Web GIS in practice V: 3-D interactive and real-time mapping in Second Life

This paper describes technologies from Daden Limited for geographically mapping and accessing live news stories/feeds, as well as other real-time, real-world data feeds (e.g., Google Earth KML feeds and GeoRSS feeds) in the 3-D virtual world of Second Life, by plotting and updating the corresponding Earth location points on a globe or some other suitable form (in-world), and further linking those points to relevant information and resources. This approach enables users to visualise, interact with, and even walk or fly through, the plotted data in 3-D. Users can also do the reverse: put pins on a map in the virtual world, and then view the data points on the Web in Google Maps or Google Earth. The technologies presented thus serve as a bridge between mirror worlds like Google Earth and virtual worlds like Second Life. We explore the geo-data display potential of virtual worlds and their likely convergence with mirror worlds in the context of the future 3-D Internet or Metaverse, and reflect on the potential of such technologies and their future possibilities, e.g. their use to develop emergency/public health virtual situation rooms to effectively manage emergencies and disasters in real time. The paper also covers some of the issues associated with these technologies, namely user interface accessibility and individual privacy

Capturing Multivariate Spatial Dependence: Model, Estimate and then Predict

Physical processes rarely occur in isolation, rather they influence and interact with one another. Thus, there is great benefit in modeling potential dependence between both spatial locations and different processes. It is the interaction between these two dependencies that is the focus of Genton and Kleiber's paper under discussion. We see the problem of ensuring that any multivariate spatial covariance matrix is nonnegative definite as important, but we also see it as a means to an end. That "end" is solving the scientific problem of predicting a multivariate field. [arXiv:1507.08017].Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/15-STS517 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Promoting the 3Rs to enhance the OECD fish toxicity testing framework.

Fish toxicity testing has been conducted since the 1860's in order to help define safe levels of chemical contaminants in lakes, rivers and coastal waters. The historical emphasis on acute lethality testing of chemicals has more recently focussed on long term sublethal effects of chemicals on fish and their prey species. Fish toxicity testing is now embedded in much environment legislation on chemical safety while it is recognized that animal use should be Replaced, Reduced and Refined (the 3Rs) where possible. The OECD Fish Toxicity Testing Framework provides a useful structure with which to address the needs of environmental safety assessment whilst implementing the 3Rs. This commentary aims to promote the implementation of the recommendations of the OECD Fish Toxicity Testing Framework

Shelter seeking behaviour of donkeys and horses in a temperate climate

Domestic donkeys descended from wild asses, adapted to the semi-arid climates of Africa, whereas domestic horses originate from more temperate areas of Eurasia. Despite this difference in evolutionary history, modern domestic equids can be found throughout the world, in a wide range of conditions, many of which are very different from their natural environments. To explore the protection from the elements that different equid species may require in the temperate climate of the UK, the shelter seeking behaviour of 135 donkeys and 73 horses was assessed across a period of 16 months, providing a total of 13513 observations. The location of each animal (inside a constructed shelter, outside unprotected or using natural shelter) was recorded alongside measures of environmental conditions including temperature, wind speed, lux, precipitation and level of insect challenge. Statistical models revealed clear differences in the constructed-shelter-seeking behaviour of donkeys and horses. Donkeys sought shelter significantly more often at lower temperatures whereas horses tended to move inside when the temperature rose above 20°C. Donkeys were more affected by precipitation, with the majority of them moving indoors when it rained. Donkeys also showed a higher rate of shelter use when wind speed increased to moderate, while horses remained outside. Horses appeared to be more affected by insect challenge, moving inside as insect harassment outside increased. There were also significant differences in the use of natural shelter by the two species, with donkeys using natural shelter relatively more often to shelter from rain and wind and horses seeking natural shelter relatively more frequently when sunny. These results reflect donkeys’ and horses’ adaptation to different climates and suggest that the shelter requirements of these two equid species differ, with donkeys seeking additional protection from the elements in temperate climates

Prosthesis use is associated with reduced physical self-disgust in limb amputees

Self-disgust is an emotion schema negatively affecting people’s body image and is triggered by bodily imperfections and deviations from the “normal” body envelope. In this study, we explore the idea that “normalising” the body in those with limb amputations via the prosthesis would be linked to reduced self-directed disgust. An international clinical community sample (N = 83) with mostly lower limb amputations completed measures about their demographics, prosthesis, adjustment, body image disturbance, psychological distress, and self-directed disgust in a survey design. Consistent with the “normalising” hypothesis, correlation and bootstrapped regression models revealed, first, that frequency of prosthesis use was significantly and negatively associated with physical self-disgust. Second, prosthesis use significantly mediated the exogenous effect of time since amputation on physical self-disgust. These results emphasise the psychological value of the prosthesis beyond its functional use, and stress its importance in normalising the body envelope in those with limb amputations, which may in turn promote psychological well-being

Weathering the weather: effects of the environment on donkey, mule and horse welfare

It is widely believed that donkeys are less adapted to wet, temperate climates than horses. To date there has been no scientific study assessing the shelter needs of donkeys. Our research addressed this important welfare area through three studies conducted in Devon, UK: (1) a comparison of hair coat properties between horses, mules and donkeys over the four seasons, (2) a behavioural study of shelter use (man-made and natural), and (3) a study of heat loss using infrared thermography. In study 1 hair samples were taken from 42 animals, 18 donkeys, 16 horses and eight mules, in March, June, September and December. The weight, length and width of hair were measured as indicators of the hair coat insulation properties. The donkeys’ coats properties did not differ much across the seasons, unlike the horses’, indicating that donkeys do not grow a winter coat. The donkeys’ coats were significantly lighter, shorter and thinner than that of horses and mules in winter. In study 2 the shelter seeking behaviour of 75 donkeys and 65 horses was observed over a period of 18 months. Results showed that donkeys’ and horses’ behaviour was differentially affected by environmental factors. When it rained there was a 54% increase in the number of donkeys in shelters and only a 14% increase in horses seeking shelter. Most donkeys stayed inside when the temperature was below 10°C and they came outside as temperatures increased. Horses preferred to be outside in temperatures up to 20°C, above which they started to seek shelter. In study 3 we used a thermoimaging camera to take photos of donkeys and horses at different temperatures. In addition to the rate of overall heat loss, the amount of heat lost from specific body areas was assessed (ears, neck, torso, rear and legs). In concordance with the findings of study 1 we found that in cold temperatures donkeys lose more heat than mules and horses, and also that their heat loss is higher through their ears and their rear. These findings provide valuable scientific evidence that can inform future guidelines on the welfare and shelter needs of equines and support the idea that donkeys are less well adapted to temperate climates and may require additional protection from the elements (in the form of man-made shelters) when compared to many horses

Singular Liouville fields and spiky strings in \rr^{1,2} and SL(2,\rr)

The closed string dynamics in \rr^{1,2} and SL(2,\rr) is studied within the scheme of Pohlmeyer reduction. In both spaces two different classes of string surfaces are specified by the structure of the fundamental quadratic forms. The first class in \rr^{1,2} is associated with the standard lightcone gauge strings and the second class describes spiky strings and their conformal deformations on the Virasoro coadjoint orbits. These orbits correspond to singular Liouville fields with the monodromy matrixes $\pm I$. The first class in SL(2,\rr) is parameterized by the Liouville fields with vanishing chiral energy functional. Similarly to \rr^{1,2}, the second class in SL(2,\rr) describes spiky strings, related to the vacuum configurations of the SL(2,\rr)/U(1) coset model.Comment: 37 p. 6 fi

Optimal discrete stopping times for reliability growth tests

Often, the duration of a reliability growth development test is specified in advance and the decision to terminate or continue testing is conducted at discrete time intervals. These features are normally not captured by reliability growth models. This paper adapts a standard reliability growth model to determine the optimal time for which to plan to terminate testing. The underlying stochastic process is developed from an Order Statistic argument with Bayesian inference used to estimate the number of faults within the design and classical inference procedures used to assess the rate of fault detection. Inference procedures within this framework are explored where it is shown the Maximum Likelihood Estimators possess a small bias and converges to the Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimator after few tests for designs with moderate number of faults. It is shown that the Likelihood function can be bimodal when there is conflict between the observed rate of fault detection and the prior distribution describing the number of faults in the design. An illustrative example is provided

Web GIS in practice VI: a demo playlist of geo-mashups for public health neogeographers

'Mashup' was originally used to describe the mixing together of musical tracks to create a new piece of music. The term now refers to Web sites or services that weave data from different sources into a new data source or service. Using a musical metaphor that builds on the origin of the word 'mashup', this paper presents a demonstration "playlist" of four geo-mashup vignettes that make use of a range of Web 2.0, Semantic Web, and 3-D Internet methods, with outputs/end-user interfaces spanning the flat Web (two-dimensional – 2-D maps), a three-dimensional – 3-D mirror world (Google Earth) and a 3-D virtual world (Second Life ®). The four geo-mashup "songs" in this "playlist" are: 'Web 2.0 and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for infectious disease surveillance', 'Web 2.0 and GIS for molecular epidemiology', 'Semantic Web for GIS mashup', and 'From Yahoo! Pipes to 3-D, avatar-inhabited geo-mashups'. It is hoped that this showcase of examples and ideas, and the pointers we are providing to the many online tools that are freely available today for creating, sharing and reusing geo-mashups with minimal or no coding, will ultimately spark the imagination of many public health practitioners and stimulate them to start exploring the use of these methods and tools in their day-to-day practice. The paper also discusses how today's Web is rapidly evolving into a much more intensely immersive, mixed-reality and ubiquitous socio-experiential Metaverse that is heavily interconnected through various kinds of user-created mashups

Selected nucleon form factors and a composite scalar diquark

A covariant, composite scalar diquark, Fadde'ev amplitude model for the nucleon is used to calculate pseudoscalar, isoscalar- and isovector-vector, axial-vector and scalar nucleon form factors. The last yields the nucleon sigma-term and on-shell sigma-nucleon coupling. The calculated form factors are soft, and the couplings are generally in good agreement with experiment and other determinations. Elements in the dressed-quark-axial-vector vertex that are not constrained by the Ward-Takahashi identity contribute ~20% to the magnitude of g_A. The calculation of the nucleon sigma-term elucidates the only unambiguous means of extrapolating meson-nucleon couplings off the meson mass-shell.Comment: 12 pages, REVTEX, 5 figures, epsfi