Meeting Privacy Obligations: The Implications for Information Systems Development

The European Union(EU) Data Protection (Privacy) Directive of 1995 (EUPD) and resulting legislation introduced by member states is designed to ensure that business activity is subject to privacy regulation. The ability of organisations to respond to the requirements of this legislation is affected by the quality of their customer data. This paper explores the issues for IS development created by poor customer data quality as organisations adjust their business practices to meet the new legislative provisions. A number of key issues emerge including managing large amounts of fragmented customer data, understanding what information is required for organisational activities, controlling use and disclosure across the organisation, and allowing anonymity when interacting with customers. Furthermore, several important implications for systems development practitioners are discussed

The Gorilla in the Library: lessons in using ICT to engage building users in energy reduction

This paper is concerned with the role of the digital economy as an enabler of behaviour change in the built environment. The Greenview research project at De Montfort University (DMU), funded by JISC’s Greening ICT fund , has undertaken innovative work to explore novel and interesting ways to engage building users in energy reduction. Findings are presented around both the methodological challenges of capturing and presenting live electrical data for iPhone applications and the wider opportunities and barriers to ICT enabled behaviour change. From a technical perspective Greenview has shown the need to conduct detailed and thorough technical work to ensure the visualisations correlate to actual building performance and from the behaviour change perspective both Greenview and its predecessor (DUALL ) have explored moving beyond quantitative approaches to presenting information on energy and sustainability that is fun, creative and [hopefully] engaging. Finally, it is clear that without senior commitment and sincere staff engagement and collaboration mere information provision in the form of dashboards are impotent

Note: A miniature oscillating microbalance for sampling ice and volcanic ash from a small airborne platform

A lightweight and low power oscillating microbalance for in situ sampling of atmospheric ice and volcanic ash is described for airborne platforms. Using a freely exposed collecting wire fixed at only one end to a piezo transducer, the instrument collects airborne materials. Accumulated mass is determined from the change in natural frequency of the wire. The piezo transducer is used in a dual mode to both drive and detect the oscillation. Three independent frequency measurement techniques are implemented with an on-board microcontroller: a frequency sweep, a Fourier spectral method, and a phase-locked loop. These showed agreement to ±0.3 Hz for a 0.5 mm diameter collecting wire of 120 mm long, flown to 19 km altitude on a weather balloon. The instrument is well suited to disposable use with meteorological radiosondes, to provide high resolution vertical profiles of mass concentration

Note: A self-calibrating wide range electrometer for in-cloud measurements

Charge is observed in clouds of all forms, which influences their development and properties. In-cloud charge measurements require a wide dynamic range instrument, extending from charge in aerosols and dusts to that present in thunderstorms. Unexpectedly large charge densities (>200 pCm-3) have recently been detected in layer clouds using balloon-carried linear electrometers. These, however, lead to instrument saturation if sufficient sensitivity for aerosol and droplet charge is maintained. Logarithmic electrometers provide an alternative, but suffer strong non-linear thermal effects. This is a limitation for balloon-carried instruments which encounter temperature changes up to ~100 °C, as full thermal compensation requires complexity inappropriate for disposable devices. Here, a novel hybrid system is described, combining linear and logarithmic electrometers to provide extended dynamic range (±50 pA), employing the negligible (±4%) total temperature drift of the linear device to provide in situ calibration of the logarithmic device. This combination opens up new measurement opportunities for charge in clouds, dusts and aerosols

Strong Coupling of Epsilon-Near-Zero Phonon Polaritons in Polar Dielectric Heterostructures

We report the first observation of epsilon near zero (ENZ) phonon polaritons in an ultrathin AlN film fully hybridized with surface phonon polaritons (SPhP) supported by the adjacent SiC substrate. Employing a strong coupling model for the analysis of the dispersion and electric field distribution in these hybridized modes, we show that they share the most prominent features of the two precursor modes. The novel ENZ-SPhP coupled polaritons with a highly propagative character and deeply sub-wavelength light confinement can be utilized as building blocks for future infrared and terahertz (THz) nanophotonic integration and communication devices

Sheep Updates 2005 - Part 1

This session covers seven papers from different authors: Boosting lambing percentages of WA sheep flocks. R.W. Kelly CSIRO Livestock Industries, Floreat WA , R. Kingwell Department of Agriculture WA, Kiwis can fly - 30% higher lambing in 15 years, AR Bray, Meat and Wool New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand Rams are not a trivial expense, so what can you do to maximise on your investment? Chri Oldham, Department of Agriculture Western Australia, Graeme Martin, University of West Australia. Care for mun - fetal programming, lamb survival and lifetime performance. RW Kelly CSIRO Livestock Industries, Floreat WA Boost lamb survival - select calm ewes, D Blanch University of western Australia, D Ferguson CSIRO FD McMaster Lab, NSW Getting high marking percentages in WA, Keith Crocker, Department of Agriculture Western Australia. Healthy, Welfare and Wise! Di Evans, Department of Agriculture Western Australi

Nutritional supplements, leptin, insulin and progesterone in female Australian Cashmere goats

In small ruminants, reproductive wastage due to early embryo mortality is a major industry issue because it reduces reproductive efficiency and limits productivity. In sheep, early embryo mortality appears to be caused by reductions in progesterone concentrations when animals are over-fed, but this concept has not been studied in goats. Therefore we tested whether a supplement of lupin grain affects circulating progesterone concentrations in Cashmere goats during non- breeding season. We allocated 23 females into two groups: Controls were fed to ensure maintenance of body mass (85% chaff, 15% lupins head daily); Supplemented goats were fed twice their daily requirements for maintenance. All animals were anovulatory and treated with CIDRs to supply exogenous progesterone at a relatively constant rate. Nutritional treatments lasted for 18 days, and coincided with the presence of CIDRs. Leptin and insulin concentrations were increased (p < 0.05) by supplementation, but progesterone concentrations did not significant differ between groups at any time during the experiment. We conclude that a dietary supplement that elicits major changes in energy homeostasis does not reduce progesterone concentrations in goats and is thus unlikely to affect embryo mortality

Evidence that autosomal recessive spastic cerebral palsy-1 (CPSQ1) is caused by a missense variant in HPDL.

A subset of individuals diagnosed with cerebral palsy will have an underlying genetic diagnosis. Previously, a missense variant in GAD1 was described as a candidate mutation in a single family diagnosed with autosomal recessive spastic cerebral palsy-1 (CPSQ1; OMIM 603513). Following the ascertainment of a further branch of the CPSQ1 kindred, we found that the previously reported GAD1 variant did not segregate with the neurological disease phenotype in the recently ascertained branch of the kindred. Following genetic linkage studies to map autozygous regions and whole-exome sequencing, a missense variant (c.527 T > C; p. Leu176Pro, rs773333490) in the HPDL gene was detected and found to segregate with disease status in both branches of the kindred. HPDL encodes a 371-amino acid protein (4-Hydroxyphenylpyruvate Dioxygenase Like) that localizes to mitochondria but whose function is uncertain. Recently, biallelic loss of function variants and missense substitution-causing variants in HPDL were reported to cause a childhood onset progressive spastic movement disorder with a variable presentation. These findings suggest that HPDL-related neurological disease may mimic spastic cerebral palsy and that GAD1 should not be included in diagnostic gene panels for inherited cerebral palsy.NIH