Visualising interoperability : ARH, aggregation, rationalisation and harmonisation

This paper proposes a visualisation of interoperability to assist real-world deployment of metadata. For some time, resource managers in many organisations have been acting on faith, creating 'standards compliant' metadata with the aim of exposing their resources to provide interoperability in discovery activities. In some cases, their faith has led them to miss the very essence of the work they are doing, and they have not got what they worked for. The authors report a case study involving government agencies in Victoria, Australia. A number of departmental agencies have implemented, more or less, the DC-based Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) application profile, at least for their web resources. They have done this with care and precision, with the long-term aim of developing a fully interoperable system. In the case study, typical would-be records for seven government departments were studied and it was shown that the tiniest, and typical, variation in use of the standard can be expected to thwart the aimsof interoperability in significant ways. In the context of the government’s move to seeking interoperable metadata for all resources, including those within document management systems, the authors make visible how a small 'creep' can lead away from interoperability and how it might be contained in the future. They use a 3-step approach of 'aggregation, rationalisation and harmonisation' to expose the problems with 'nearly good enough' interoperability and the benefits of good interoperability, and encourage true harmonisation

Evolution of the mineralogy, pore structure and transport properties of Nordland Shale following exposure to supercritical carbon dioxide

The Nordland shale forms the caprock of the Utsira sands of the Sleipner reservoir currently used for carbon dioxide sequestration. The long-term exposure of shale rocks to supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2), or scCO2-brine mixtures, may lead to structural and chemical changes in shale that lead to increases in permeability of inter-layers and caprocks, that may mean changes to plume migration behaviour and/or loss of seal efficiency of caprocks. A detailed study has been made of the initial pore structure of Nordland shale and the changes following accelerated treatment with scCO2. Gas sorption scanning curves have suggested that the void space of the original shale consisted of a Network (denoted 1) of micropores and smaller mesopores that is thermodynamically independent of a Network (2) of larger mesopores and macropores. This work introduces a new iodononane pre-adsorption technique to map the macroscopic (>microns) spatial distribution of micropores (<2 nm) and smaller mesopores in shales using CXT. CXT imaging of shale samples with iodononane pre-adsorbed in Network 1, or with entrapped mercury confined to only Network 2, suggested that both small- and large-sized pore networks were pervasive through the shale and associated with the continuous illite matrix phase. The feldspar and quartz grains did not form part of either network, though inter-particle macropores were found surrounding these mineral grains from CXT imaging of mercury entrapped there. Kinetic gas uptake experiments conducted on samples before and after filling Network 1 with iodononane suggested that the smaller mesopores were, despite their small size and thermodynamic independence from the macropores, still critical to mass transport, with the diffusion flux being funnelled through them. Shale surface areas obtained using the homotattic patch adsorption model were found more physically realistic than those determined via the ISO BET method since multi-linear regression of only the logarithm of the former, together with that of the Network 1 pore volume, predicted the gas-phase mass transport coefficient following treatment. This work demonstrated the need for the novel characterisation methods and data analysis presented here to properly understand the structure-transport relationship in shales exposed to scCO2

Art Education: Perspectives from Lonergan, Langer and Maslow

Educare attraverso l’arte: il pensiero di Lonergan, Langer e Maslow. Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), il filosofo-teologo canadese, spesso faceva riferimento alle opere di Susanne K. Langer (1895-1985) nei suoi scritti sulla coscienza artistica e sim¬bolica. Le analisi sull’arte di Langer, in particolare il suo lavoro del 1953, Sen¬timento e forma, considerava l’arte come l’oggettivazione di modelli puramente esperienziali che ci permettono di prestare attenzione e di «vedere» ciò che altrimenti potremmo ignorare. L’arte educa l’attenzione in modo che vedia¬mo – o sentiamo o percepiamo – le piùprofonde dimensioni dell’esperienza. Congruenti con queste idee di Lonergan e Langer sono quelle di Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) sull’importanza della «formazione esperienziale» secondo cui le persone vengono educate a identificare in se stesse «esperienze di apice» su cui altrimenti potrebbero facilmente passare oltre. Questa tecnica di auto-appropriazione, comune sia a Lonergan che a Maslow, sembrerebbe avere im-portanti implicazioni per l’educazione artistica. Inoltre, imparare a identificare le dimensioni chiave nella nostra esperienza potrebbe anche aprirci al «sacro». Nelle parole del teologo Karl Rahner (1904-1984), l’arte concentra e allena la nostra attenzione verso «l’eterno mistero che è dietro la realtà esprimibile»