Linked data in BGS and its potential in model fusion

The British Geological Survey has been conducting a pilot project into the use of Linked Data. Linked Data is a best practice for using the web to expose, share and connect pieces of data, information and knowledge. It facilitates connections between previously unrelated data, and lowers the barriers to linking data currently linked using other methods. In essence, linked data involves publishing snippets of information as independent ‘triples’, made up of a subject, a predicate and an object. A subject is referenced by a URI and can represent any resource: a person, organisation, concept, dataset, model, application etc. A predicate is a property or relationship assigned to the subject, and is also referenced as a URI. An object is the value of the property or object of the relationship; this may be a resource referenced as a URI or a literal value such as a number or text string. Data linkages come about because anyone can publish a statement about anyone else’s resources, and resource URIs for subjects and objects can be matched up. Data linkages are also enhanced because anyone can (and should where possible) re-use anyone else’s predicates, thereby using a common language to describe information. BGS’s pilot project is about to publish three of our major vocabularies (Lexicon of Named Rock Units, Geochronological timescale, Rock Classification Scheme) and our 625k 2D geological map in linked data form. We have added links between our resources and those defined in external linked data sources where possible, including DBPedia (a linked data version of Wikipedia), the Ordnance Survey and the BBC Wildlife Finder website. Further work is necessary to improve the links to parallel vocabulary schemes defined by international organisations. The benefit of linked data is that rather than an end-user having to do investigative work to uncover the syntax and semantics of disparate datasets in order to integrate them, data published according to the Linked Data recommendations provides this information up front in an unambiguous and instantly available form. The user will have all the information at hand to integrate the data in a logical and scientifically valid way. This presentation will speculate as to how this approach may be applied to enable models to communicate and exchange information at run-time, for example using an interoperable vocabulary for physical properties, spatial and temporal dimensions and methodologies. Linked data can also be used to describe a common vocabulary for model parameters and the relationships and dependencies between them, thereby exposing feedback mechanisms between separate models or algorithms

Naming Power?: Urban Development and Contestation in the Callowhill Neighborhood of Philadelphia

Fundamentally the transformations of the American urban landscape in the years following World War II are reflections of shifting distributions of power facilitated by the emerging neoliberal regime. Eminent spatial theorist David Harvey’s writing about the “right to the city” postulates that the ability to “make and remake” the city is a human right. Universally, though, the only actors able to make and remake the city are those who have access to wealth, power, and capital. Philadelphia has seen an inordinate amount of change in the postwar years, from urban renewal in the mid-20th century to gentrification happening today––these alterations to the urban landscape have caused already existent racial and economic disparities to deepen. This thesis takes the formally industrial Callowhill neighborhood of Philadelphia as a site that demonstrates how power and making/remaking space are inextricably entwined––the contestations over the name, aesthetic character, and decision-making power speak to how control is allocated in an increasingly inequitable urban landscape

Fireside Chat with Dean Cole and Notre Dame Law Student Rachel Schneider

Dec 13, 2022 Dean G. Marcus Cole and Rachel Schneider \u2723 share their journeys to Notre Dame Law School, their connection to the Order of St. Thomas More, and the impact your gifts have on Notre Dame Law students

Gender and Youth Livelihood Programming in Africa

This study examines the extent to which interventions supporting young people's access to employment or entrepreneurship opportunities are tailored to address gendered barriers. Its area of focus is Africa, the region prioritized by the Mastercard Foundation in its work. Analysis of primary research conducted with a selection ofMastercard Foundation programs, and secondary research on a broader range of interventions, forms the basis of the report. The primary research was conducted with four Mastercard Foundation partnerships operating in Tanzaniaand Uganda, supplemented by conversations with staff working with those partnerships, and with three other partnerships operating in South Africa, Zambia, and across Africa. The secondary research focused on evaluations and other studies from a larger range of Mastercard Foundation youth livelihoods and youth financial servicespartnerships across the continent, as well as from other (non-Mastercard Foundation) youthlivelihoods programs.

The norms factor : recent research on gender, social norms, and women's economic empowerment

Gender discriminatory social norms are a widely recognized barrier to women’s economic empowerment, affecting both their access to decent work and their experience in workplaces. Between 2013 and 2018, the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women program (GrOW) funded 14 research projects on issues related to women’s economic empowerment in more than 50 countries. This paper was commissioned to review and put in context recently-supported research on social norms and the interaction with women’s economic empowerment

An Emerging Approach to Health Equity Practice: Exploring the Implementation of Organizational Health Equity Capacity Assessments

Objective: Public health organizations play a key role in achieving health equity, but there are significant gaps in the literature related to the assessment of organizations’ health equity capacity. The purpose of this dissertation research was to strengthen the evidence base related to organizational health equity capacity assessments (OCAs). This research benefits health departments by providing strengthened evidence related to OCA selection and implementation, helping departments to better assess their organizational capacity to design, implement, fund, manage, evaluate, and sustain health equity-oriented work. Methods: This dissertation contains three manuscripts. The first manuscript is a scoping review characterizing the OCAs in the gray and peer-reviewed literature, providing a baseline for researchers and practitioners to find and utilize the OCA that best meets their needs. The second manuscript explores the factors that facilitate or inhibit OCA implementation, and documents the initial organizational impacts of these assessments, through two case studies conducted with the Kitsap Public Health District (KPHD) and the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH). The third manuscript is a white paper exploring the programmatic opportunities for OCA implementation and recommends further research. Results: The scoping review identified and characterized 17 OCAs that met the inclusion criteria at the time of research. All identified OCAs assess organizational health equity readiness and/or capacity, but differ regarding thematic focus, structure, and intended audience. Implementation evidence is limited. The case study expanded this evidence base, providing implementation evidence drawn from the two health department OCAs that will be useful to other departments interested in assessing their capacity. Considerations for future OCA implementation are highlighted in the results. The white paper highlighted additional research needs to strengthen OCA impact and identified potential programmatic uses of OCAs including to strengthen equitable public health emergency preparedness, develop equity-oriented public health capabilities through accreditation, and facilitate multi-sectoral, collaborative progress towards improved health equity action. Conclusion: This dissertation advances the evidence base related to organizational health equity capacity assessments and identifies opportunities for OCA utilization and further research. Organizational health equity capacity is a unique type of capacity and should be an ongoing focal area for all health departments

Internet Addiction to Child Pornography

During the present age and time, it seems as though people in society have become addicted to nearly anything and everything, whether it be to a substance, an activity or an object. The Internet and pornography is no exception. While commonly thought of as a deviant behavior, many are displaying addictions towards the Internet and pornography. More alarming, however, are those who are viewing, downloading, or trading child pornography and displaying addictive Internet behaviors, for they are spending excessive amounts of time engaging in the proliferation of child pornographic materials. For this reason, addiction to the Internet and usage of child pornography are the main points of the current study. The self-reported survey, which was part of a larger project to fulfill requirements for a Master of Science degree, measured demographics, Internet usage and child pornography usage, to find valuable statistical data and to gain an understanding of those who are engaging in child exploitation on the Internet. The current study proved to measure child pornography usage on the Internet correlated with Internet addiction. While the study is not without limitations, it provides valuable information about those who are engaging in child pornography. The ultimate goal was to gain an understanding of those engaging in child pornography on the Internet, in order to prevent more children from falling victim of these predators. Keywords: child pornography, pornography, addiction, Internet, child exploitatio

Modelling global-scale climate impacts of the late Miocene Messinian Salinity Crisis

Late Miocene tectonic changes in Mediterranean–Atlantic connectivity and climatic changes caused Mediterranean salinity to fluctuate dramatically, including a ten-fold increase and near-freshening. Recent proxy- and model-based evidence suggests that at times during this Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC, 5.96–5.33 Ma), highly saline and highly fresh Mediterranean water flowed into the North Atlantic Ocean, whilst at others, no Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) reached the Atlantic. By running extreme, sensitivity-type experiments with a fully coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation model, we investigate the potential of these various MSC MOW scenarios to impact global-scale climate. The simulations suggest that although the effect remains relatively small, MOW had a greater influence on North Atlantic Ocean circulation and climate than it does today. We also find that depending on the presence, strength and salinity of MOW, the MSC could have been capable of cooling mid–high northern latitudes by a few degrees, with the greatest cooling taking place in the Labrador, Greenland–Iceland–Norwegian and Barents seas. With hypersaline MOW, a component of North Atlantic Deep Water formation shifts to the Mediterranean, strengthening the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) south of 35° N by 1.5–6 Sv. With hyposaline MOW, AMOC completely shuts down, inducing a bipolar climate anomaly with strong cooling in the north (mainly −1 to −3 °C, but up to −8 °C) and weaker warming in the south (up to +0.5 to +2.7 °C). These simulations identify key target regions and climate variables for future proxy reconstructions to provide the best and most robust test cases for (a) assessing Messinian model performance, (b) evaluating Mediterranean–Atlantic connectivity during the MSC and (c) establishing whether or not the MSC could ever have affected global-scale climate

What drives modern protected area establishment in Australia?

Protected areas are a fundamental mechanism for ensuring the persistence of biodiversity. The strategic policy objectives set by governments for protected area land acquisition are strong determinants of biodiversity outcomes. An examination of these objectives is necessary to determine those most influential in designing protected area networks and understand why Australia's extinction rates exceed those elsewhere despite actively establishing protected areas over the past several decades. To examine spatio-temporal trends in policy objectives for protected areas, we evaluated the strategic priorities in Federal, State, and Territory policy documents across Australia between 1992 and 2019 using thematic analysis. We classified priorities into seven themes: adequacy, Indigenous and cultural values; representation of ecosystem and species types; threatened species and their habitat; social and recreational values; unique values and avoiding threatening processes. We found that the representation of ecosystem and species types was the most prevalent theme in policy documents, and the least common theme was social and recreational values. We posit several reasons for this trend and warn that emphasizing extent, in terms of area or representativeness, may diminish the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact for biodiversity outcomes. We found that policies were generally supportive of the strategic identification of particular species or communities that would quantifiably benefit from protection (referred to as avoided loss). Risked-based approaches to the establishment of protected areas are supported by modern conservation literature to enhance the protected area network's effectiveness. To maximize limited resources, we recommend that governments continue encouraging urgency to avoid species and habitat loss in their strategic priorities. This urgency should be accompanied by clear and consistent funding for on-the-ground actions which facilitate the socio-ecological outcomes that characterize modern protected area policy

Cognitive function in childhood and lifetime cognitive change in relation to mental wellbeing in four cohorts of older people

Background: poorer cognitive ability in youth is a risk factor for later mental health problems but it is largely unknown whether cognitive ability, in youth or in later life, is predictive of mental wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether cognitive ability at age 11 years, cognitive ability in later life, or lifetime cognitive change are associated with mental wellbeing in older people.Methods: we used data on 8191 men and women aged 50 to 87 years from four cohorts in the HALCyon collaborative research programme into healthy ageing: the Aberdeen Birth Cohort 1936, the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, the National Child Development Survey, and the MRC National Survey for Health and Development. We used linear regression to examine associations between cognitive ability at age 11, cognitive ability in later life, and lifetime change in cognitive ability and mean score on the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale and meta-analysis to obtain an overall estimate of the effect of each.Results: people whose cognitive ability at age 11 was a standard deviation above the mean scored 0.53 points higher on the mental wellbeing scale (95% confidence interval 0.36, 0.71). The equivalent value for cognitive ability in later life was 0.89 points (0.72, 1.07). A standard deviation improvement in cognitive ability in later life relative to childhood ability was associated with 0.66 points (0.39, 0.93) advantage in wellbeing score. These effect sizes equate to around 0.1 of a standard deviation in mental wellbeing score. Adjustment for potential confounding and mediating variables, primarily the personality trait neuroticism, substantially attenuated these associations.Conclusion: associations between cognitive ability in childhood or lifetime cognitive change and mental wellbeing in older people are slight and may be confounded by personality trait difference