374 research outputs found
Shared Knowledge in Virtual Software Teams: A Preliminary Framework
Shared knowledge allows virtual teams to collaborate more effectively. Shared knowledge in teams, hereafter called team knowledge, must be established and maintained. This is a key enabler for agile development in a distributed context. Hence, organizations may benefit from efforts to ensure sufficient levels of team knowledge. Such efforts may include different measures, such as project kick-offs, frequent visits across locations, knowledge sharing tools and practices. However, team knowledge includes many types of knowledge, with different impacts on the team's work. This paper outlines a framework for conceptualizing the breadth of team knowledge relevant for virtual software teams. With the help of this framework, organizations can think more strategically about how to improve team knowledge -- for example the planning of kick-offs, what to focus on in face-to-face meetings and how the team members work together on a day-to-day basis. The framework may also be used to assist in planning team composition, for example based on individuals' knowledge and the overlap with other team members' knowledge. The framework uses four broad categories of team knowledge: task-related, team-related, process-related and goal-related. Beneath these four categories the framework details and describes more concrete knowledge types. We also provide examples from software practice for each knowledge type.acceptedVersio
Linking forest cover, soil erosion and mire hydrology to late-Holocene human activity and climate in NW Spain
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm).This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Forest clearance is one of the main drivers of soil erosion and hydrological changes in mires, although climate may also play a significant role. Because of the wide range of factors involved, understanding these complex links requires long-term multi-proxy approaches and research on the best proxies to focus. A peat core from NW Spain (Cruz do Bocelo mire), spanning the last ~3000 years, has been studied at high resolution by physical (density and loss on ignition (LOI)), geochemical (elemental composition) and palynological (pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs) analyses. Proxies related to mineral matter fluxes from the catchment (lithogenic tracers, Glomus and Entorrhiza), rainfall (Bromine), mire hydrology (HdV-18), human pressure (Cerealia-type, nitrophilous taxa and coprophilous fungi) and forest cover (mesophilous tree taxa) were the most useful to reconstruct the evolution of the mire and its catchment. Forest clearance for farming was one of the main drivers of environmental change from at least the local Iron Age (~2685 cal. yr BP) onwards. The most intense phase of deforestation occurred during Roman and Germanic times and the late Middle Ages. During these phases, the entire catchment was affected, resulting in enhanced soil erosion and severe hydrological modifications of the mire. Climate, especially rainfall, may have also accelerated these processes during wetter periods. However, it is noteworthy that the hydrology of the mire seems to have been insensitive to rainfall variations when mesophilous forest dominated. Abrupt changes were only detected once intense forest clearance commenced during the Iron Age/Roman transition (~2190 cal. yr BP) phase, which represented a tipping point in catchment's ability to buffer impacts. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of studying ecosystems' long-term trajectories and catchment-wide processes when implementing mire habitat protection measures.This work was funded by the projects CGL2010-20672 (Plan Nacional I+D+i, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and 10PXIB200182PR (General Directorate of I+D, Xunta de Galicia). N Silva-Sánchez and L López-Merino are currently supported by a FPU predoctoral scholarship (AP2010-3264) funded by the Spanish Government and a MINT postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Brunel Institute for the Environment,
respectively
Effects of large-scale heathland management on thermal regimes and predation on adders Vipera berus
Management prescriptions for species of conservation concern often focus on creating appropriate habitat conditions, but the spatial scales over which these actions are applied can potentially impact their success. In Northwestern Europe, preventing further loss of lowland heathland through successional changes often involves the mechanical removal of vegetation, creating large blocks of open homogenous habitat. We investigate the influence of this broad-scale habitat management on a heathland specialist, the adder Vipera berus. By deploying temperature loggers and Plasticine adder models in heathland areas with and without complex vegetation cover, we show that (1) cleared areas lack both the temperature variation adders need to thermoregulate effectively and suitable refuges from dangerously high summer temperatures, and (2) attacks by dogs and trampling by grazing livestock are significantly more frequent in cleared areas and closer to footpaths. Habitat management strategies that retain some structural complexity of vegetation within cleared areas, and diverting footpaths away from cleared areas and/or strategic placement of barrier hedging around these areas could potentially reduce the exposure of adders to high predation risk and thermal extremes
Recommended from our members
An improved methodology for the recovery of Zea mays and other large crop pollen, with implications for environmental archaeology in the Neotropics
We present a simple sieving methodology to aid the recovery of large cultigen pollen grains, such as maize (Zea mays L.), manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz), and sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.), among others, for the detection of food production using fossil pollen analysis of lake sediments in the tropical Americas. The new methodology was tested on three large study lakes located next to known and/or excavated pre-Columbian archaeological sites in South and Central America. Five paired samples, one treated by sieving, the other prepared using standard methodology, were compared for each of the three sites. Using the new methodology, chemically digested sediment samples were passed through a 53 µm sieve, and the residue was retained, mounted in silicone oil, and counted for large cultigen pollen grains. The filtrate was mounted and analysed for pollen according to standard palynological procedures. Zea mays (L.) was recovered from the sediments of all three study lakes using the sieving technique, where no cultigen pollen had been previously recorded using the standard methodology. Confidence intervals demonstrate there is no significant difference in pollen assemblages between the sieved versus unsieved samples. Equal numbers of exotic Lycopodium spores added to both the filtrate and residue of the sieved samples allow for direct comparison of cultigen pollen abundance with the standard terrestrial pollen count. Our technique enables the isolation and rapid scanning for maize and other cultigen pollen in lake sediments, which, in conjunction with charcoal and pollen records, is key to determining land-use patterns and the environmental impact of pre-Columbian societies
Definition and Verification of Security Configurations of Cyber-Physical Systems
The proliferation of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) is rais ing serious security challenges. These are complex systems, integrating
physical elements into automated networked systems, often containing a
variety of devices, such as sensors and actuators, and requiring complex
management and data storage. This makes the construction of secure
CPSs a challenge, requiring not only an adequate specification of secu rity requirements and needs related to the business domain but also
an adaptation and concretion of these requirements to define a security
configuration of the CPS where all its components are related. Derived
from the complexity of the CPS, their configurations can be incorrect
according to the requirements, and must be verified. In this paper, we
propose a grammar for specifying business domain security requirements
based on the CPS components. This will allow the definition of security
requirements that, through a defined security feature model, will result
in a configuration of services and security properties of the CPS, whose
correctness can be verified. For this last stage, we have created a cata logue of feature models supported by a tool that allows the automatic
verification of security configurations. To illustrate the results, the pro posal has been applied to automated verification of requirements in a
hydroponic system scenario.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología RTI2018-094283-B-C33 (ECLIPSE)Junta de Andalucía METAMORFOSIS (US-1381375)Junta de Castilla.La Mancha SBPLY-17-180501-000202 (GENESIS
Moving forwards? Palynology and the human dimension
For the greater part of the last century, anthropogenic palynology has made a sustained contribution to archaeology and to Quaternary science in general, and pollen-analytical papers have appeared in Journal of Archaeological Science since its inception. The present paper focuses selectively upon three areas of anthropogenic palynology, enabling some assessment as to whether the field is advancing: land-use studies, archaeological site study, and modelling. The Discussion also highlights related areas including palynomorph identification and associated proxies. There is little doubt that anthropogenic palynology has contributed to the vitality of pollen analysis in general, and although published research can be replicative or incremental, site- and landscape-based studies offer fresh data for further analysis and modelling. The latter allows the testing of both palynological concepts and inferences and can inform archaeological discovery and imagination. Archaeological site studies are often difficult, but palynology can still offer much to the understanding of occupation sites and the discernment of human behaviour patterns within sites
Modern and fossil non-pollen palynomorphs from the Basque mountains (western Pyrenees, France): the use of coprophilous fungi to reconstruct pastoral activity
International audienceThis paper presents results from a modern dataset of non-pollen palynomorphs and its application to aca. 2,000 year peat record from the same area in the western Pyrenees (Basque Country, France). The modern dataset is composed of 35 surface samples (moss polsters) from a mountainous pasture-woodland landscape. Airborne fungal spores (ascospores and conidia), found dominant in the dataset, are linked to the degree of landscape openness and grazing pressure. The complete spectrum of 13 selected spore-types of dung-related Ascomycetes is positively linked with grazing pressure. However, different dung affinities between the spore-types have been identified. These are types clearly related to high grazing pressure and types with no or unclear dung indicative value. The modern dataset is used to aid interpretation of the local fossil pollen record as an independent 'proxy' to assess past pastoral dynamics. This study confirms the utility of modern nonpollen palynomorphs from terrestrial ecosystems in the reconstruction of historical local pastoral activities but also shows their limitation. It may be necessary to extend such study to wetland ecosystems and to investigate the spatial dimension of some fungal spores
Apis mellifera pollination improves agronomic productivity of anemophilous castor bean (Ricinus communis)
- …