in the last 2 decades. Early studies of these exchanges were confined to brief field campaigns in carefully controlled conditions followed by months of data analysis. Current practice is to run tower-based eddy covariance systems continuously over several years due to the need for continuous monitoring as part of a global effort to develop local-, regional-, continental- and global-scale budgets of carbon, water and energy. Efficient methods of processing the increased quantities of data are needed to maximise the time available for analysis and interpretation. Standardised methods are needed to remove differences in data processing as possible contributors to observed spatial variability. Furthermore, public availability of these data sets assists with undertaking global research efforts. The OzFlux data path has been developed (i) to provide a standard set of quality control and post-processing tools across the network, thereby facilitating inter-site integration and spatial comparisons; (ii) to increase the time available to researchers for analysis and interpretation by reducing the time spent collecting and processing data; (iii) to propagate both data and metadata to the final product; and (iv) to facilitate the use of the OzFlux data by adopting a standard file format and making the data available from web-based portals. Discovery of the OzFlux data set is facilitated through incorporation in FLUXNET data syntheses and the publication of collection metadata via the RIFCS format. This paper serves two purposes. The first is to describe the data sets, along with their quality control and post-processing, for the other papers of this Special Issue. The second is to provide an example of one solution to the data collection and curation challenges that are encountered by similar flux tower networks worldwide.J. Beringer is funded under an ARC FT (FT1110602)

Bridging Thermal Infrared Sensing and Physically-Based Evapotranspiration Modeling : From Theoretical Implementation to Validation Across an Aridity Gradient in Australian Ecosystems

Thermal infrared sensing of evapotranspiration (E) through surface energy balance (SEB) models is challenging due to uncertainties in determining the aerodynamic conductance (g(A)) and due to inequalities between radiometric (T-R) and aerodynamic temperatures (T-0). We evaluated a novel analytical model, the Surface Temperature Initiated Closure (STIC1.2), that physically integrates T-R observations into a combined Penman-Monteith Shuttleworth-Wallace (PM-SW) framework for directly estimating E, and overcoming the uncertainties associated with T0 and gA determination. An evaluation of STIC1.2 against high temporal frequency SEB flux measurements across an aridity gradient in Australia revealed a systematic error of 10-52% in E from mesic to arid ecosystem, and low systematic error in sensible heat fluxes (H) (12-25%) in all ecosystems. Uncertainty in TR versus moisture availability relationship, stationarity assumption in surface emissivity, and SEB closure corrections in E were predominantly responsible for systematic E errors in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. A discrete correlation (r) of the model errors with observed soil moisture variance (r = 0.33-0.43), evaporative index (r = 0.77-0.90), and climatological dryness (r = 0.60-0.77) explained a strong association between ecohydrological extremes and T-R in determining the error structure of STIC1.2 predicted fluxes. Being independent of any leaf-scale biophysical parameterization, the model might be an important value addition in working group (WG2) of the Australian Energy and Water Exchange (OzEWEX) research initiative which focuses on observations to evaluate and compare biophysical models of energy and water cycle components. Plain Language Summary Evapotranspiration modeling and mapping in arid and semi-arid ecosystems are uncertain due to empirical approximation of surface and atmospheric conductances. Here we demonstrate the performance of a fully analytical model which is independent of any leaf-scale empirical parameterization of the conductances and can be potentially used for continental scale mapping of ecosystem water use as well as water stress using thermal remote sensing satellite data.dPeer reviewe

The role of aerodynamic resistance in thermal remote sensing-based evapotranspiration models

Aerodynamic resistance (hereafter ra) is a preeminent variable in evapotranspiration (ET) modelling. The accurate quantification of ra plays a pivotal role in determining the performance and consistency of thermal remote sensing-based surface energy balance (SEB) models for estimating ET at local to regional scales. Atmospheric stability links ra with land surface temperature (LST) and the representation of their interactions in the SEB models determines the accuracy of ET estimates. The present study investigates the influence of ra and its relation to LST uncertainties on the performance of three structurally different SEB models. It used data from nine Australian OzFlux eddy covariance sites of contrasting aridity in conjunction with MODIS Terra and Aqua LST and leaf area index (LAI) products. Simulations of the sensible heat flux (H) and the latent heat flux (LE, the energy equivalent of ET in W/m2) from the SPARSE (Soil Plant Atmosphere and Remote Sensing Evapotranspiration), SEBS (Surface Energy Balance System) and STIC (Surface Temperature Initiated Closure) models forced with MODIS LST, LAI, and in-situ meteorological datasets were evaluated against flux observations in water-limited (arid and semi-arid) and energy-limited (mesic) ecosystems from 2011 to 2019. Our results revealed an overestimation tendency of instantaneous LE by all three models in the water-limited shrubland, woodland and grassland ecosystems by up to 50% on average, which was caused by an underestimation of H. Overestimation of LE was associated with discrepancies in ra retrievals under conditions of high atmospheric instability, during which uncertainties in LST (expressed as the difference between MODIS LST and in-situ LST) apparently played a minor role. On the other hand, a positive difference in LST coincided with low ra (high wind speeds) and caused a slight underestimation of LE at the water-limited sites. The impact of ra on the LE residual error was found to be of the same magnitude as the influence of LST uncertainties in the semi-arid ecosystems as indicated by variable importance in projection (VIP) coefficients from partial least squares regression above unity. In contrast, our results for the mesic forest ecosystems indicated minor dependency on ra for modelling LE (VIP \u3c 0.4), which was due to a higher roughness length and lower LST resulting in the dominance of mechanically generated turbulence, thereby diminishing the importance of buoyancy production for the determination of ra

Insights Into the Aerodynamic Versus Radiometric Surface Temperature Debate in Thermal-Based Evaporation Modeling

Global evaporation monitoring from Earth observation thermal infrared satellite missions is historically challenged due to the unavailability of any direct measurements of aerodynamic temperature. State-of-the-art one-source evaporation models use remotely sensed radiometric surface temperature as a substitute for the aerodynamic temperature and apply empirical corrections to accommodate for their inequality. This introduces substantial uncertainty in operational drought mapping over complex landscapes. By employing a non-parametric model, we show that evaporation can be directly retrieved from thermal satellite data without the need of any empirical correction. Independent evaluation of evaporation in a broad spectrum of biome and aridity yielded statistically significant results when compared with eddy covariance observations. While our simplified model provides a new perspective to advance spatio-temporal evaporation mapping from any thermal remote sensing mission, the direct retrieval of aerodynamic temperature also generates the highly required insight on the critical role of biophysical interactions in global evaporation research

Insights into the aerodynamic versus radiometric surface temperature debate in thermal-based evaporation modeling

Global evaporation monitoring from Earth observation thermal infrared satellite missions is historically challenged due to the unavailability of any direct measurements of aerodynamic temperature. State-of-the-art one-source evaporation models use remotely sensed radiometric surface temperature as a substitute for the aerodynamic temperature and apply empirical corrections to accommodate for their inequality. This introduces substantial uncertainty in operational drought mapping over complex landscapes. By employing a non-parametric model, we show that evaporation can be directly retrieved from thermal satellite data without the need of any empirical correction. Independent evaluation of evaporation in a broad spectrum of biome and aridity yielded statistically significant results when compared with eddy covariance observations. While our simplified model provides a new perspective to advance spatio-temporal evaporation mapping from any thermal remote sensing mission, the direct retrieval of aerodynamic temperature also generates the highly required insight on the critical role of biophysical interactions in global evaporation research

An introduction to the Australian and New Zealand flux tower network - OzFlux

OzFlux is the regional Australian and New Zealand flux tower network that aims to provide a continental-scale national research facility to monitor and as- sess trends, and improve predictions, of Australia’s terrestrial biosphere and climate. This paper describes the evolution, design, and current status of OzFlux as well as provides an overview of data processing. We analyse measurements from all sites within the Australian portion of the OzFlux network and two sites from New Zealand. The response of the Aus- tralian biomes to climate was largely consistent with global studies except that Australian systems had a lower ecosystem water-use efficiency. Australian semi-arid/arid ecosystems are important because of their huge extent (70 %) and they have evolved with common moisture limitations. We also found that Australian ecosystems had a similar radiation- use efficiency per unit leaf area compared to global values that indicates a convergence toward a similar biochemical efficiency. The two New Zealand sites represented extremes in productivity for a moist temperate climate zone, with the grazed dairy farm site having the highest GPP of any OzFlux site (2620 gC m − 2 yr − 1 ) and the natural raised peat bog site having a very low GPP (820 gC m − 2 yr − 1 ) . The paper dis- cusses the utility of the flux data and the synergies between flux, remote sensing, and modelling. Lastly, the paper looks ahead at the future direction of the network and concludes that there has been a substantial contribution by OzFlux, and considerable opportunities remain to further advance our un- derstanding of ecosystem response to disturbances, including drought, fire, land-use and land-cover change, land manage- ment, and climate change, which are relevant both nationally and internationally. It is suggested that a synergistic approach is required to address all of the spatial, ecological, human, and cultural challenges of managing the delicately balanced ecosystems in Australasia