Mashing up Visual Languages and Web Mash-ups

Research on web mashups and visual languages share an interest in human-centered computing. Both research communities are concerned with supporting programming by everyday, technically inexpert users. Visual programming environments have been a focus for both communities, and we believe that there is much to be gained by further discussion between these research communities. In this paper we explore some connections between web mashups and visual languages, and try to identify what each might be able to learn from the other. Our goal is to establish a framework for a dialog between the communities, and to promote the exchange of ideas and our respective understandings of humancentered computing.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

The Empowerment Effects of Criminal Court Legal Advocacy on Battered Women: An Exploratory Study

This exploratory study examined the relationship between battered women\u27s legal advocacy and empowerment. It was hypothesized that women who received battered women\u27s legal advocacy would be more empowered during their experiences with the criminal court process than women who did not receive legal advocacy. The sample consisted of 73 women in the intervention group and 60 women in the comparison group whose partners had been arrested on fifth degree domestic assault charges. The sample was drawn from 1995 police records, Nine participants completed a self-administered survey. Using measures of central tendency and bi-variate analysis it was found that women with legal advocacy had a higher level of understanding of the criminal court system than women without legal advocacy. Women with legal advocacy service felt emotionally supported, comfortable , and knowledgeable during the court process. Further research is needed to assess the empowerment effects of battered women\u27s legal advocacy

A new species of Pericallis (Senecioneae, Asteraceae) endemic to Porto Santo (Madeira, Portugal)

A new species, Pericallis menezesii, is described from the island of Porto Santo in the Madeiran archipelago. Morphological comparisons are made with its sister taxon, P. aurita which is now considered to be endemic to the island of Madeira.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Whole family-based physical activity promotion intervention: the Families Reporting Every Step to Health pilot randomised controlled trial protocol

Introduction : Family-based physical activity (PA) interventions present a promising avenue to promote children’s activity, however, high-quality experimental research is lacking. This paper describes the protocol for the FRESH (Families Reporting Every Step to Health) pilot trial, a child-led family-based PA intervention delivered online.  Methods and analysis : FRESH is a three-armed, parallel-group, randomised controlled pilot trial using a 1:1:1 allocation ratio with follow-up assessments at 8- and 52-weeks post-baseline. Families will be eligible if a minimum of one child in school Years 3-6 (aged 7-11 years) and at least one adult responsible for that child are willing to participate. Family members can take part in the intervention irrespective of their participation in the accompanying evaluation and vice versa. Following baseline assessment, families will be randomly allocated to one of three arms: (1) FRESH, (2) pedometer-only, or (3) no-intervention control. All family members in the pedometer-only and FRESH arms receive pedometers and generic PA promotion information. FRESH families additionally receive access to the intervention website; allowing participants to select step challenges to ‘travel’ to target cities around the world, log steps, and track progress as they virtually globetrot. Control families will receive no treatment. All family members will be eligible to participate in the evaluation with two follow-ups (8 and 52 weeks). Physical (e.g., fitness, blood pressure), psychosocial (e.g., social support), and behavioural (e.g., objectively-measured family PA) measures will be collected each time point. At 8-week follow-up, a mixed-methods process evaluation will be conducted (questionnaires and family focus groups) assessing acceptability of the intervention and evaluation. FRESH families’ website engagement will also be explored.  Ethics and dissemination : This study received ethical approval from the Ethics Committee for the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Findings will be disseminated via peer-reviewed publications, conferences, and to participating families

Does a Carbonatite Deposit Influence Its Surrounding Ecosystem?

Carbonatites are unusual alkaline rocks with diverse compositions. Although previous work has characterized the effects these rocks have on soils and plants, little is known about their impacts on local ecosystems. Using a deposit within the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence forest in northern Ontario, Canada, we investigated the effect of a carbonatite on soil chemistry and on the structure of plant and soil microbial communities. This was done using a vegetation survey conducted above and around the deposit, with corresponding soil samples collected for determining soil nutrient composition and for assessing microbial community structure using 16S/ITS Illumina Mi-Seq sequencing. In some soils above the deposit a soil chemical signature of the carbonatite was found, with the most important effect being an increase in soil pH compared with the non-deposit soils. Both plants and microorganisms responded to the altered soil chemistry: the plant communities present in carbonatite-impacted soils were dominated by ruderal species, and although differences in microbial communities across the surveyed areas were not obvious, the abundances of specific bacteria and fungi were reduced in response to the carbonatite. Overall, the deposit seems to have created microenvironments of relatively basic soil in an otherwise acidic forest soil. This study demonstrates for the first time how carbonatites can alter ecosystems in situ

Consistency is key: Intercollegiate athlete perceptions of the justice of team disciplinary decisions

Discipline and, how it is perceived, is of great consequence to organizations. Importantly, how disciplinary decisions are determined and carried out can influence the attitudes, behavior, and emotions of organizational members both positively and negatively (Ball, Trevino, & Sims, 1992). Although there is a dearth of research investigating the perceptions of those receiving punishment, it is equally important to understand the perceptions of those observing the disciplinary process. The purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions of justice involving disciplinary decisions in an intercollegiate team sport setting. Male and female intercollegiate athletes (N = 204) provided open ended responses regarding a punishment scenario on their athletic team and their perceptions of distributive fairness to the punished athlete and teammates, perceptions of procedural fairness to the punished athlete and teammates, perceptions of justice to the fans, and whether the punishment was likely to deter future misconduct by the punished athlete and teammates. Results indicated that punishment that was in accordance with team rules was perceived as more fair to both the punished athlete and the team. The findings of this study are of importance to sports teams specifically and organizations generally in that they lay the groundwork for creating disciplinary processes which are perceived as fair in terms of their procedure and distribution

Adjoint-Based Design of Rotors using the Navier-Stokes Equations in a Noninertial Reference Frame

Optimization of rotorcraft flowfields using an adjoint method generally requires a time-dependent implementation of the equations. The current study examines an intermediate approach in which a subset of rotor flowfields are cast as steady problems in a noninertial reference frame. This technique permits the use of an existing steady-state adjoint formulation with minor modifications to perform sensitivity analyses. The formulation is valid for isolated rigid rotors in hover or where the freestream velocity is aligned with the axis of rotation. Discrete consistency of the implementation is demonstrated using comparisons with a complex-variable technique, and a number of single- and multi-point optimizations for the rotorcraft figure of merit function are shown for varying blade collective angles. Design trends are shown to remain consistent as the grid is refined