Report on the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3)

This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3). The report includes a description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to research software organizations around the world; and building communities for software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group's future activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE community can encourage this to happen

Hydrological modeling of geophysical parameters of arboviral and protozoan disease vectors in Internally Displaced People camps in Gulu, Uganda

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aim of this study was to determine if remotely sensed data and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) can test relationships between <it>Culex quinquefasciatus </it>and <it>Anopheles gambiae </it>s.l. larval habitats and environmental parameters within Internally Displaced People (IDP) campgrounds in Gulu, Uganda. A total of 65 georeferenced aquatic habitats in various IDP camps were studied to compare the larval abundance of <it>Cx. quinquefasciatus </it>and <it>An. gambiae </it>s.l. The aquatic habitat dataset were overlaid onto Land Use Land Cover (LULC) maps retrieved from Landsat imagery with 150 m × 150 m grid cells stratified by levels of drainage. The LULC change was estimated over a period of 14 years. Poisson regression analyses and Moran's <it>I </it>statistics were used to model relationships between larval abundance and environmental predictors. Individual larval habitat data were further evaluated in terms of their covariations with spatial autocorrelation by regressing them on candidate spatial filter eigenvectors. Multispectral QuickBird imagery classification and DEM-based GIS methods were generated to evaluate stream flow direction and accumulation for identification of immature <it>Cx. quinquefasciatus </it>and <it>An. gambiae </it>s.l. and abundance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The main LULC change in urban Gulu IDP camps was non-urban to urban, which included about 71.5 % of the land cover. The regression models indicate that counts of <it>An. gambiae </it>s.l. larvae were associated with shade while <it>Cx. quinquefasciatus </it>were associated with floating vegetation. Moran's <it>I </it>and the General G statistics for mosquito density by species and instars, identified significant clusters of high densities of <it>Anopheles</it>; larvae, however, <it>Culex </it>are not consistently clustered. A stepwise negative binomial regression decomposed the immature <it>An. gambiae </it>s.l. data into empirical orthogonal bases. The data suggest the presence of roughly 11% to 28 % redundant information in the larval count samples. The DEM suggest a positive correlation for <it>Culex </it>(0.24) while for <it>Anopheles </it>there was a negative correlation (-0.23) for a local model distance to stream.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data demonstrate that optical remote sensing; geostatistics and DEMs can be used to identify parameters associated with <it>Culex </it>and <it>Anopheles </it>aquatic habitats.</p

Global Governance Behind Closed Doors : The IMF Boardroom, the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, and the Intersection of Material Power and Norm Change in Global Politics

Up on the 12th floor of its 19th Street Headquarters, the IMF Board sits in active session for an average of 7 hours per week. Although key matters of policy are decided on in the venue, the rules governing Boardroom interactions remain opaque, resting on an uneasy combination of consensual decision-making and weighted voting. Through a detailed analysis of IMF Board discussions surrounding the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF), this article sheds light on the mechanics of power in this often overlooked venue of global economic governance. By exploring the key issues of default liability and loan conditionality, I demonstrate that whilst the Boardroom is a more active site of contestation than has hitherto been recognized, material power is a prime determinant of both Executive Directors’ preferences and outcomes reached from discussions. And as the decisions reached form the backbone of the ‘instruction sheet’ used by Fund staff to guide their everyday operational decisions, these outcomes—and the processes through which they were reached—were factors of primary importance in stabilizing the operational norms at the heart of a controversial phase in the contemporary history of IMF concessional lending

Report on the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3)

This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3). The report includes a description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to research software organizations around the world; and building communities for software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group’s future activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE community can encourage this to happe

Clinical Conditions “Suggestive of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy”—Diagnostic Performance

Background: The Movement Disorder Society diagnostic criteria for progressive supranuclear palsy introduced the diagnostic certainty level “suggestive of progressive supranuclear palsy” for clinical conditions with subtle signs, suggestive of the disease. This category aims at the early identification of patients, in whom the diagnosis may be confirmed as the disease evolves. Objective: To assess the diagnostic performance of the defined clinical conditions suggestive of progressive supranuclear palsy in an autopsy-confirmed cohort. Methods: Diagnostic performance of the criteria was analyzed based on retrospective clinical data of 204 autopsy-confirmed patients with progressive supranuclear palsy and 216 patients with other neurological diseases. Results: The conditions suggestive of progressive supranuclear palsy strongly increased the sensitivity compared to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and Society for Progressive Supranuclear Palsy criteria. Within the first year after symptom onset, 40% of patients with definite progressive supranuclear palsy fulfilled criteria for suggestive of progressive supranuclear palsy. Two-thirds of patients suggestive of progressive supranuclear palsy evolved into probable progressive supranuclear palsy after an average of 3.6 years. Application of the criteria for suggestive of progressive supranuclear palsy reduced the average time to diagnosis from 3.8 to 2.2 years. Conclusions: Clinical conditions suggestive of progressive supranuclear palsy allow earlier identification of patients likely to evolve into clinically possible or probable progressive supranuclear and to have underlying progressive supranuclear palsy pathology. Further work needs to establish the specificity and positive predictive value of this category in real-life clinical settings, and to develop specific biomarkers that enhance their diagnostic accuracy in early disease stages

Report on the 3rd Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3)

This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3). The report includes a description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to research software organizations around the world; and building communities for software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group's future activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE community can encourage this to happen