Accurate Measurement of Relative Humidity in Field Biology

Measurement of relative humidity has been neglected in most biological field studies partly because of difficulty of accurate measurement. This paper reviews classical relative humidity instruments and modern electrical transducers. Accuracies and operational problems are compared. Finally several approaches to construction of electronic humidity measuring instruments are presented together with a schematic of one circuit which has been field-tested

The internal brakes on violent escalation:a typology

Most groups do less violence than they are capable of. Yet while there is now an extensive literature on the escalation of or radicalisation towards violence, particularly by ‘extremist’ groups or actors, and while processes of de-escalation or de-radicalisation have also received significant attention, processes of non- or limited escalation have largely gone below the analytical radar. This article contributes to current efforts to address this limitation in our understanding of the dynamics of political aggression by developing a descriptive typology of the ‘internal brakes’ on violent escalation: the mechanisms through which members of the groups themselves contribute to establish and maintain limits upon their own violence. We identify five underlying logics on which the internal brakes operate: strategic, moral, ego maintenance, outgroup definition, and organisational. The typology is developed and tested using three very different case studies: the transnational and UK jihadi scene from 2005 to 2016; the British extreme right during the 1990s, and the animal liberation movement in the UK from the mid-1970s until the early 2000s

BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene.

MotivationThe BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.Main types of variables includedThe database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record.Spatial location and grainBioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km2 (158 cm2) to 100 km2 (1,000,000,000,000 cm2).Time period and grainBioTIME records span from 1874 to 2016. The minimal temporal grain across all datasets in BioTIME is a year.Major taxa and level of measurementBioTIME includes data from 44,440 species across the plant and animal kingdoms, ranging from plants, plankton and terrestrial invertebrates to small and large vertebrates.Software format.csv and .SQL

Ecosystem Processes and Human Influences Regulate Streamflow Response to Climate Change at Long-Term Ecological Research Sites

Analyses of long-term records at 35 headwater basins in the United States and Canada indicate that climate change effects on streamflow are not as clear as might be expected, perhaps because of ecosystem processes and human influences. Evapotranspiration was higher than was predicted by temperature in water-surplus ecosystems and lower than was predicted in water-deficit ecosystems. Streamflow was correlated with climate variability indices (e.g., the El Nino Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation), especially in seasons when vegetation influences are limited. Air temperature increased significantly at 17 of the 19 sites with 20- to 60-year records, but streamflow trends were directly related to climate trends (through changes in ice and snow) at only 7 sites. Past and present human and natural disturbance, vegetation succession, and human water use can mimic, exacerbate, counteract, or mask the effects of climate change on streamflow, even in reference basins. Long-term ecological research sites are ideal places to disentangle these processes

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

ClimDB/hydroDB: a web harvester and data warehouse approach to building a cross-site climate and hydrology database

Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Hydroscience and Engineering, Philadelphia, PA, September 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1860/732Emerging environmental grand challenges demand new scientific approaches that require collaboration and integration of long-term, multi-site data across broad spatial and temporal scales. The LTER Network and USFS Experimental Forest Network sites collect extensive long-term ecological, climatological, and hydrological data. While many of the LTER and USFS databases are available on-line with adequate metadata, researchers find it problematic to locate, access, and assemble data from multiple sites. LTER and USFS Information Managers developed ClimDB/HydroDB (http://www.fsl.orst.edu/climhy/) as one approach to improving access to crosssite data. As information systems at LTER and USFS are geographically decentralized and autonomous, this approach relied upon scientific interest, organizational and personal commitment, and participation incentives to build this integrated, cross-site information product. ClimDB/HydroDB is a web harvester and data warehouse that provides uniform access to common daily streamflow and meteorological data through a single portal. Participating sites manage and control original source data within their local information systems, but routinely contribute data to the warehouse. This approach establishes service development at the central node, permitting rapid adaptation to changing needs, while maintaining low-overhead and technological neutrality for data providers. The ClimDB/HydroDB approach is an effective bridge technology between older, more rigid data distribution models and modern service-oriented architectures

EnviroSensing Cluster Poster - Presented at the Winter 2018 ESIP Meeting

Poster describing 2017 activities and 2018 goals of the ESIP EnviroSensing working group. Evolution of best practices, X-Domes interoperability project, software tools for FAIR workflows