Use of ERTS-1 pictures in coastal oceanography in British Columbia

The ERTS-1 color composite picture of the Vancouver-Victoria region illustrates the value of ERTS data for coastal oceanography. The water of the Fraser River plume which is so clearly visible in the center of the scene has been of interest to oceanographers on the west coast of Canada for a long time as an easily visible tracer of surface water circulation in the strait of Georgia. Maps of the plume at different states of the tide and with different river flow and weather were compiled from oblique aerial photographs in 1950 and used in the siting of sewage and other outfalls in the Vancouver area. More recently high level aerial photomosaics have been used to map the plume area, but the plume can spread over distances of 30 to 40 miles and many photographs, with the uneven illumination inherent in wide angle coverage, are needed for the mosaic. The ERTS satellite gives the first complete view of the plume area. Electronic enhancement of the images shows that the satellite's narrow angle coverage allows very weak surface turbidity features to be made visible to give information on surface currents over a wide area

Use of an inertial navigation system for accurate track recovery and coastal oceanographic measurements

A data acquisition system using a Litton LTN-51 inertial navigation unit (INU) was tested and used for aircraft track recovery and for location and tracking from the air of targets at sea. The characteristic position drift of the INU is compensated for by sighting landmarks of accurately known position at discrete time intervals using a visual sighting system in the transparent nose of the Beechcraft 18 aircraft used. For an aircraft altitude of about 300 m, theoretical and experimental tests indicate that calculated aircraft and/or target positions obtained from the interpolated INU drift curve will be accurate to within 10 m for landmarks spaced approximately every 15 minutes in time. For applications in coastal oceanography, such as surface current mapping by tracking artificial targets, the system allows a broad area to be covered without use of high altitude photography and its attendant needs for large targets and clear weather

From ethical challenges to opportunities: Reflections on participatory and collaborative research with refugees in Australia

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This reflective article draws upon our recent experiences in researching with refugees, especially women and youth, who have resettled in Australia. It is a practice and research-oriented article that presents our experience as a series of ethical challenges and how these were resolved to form opportunities for ongoing collaboration. We discuss the limitations of existing ethical guidelines relating to research with displaced people especially refugees; the difficulties of gaining consent in a manner that balances university requirements with participant self-determination; the issue of tangible benefits and reciprocity for participants; the challenge of accurate representation of refugee voices, using imagery; and finally our ongoing accountability to participants. In trying to address these issues, our projects have used a participatory, collaborative research method, in keeping with recent calls for greater use of this approach. In doing so, we have attempted to redistribute social power, ownership of results and resources from the researchers to the participants. We posit that giving refugee participants the opportunity to actively participate in sharing their stories is empowering and builds strength and resilience

Mechanisms Driving Nonnative Plant-Mediated Changes in Small Mammal Populations and Communities

Nonnative plants can dramatically alter habitat of native animals through changes in vegetation structure and availability of food resources. Range expansion by nonnative cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is an acute threat to persistence of native species in the sagebrush-steppe ecosystem of southwestern Montana. As climate changes over the next century, rangelands in Montana are likely to become more hospitable to this invasive grass. Although declines in small mammal diversity and abundance previously have been documented with cheatgrass invasion, we know little about the underlying mechanisms driving these changes. We will explore potential mechanisms for nonnative plant-mediated changes on three species of native mammals: deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), montane vole (Microtus montanus), and sagebrush vole (Lemmiscus curtatus) in sagesteppe communities at the Gravelly-Blacktail Wildlife Management Area (WMA). We will quantify changes in vegetation characteristics in areas invaded by cheatgrass; based on this information, we will develop experimental treatments that mimic individual modified characteristics. We will apply these treatments to randomly selected plots on the WMA and establish appropriate controls. Using standard capture-mark-recapture methods, we will estimate abundance and species diversity of small mammals and make comparisons between treated and control plots to quantify effects. We will also quantify and compare body condition, predator avoidance, and diet to explore additional mechanisms driving changes in mammalian abundance and diversity. Identifying the mechanisms for how cheatgrass invasion alters populations and communities of native species will provide critical information to inform conservation and management of some of Montana’s native small mammals

Pattern Reduction in Paper Cutting

A large part of the paper industry involves supplying customers with reels of specified width in specifed quantities. These 'customer reels' must be cut from a set of wider 'jumbo reels', in as economical a way as possible. The first priority is to minimize the waste, i.e. to satisfy the customer demands using as few jumbo reels as possible. This is an example of the one-dimensional cutting stock problem, which has an extensive literature. Greycon have developed cutting stock algorithms which they include in their software packages. Greycon's initial presentation to the Study Group posed several questions, which are listed below, along with (partial) answers arising from the work described in this report. (1) Given a minimum-waste solution, what is the minimum number of patterns required? It is shown in Section 2 that even when all the patterns appearing in minimum-waste solutions are known, determining the minimum number of patterns may be hard. It seems unlikely that one can guarantee to find the minimum number of patterns for large classes of realistic problems with only a few seconds on a PC available. (2) Given an n → n-1 algorithm, will it find an optimal solution to the minimum- pattern problem? There are problems for which n → n - 1 reductions are not possible although a more dramatic reduction is. (3) Is there an efficient n → n-1 algorithm? In light of Question 2, Question 3 should perhaps be rephrased as 'Is there an efficient algorithm to reduce n patterns?' However, if an algorithm guaranteed to find some reduction whenever one existed then it could be applied iteratively to minimize the number of patterns, and we have seen this cannot be done easily. (4) Are there efficient 5 → 4 and 4 → 3 algorithms? (5) Is it worthwhile seeking alternatives to greedy heuristics? In response to Questions 4 and 5, we point to the algorithm described in the report, or variants of it. Such approaches seem capable of catching many higher reductions. (6) Is there a way to find solutions with the smallest possible number of single patterns? The Study Group did not investigate methods tailored specifically to this task, but the algorithm proposed here seems to do reasonably well. It will not increase the number of singleton patterns under any circumstances, and when the number of singletons is high there will be many possible moves that tend to eliminate them. (7) Can a solution be found which reduces the number of knife changes? The algorithm will help to reduce the number of necessary knife changes because it works by bringing patterns closer together, even if this does not proceed fully to a pattern reduction. If two patterns are equal across some of the customer widths, the knives for these reels need not be changed when moving from one to the other

Enhancing Teacher Credibility: What We Can Learn From the Justice and Leadership Literature

Enhanced perceptions of instructor credibility are related to positive outcomes in the classroom, including participation and learning (Chory, 2007; Frymier & Thompson, 1992; McCroskey & Teven, 1999; Myers, 2004; Teven & McCroskey, 1997). We contend that student perceptions of instructor credibility can be directly impacted by applying management research to classroom practices. In other words, actionable management research is useful in the classroom not just to share with students because it may make them better managers, but also to improve teaching practices and related outcomes. The present article explores this tenet, first discussing why we believe applied research findings can and should be transferred to the classroom and then using Implicit Leadership Theory (ILT) and organizational justice literature to demonstrate how these concepts can be generalized to the classroom environment to ultimately enhance instructor credibility