Solitaire

Part of the Forces 2022 author and artist Publication Exhibition. Displayed from April 11-14, 2022.https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/forcesexhibition2022/1026/thumbnail.jp

Designing for Seamless Task Migration in MPUIs: Bridging Task-Disconnects

Today, the proliferation of mobile computing has changed the work environment forever. As a consequence, users are forced to orchestrate a complex interaction between multiple devices, moving data and information back and forth, to accomplish their tasks. Users trudge out USB key drives, remote desktop software, e-mail and network file storage in an attempt to mitigate this orchestration. We refer to this break from the task at hand as task-disconnect. Task-disconnect represents the break in continuity that occurs when a user attempts to accomplish his or her tasks using more than one device. Our objective is to study how software can bridge this task-disconnect, enabling users to seamlessly transition their tasks among their devices. We present the theory, definition, and discussion of task-disconnect; our approach towards bridging this disconnect; and our prototype application that was built to be used across the desktop computer and the Tablet PC platforms. We then describe our subjective evaluation to measure the effectiveness of the prototype in bridging the task-disconnect. We then conclude with the results and insights gained from our evaluation

A Special Topics Course on Personal Information Management

Personal Information Management (PIM) is an important emerg- ing area of study in Computer Science and Information Systems. During the Spring of 2006, we offered a special topics course in PIM at Virginia Tech. This paper presents some motivation of why studying PIM is important, the goals for the course, some sam- ple material from the course, and a few student evaluations. The paper presents in detail an activity called “Day in the Life of My Information” that resulted in an interesting experience from both, educational and research points of view

Agricultural cropland extent and areas of South Asia derived using Landsat satellite 30-m time-series big-data using random forest machine learning algorithms on the Google Earth Engine cloud

The South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan) has a staggering 900 million people (~43% of the population) who face food insecurity or severe food insecurity as per United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). The existing coarse-resolution (≥250-m) cropland maps lack precision in geo-location of individual farms and have low map accuracies. This also results in uncertainties in cropland areas calculated fromsuch products. Thereby, the overarching goal of this study was to develop a high spatial resolution (30-m or better) baseline cropland extent product of South Asia for the year 2015 using Landsat satellite time-series big-data and machine learning algorithms (MLAs) on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing platform. To eliminate the impact of clouds, 10 time-composited Landsat bands (blue, green, red, NIR, SWIR1, SWIR2, Thermal, EVI, NDVI, NDWI) were derived for each of the three timeperiods over 12 months (monsoon: Days of the Year (DOY) 151–300; winter: DOY 301–365 plus 1–60; and summer: DOY 61–150), taking the every 8-day data from Landsat-8 and 7 for the years 2013–2015, for a total of 30-bands plus global digital elevation model (GDEM) derived slope band. This 31-band mega-file big data-cube was composed for each of the five agro-ecological zones (AEZ’s) of South Asia and formed a baseline data for image classification and analysis. Knowledgebase for the Random Forest (RF) MLAs were developed using spatially well spread-out reference training data (N = 2179) in five AEZs. The classification was performed on GEE for each of the five AEZs using well-established knowledge-base and RF MLAs on the cloud. Map accuracies were measured using independent validation data (N = 1185). The survey showed that the South Asia cropland product had a producer’s accuracy of 89.9% (errors of omissions of 10.1%), user’s accuracy of 95.3% (errors of commission of 4.7%) and an overall accuracy of 88.7%. The National and sub-national (districts) areas computed from this cropland extent product explained 80-96% variability when compared with the National statistics of the South Asian Countries. The full-resolution imagery can be viewed at full-resolution, by zooming-in to any location in South Asia or the world, atwww.croplands. org and the cropland products of South Asia downloaded from The Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS): https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/gfsad30saafgircev001/

Monitoring Changes in Croplands Due to Water Stress in the Krishna River Basin Using Temporal Satellite Imagery

Remote sensing-based assessments of large river basins such as the Krishna, which supplies water to many states in India, are useful for operationally monitoring agriculture, especially basins that are affected by abiotic stress. Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time series products can be used to understand cropland changes at the basin level due to abiotic stresses, especially water scarcity. Spectral matching techniques were used to identify land use/land cover (LULC) areas for two crop years: 2013–2014, which was a normal year, and 2015–2016, which was a water stress year. Water stress-affected crop areas were categorized into three classes—severe, moderate and mild—based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and intensity of damage assessed through field sampling. Furthermore, ground survey data were used to assess the accuracy of MODIS-derived classification individual products. Water inflows into and outflows from the Krishna river basin during the study period were used as direct indicators of water scarcity/availability in the Krishna Basin. Furthermore, ground survey data were used to assess the accuracy of MODIS-derived LULC classification of individual year products. Rainfall data from the tropical rainfall monitoring mission (TRMM) was used to support the water stress analysis. The nine LULC classes derived using the MODIS temporal imagery provided overall accuracies of 82% for the cropping year 2013–2014 and 85% for the year 2015–2016. Kappa values are 0.78 for 2013–2014 and 0.82 for 2015–2016. MODIS-derived cropland areas were compared with national statistics for the cropping year 2013–2014 with a R2 value of 0.87. Results show that both rainfed and irrigated areas in 2015–2016 saw significant changes that will have significant impacts on food security. It has been also observed that the farmers in the basin tend to use lower inputs and labour per ha during drought years. Among all, access to water is the major driver determining the crop choice and extent of input-use in the basin

Fructose transport-deficient Staphylococcus aureus reveals important role of epithelial glucose transporters in limiting sugar-driven bacterial growth in airway surface liquid.

Hyperglycaemia as a result of diabetes mellitus or acute illness is associated with increased susceptibility to respiratory infection with Staphylococcus aureus. Hyperglycaemia increases the concentration of glucose in airway surface liquid (ASL) and promotes the growth of S. aureus in vitro and in vivo. Whether elevation of other sugars in the blood, such as fructose, also results in increased concentrations in ASL is unknown and whether sugars in ASL are directly utilised by S. aureus for growth has not been investigated. We obtained mutant S. aureus JE2 strains with transposon disrupted sugar transport genes. NE768(fruA) exhibited restricted growth in 10 mM fructose. In H441 airway epithelial-bacterial co-culture, elevation of basolateral sugar concentration (5-20 mM) increased the apical growth of JE2. However, sugar-induced growth of NE768(fruA) was significantly less when basolateral fructose rather than glucose was elevated. This is the first experimental evidence to show that S. aureus directly utilises sugars present in the ASL for growth. Interestingly, JE2 growth was promoted less by glucose than fructose. Net transepithelial flux of D-glucose was lower than D-fructose. However, uptake of D-glucose was higher than D-fructose across both apical and basolateral membranes consistent with the presence of GLUT1/10 in the airway epithelium. Therefore, we propose that the preferential uptake of glucose (compared to fructose) limits its accumulation in ASL. Pre-treatment with metformin increased transepithelial resistance and reduced the sugar-dependent growth of S. aureus. Thus, epithelial paracellular permeability and glucose transport mechanisms are vital to maintain low glucose concentration in ASL and limit bacterial nutrient sources as a defence against infection

Planning southern Iraq: placing the progressive theories of Max Lock in Um Qasr, Margil, and Basra in the context of Iraqi national development, 1954–1956

Between 1954 and 1956, the architect, educator, and planner, Max Lock (1909–1988) produced a trilogy of plans to modernize the historical city of Basra and create new areas at Margil and Um Qasr in the south of Iraq. The New Basrah Plan was heavily inspired by the works of Patrick Geddes and aligned with contemporaries such as Lewis Mumford, Lock’s planning was progressive in scope and looked to differ from the planning of post-war principles in Britain through his notions of ‘civic surgery’. Contrary to this, his plans for Um Qasr and Margil focussed on infrastructure and the creation of more industrial areas not prioritizing people and place as highly as he did in the New Basrah Plan. Lock’s ‘Civic Surgery’ offered an alternative to mainstream thought by attempting to create usable, humanistic spaces, which hampered by politics and legislation, resulted in the plan’s shelving and were contradicted by his other works’ philosophies. New retrospective analysis of his underappreciated career reveals the complexities of his planning which this article demonstrates through the ‘failure’ of the New Basrah Plan and his plans at Um Qasr and Margil