Return on Investment from Academic Supercomputing: SC14 Panel

Return on Investment or ROI is a fundamental measure of effectiveness in business. It has been applied broadly across industries, including information technology and supercomputing. In this panel, we will share approaches to assessing ROI for academic supercomputing.The panel will address the challenge that “returns” from supercomputing and other computationally based research activities are often not financial. This is major distinction from other industrial sectors, where product sales, inventions, and patents might form the basis of ROI calculations. How should ROI be assessed for high performance computing in academic environments? What inroads to ROI calculations are underway by the panelists? What are challenges of ROI calculations

Wealth, household heterogeneity and livelihood diversification of Fulani pastoralists in the Kachia Grazing Reserve, northern Nigeria, during a period of social transition

A mixed methods study was undertaken in the Kachia Grazing Reserve of northern Nigeria. Surveys in March, June and October 2011 included focus group discussions, key informant and in-depth household interviews, concerning livelihood practices, animal health, ownership, and productivity. In May 2011, 249 Fulani families fleeing post-election violence entered the reserve with their livestock, increasing the number of households by one third.Despite being settled within a grazing reserve, over half of households sent all their cattle away on seasonal transhumance and another third sent some away. Cattle accounted for 96% of total tropical livestock units (TLU), of which 26% were cattle kept permanently outside the reserve. While all households cited livestock as their main source of income, 90% grew crops and 55% derived income from off-farm activities. A multiple correspondence analysis showed that for each extra member of a household its TLU value increased by 2.0 [95% CI, 1.4-2.7], while for each additional marriage its TLU increased by 15.7 [95% CI, 7.1-24.3]. A strong association was also observed between small herds, small households with only one wife, alongside marked geographical wealth differences within the reserve. New immigrant families had larger household sizes (33) and livestock holdings (122 TLU) than old settlers (22 people and 67 TLU). Prior to the mass immigration, the distribution of TLU per person was unimodal: 41% of households were classified as 'poor' and 27% as 'medium', whereas post-immigration it was bi-modal, with 26% classified as 'very poor' and 28% as 'medium'.While cattle remain the principal source of Fulani income and wealth, the inhabitants of Kachia Grazing Reserve have diversified their livelihood strategies to respond to changing circumstances and stress, especially the limited availability of grazing within the reserve and political insecurity outside, resulting in continued transhumance, the maintenance of smaller livestock holdings and pushing households into poverty

Susan Fratkin Papers

Susan Fratkin represented the concerns of higher education to the public broadcasting community when she was Director of Special Programs for the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) from the late 1970s to 1992. She was particularly involved with the Educational Television Committee. Furthermore, she served as first treasurer and then president of the Joint Council on Educational Telecommunications (JCET) from 1984 to 1992. The collection includes reports, correspondences, publications, and legal papers that document issues of concern to Fratkin as she tried to link the worlds of higher education to that of telecommunications technology