A CASE FOR SUBVENTION OF PRIVATE LANDOWNERS IN THE LOUISIANA COASTAL ZONE

The Louisiana Coastal Zone (LCZ) is experiencing an unparalleled crisis of wetland loss, most of which (75%) is occurring on private lands. This paper use agricultural conservation policy as a comparative construct in a commentary that examines the rationale and methodology of providing economic incentives to subsidize wetland restoration on private lands in the LCZ.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Dynamical density functional theory with hydrodynamic interactions and colloids in unstable traps

A density functional theory for colloidal dynamics is presented which includes hydrodynamic interactions between the colloidal particles. The theory is applied to the dynamics of colloidal particles in an optical trap which switches periodically in time from a stable to unstable confining potential. In the absence of hydrodynamic interactions, the resulting density breathing mode, exhibits huge oscillations in the trap center which are almost completely damped by hydrodynamic interactions. The predicted dynamical density fields are in good agreement with Brownian dynamics computer simulations

UIMS: Toward the Next Generation

First generation User Interface Management Systems (UIMS) have established themselves in both research and commercial areas. This paper discusses improved usability and extension of UIMS to include a broader whole system development life cycle as the basis for evolution of a second generation of UIMS. Problems of first generation UIMS, some informal empirical work that is leading toward an interface development life cycle and UIMS to directions for the anticipated evolution are presented

An Interactive Environment for Dialogue Development: Its Design, Use and Evaluation

The Author's Interactive Didogue Environment (AIDE) of the Dialogue Management System is an integrated set of direct manipulation tools used by a dialogue author to design and implement human-computer interfaces without writing source code. This paper presents the conceptua! dialogue transaction model upon which AIDE is based, describes AIDE, and illustrates how a dialope author develops an interface using AIDE. A preliminary empirical evaluation of the use of AIDE versus the use of a programming language to implement an interface shows very encouraging results

Estimating the Economic Damage of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on Commercial and Recreational Fishing Industries

A USGS analysis of land change data from satellite imagery and field observation indicated that 217 square miles of Louisiana's coastal wetlands were converted to open water because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Because of their physical location and marine-dependence, commercial and recreational fishing sectors in Louisiana received a disproportional economic impact from the hurricanes of 2005. Storm surge modeling was accomplished using the ADCIRC model with data generated by the National Weather Service on storm trajectory and storm magnitude and detailed data on coastal bathymetry and elevation. In our application of the ADCIRC model, a grid composed of 1 square-mile cells (and encompassing the entire coastal management zone) was used within a GIS context to predict peak storm surge water heights at every known fixed fishing infrastructure location (dealers, processors, marinas, etc.) in Louisiana. We then collected primary data from a sample of these locations that was used in estimating, among other things, the percent of infrastructure that was lost due to the storms and the dollar amount of that damage for each location. These two pieces of information were then used to statistically estimate a geographically specific surge height damage function that was subsequently applied to all (non-sample) infrastructure sites in coastal Louisiana, thereby allowing the calculation of aggregate storm impacts. Developing an estimate of direct damages to the commercial and recreational fleet required two distinct pieces of information - an accounting of the number of vessels lost or damaged during the storms, and a measure of the market value of each of the lost vessels. Given that no comprehensive listing of lost or damaged vessels was compiled post-storm, the loss of vessels was estimated by comparing the presence of vessels in trip-ticket data during the 8 month period following the storms with the same period from the previous year. A vessel that was absent in the post-storm period was assumed lost, and valued by its physical characteristics by employing a price regression estimated using data collected from the major commercial used-vessel marketing trade publications and websites. The loss of recreational vessels was similarly estimated using market-based price data from non-commercial marketing publications and state-maintained databases of recreational vessels and their characteristics. Loss estimates were developed separately for each of the 4 coastal management zones in Louisiana and then aggregated. In aggregate, dealers were estimated to have incurred $103,522,186 in losses due to the storms while processors across the coast were estimated to have experienced$63,836,142 in losses, for a total of $167,358,328. For comparison purposes, these losses are approximately 29 percent of the total annual revenue generated by the dealers and processors in Louisiana. Estimated commercial fleet losses amounted to$153,817,470, while the estimated total recreational fleet loss was estimated to be $224,004,486. Regional variations in losses were also examined and linked to specific storm characteristics. Interestingly, the sum of these loss estimates fall near the mid-point of the range of loss estimates generated by various rapid assessments in the weeks following the storms, suggesting that rapid assessment methods (at least in aggregate) may not be as subjective as they first appear.Agribusiness, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Synthesis-Oriented Situational Analysis in User Interface Design

Analytic evaluation is a term describing a class of techniques for examining a representation of a user interface design, discovering design flaws and/or predicting user task performance. In our work with analytic evaluation, we have observed limitations on the effectiveness and efficiency of analytic techniques for formative evaluation supporting the iterative design and re-design cycle. Here we support those observations with arguments based on theoretical limitations of the models underlying these techniques. By way of comparison we discuss desirable characteristics for an alternative approach. In our search for such an alternative, we have developed the Task Mapping Model, a substantively different approach to analysis for supporting the user interface design. We briefly describe the Task Mapping Model and give some examples illustrating its desirable characteristics

Trusting Remote Users… Can They Identify Problems Without Involving Usability Experts?

Based on our belief that critical incident data, observed during usage and associated closely with specific task performance are the most useful kind of formative evaluation data for finding and fixing usability problems, we developed a Remote Usability Evaluation Method (RUEM) that involves real users self-reporting critical incidents encountered in real tasks performed in their normal working environments without the intervention of evaluators. In our exploratory study we observed that users were able to identify, report, and rate the severity level of their own critical incidents with only brief training