Virtualising visualisation: A distributed service based approach to visualisation on the Grid

Context: Current visualisation systems are not designed to work with the large quantities of data produced by scientists today, they rely on the abilities of a single resource to perform all of the processing and visualisation of data which limits the problem size that they can investigate. Objectives: The objectives of this research are to address the issues encountered by scientists with current visualisation systems and the deficiencies highlighted in current visualisation systems. The research then addresses the question:” How do you design the ideal service oriented architecture for visualisation that meets the needs of scientists?” Method: A new design for a visualisation system based upon a Service Oriented Architecture is proposed to address the issues identified, the architecture is implemented using Java and web service technology. The implementation of the architecture also realised several case study scenarios as demonstrators. Evaluation: Evaluation was performed using case study scenarios of scientific problems and performance data was conducted through experimentation. The scenarios were assessed against the requirements for the architecture and the performance data against a base case simulating a single resource implementation. Conclusion: The virtualised visualisation architecture shows promise for applications where visualisation can be performed in a highly parallel manner and where the problem can be easily sub-divided into chunks for distributed processing

The impact of Agile development practices on project outcomes

Agile software development methods were introduced to minimize problems faced using traditional software development approaches. There are several Agile approaches used in developing software projects, these include Scrum, Extreme programming and Kanban. An Agile approach focuses on collaboration between customers and developers and encourages development teams to be self-organizing. To achieve this there are different Agile practices teams choose to use in their projects. Some teams only use one practice whilst others use a combination of practices. The most common practices used are stand-ups, user stories, Burndown chart/Burnup chart, pair programming, Epic and User stories. This paper reports on the analysis of the data collected from people involved in Agile software development teams and identifies that the combination of practices in Agile software development have an impact on the communication in the team, project requirements and project priorities, with more practices being adopted correlating with better project outcomes

Investigating the potential role of visualisation in natural resource decision-making

Computer-aided visualisation can be applied to natural environments to understand the impact of proposed developments or management strategies, but little evaluation of the effectiveness of these tools has been undertaken. In seeking to manage natural environments, it is desirable to model and understand these complex interactions in order to compare the outcomes of applying different management strategies. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there are significant differences in knowledge outcomes depending on the form in which visualisation of environmental changes is presented, using a case study of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere, a broad, shallow lagoon in the South Island of New Zealand. Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the long narrow sandy Kaitorete Spit. Its unique position allows for it to be opened to the sea periodically to provide drainage and prevent flooding of surrounding farmlands. There is a lack of agreement among the diverse stakeholders regarding the appropriate levels at which the lake level should be maintained throughout the year. We describe an interactive visualisation tool (ElleVis) which shows the effects of different water levels on the flora and fauna, as well as plants and animals living in and around the Lake. The tool allows users to input different opening scenarios and visualise the resulting impact on water levels around the lake at various times. It incorporates historical rainfall data from New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research to deliver a graphical map display, including a summary table with a ‘traffic light’ status for lake values - birds, fish, farming and other stakeholder interests at different locations around the lake. The interactive nature of the ElleVis tool allows the stakeholders to compare Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere under different opening scenarios using one interactive tool. However, it is possible, for example, that providing information about changes in lake behaviour in a carefully and clearly presented non-interactive form may be as successful as providing it in an interactive form of ElleVis. In order to test for the effect of interactive versus non-interactive forms of visualization, we conducted an experiment with forty participants (randomly assigned to two test groups) who have various interests at Te Waihora. We provided them with either an interactive or a non-interactive form of visualisation. Results were recorded from a structured interview after the test. The findings revealed that interactive visualisation was key to advantageous learning about changes in environmental behaviour. We argue that the techniques presented have the potential to stimulate meaningful discussions in natural resource situations that involve contested resources or a multiplicity of interests, but at the same time, there is an urgent need for evaluation of such tools in participatory decision-making processes

Achieving “One-Web” through customization and prioritization

Purpose – Accessing web sites from mobile devices has been gaining popularity but may often do not give the same results and experiences as accessing them from a personal computer.The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach – To address these issues, the paper presents a server-side adaptation approach to prioritising adaptive pages to different devices through prioritisation system. The prioritisation approach allows users to prioritise page items for different devices. The prioritisation engine reorders, shows, and removes items based on its priority set by users or developers.Findings – With this approach, the overall web page's structure is preserved and the same terminology, content, and similar location of content are delivered to all devices.A user trial and a performance test were conducted. Results show that adaptive page and prioritisation provides a consistent and efficient web experience across different devices.Originality/value – The approach provides advantages over both client-side and proxy and has conducted significant experimentation to determine the applicability and effectiveness of the approach

Creating a design framework to diagnose and enhance grassland health under pastoral livestock production systems

Grasslands and ecosystem services are under threat due to common practices adopted by modern livestock farming systems. Design theory has been an alternative to promote changes and develop more sustainable strategies that allow pastoral livestock production systems to evolve continually within grasslands by enhancing their health and enabling the continuous delivery of multiple ecosystem services. To create a design framework to design alternative and more sustainable pastoral livestock production systems, a better comprehension of grassland complexity and dynamism for a diagnostic assessment of its health is needed, from which the systems thinking theory could be an important approach. By using systems thinking theory, the key components of grasslands—soil, plant, ruminant—can be reviewed and better understood from a holistic perspective. The description of soil, plant and ruminant individually is already complex itself, so understanding these components, their interactions, their response to grazing management and herbivory and how they contribute to grassland health under different climatic and topographic conditions is paramount to designing more sustainable pastoral livestock production systems. Therefore, by taking a systems thinking approach, we aim to review the literature to better understand the role of soil, plant, and ruminant on grassland health to build a design framework to diagnose and enhance grassland health under pastoral livestock production systems

Effects of cane-and spur-retained node numbers on the pre-flowering vegetative growth of cane-pruned Sauvignon blanc

In established vineyards, node number retention at winter pruning is the first step to achieving and maintaining vine balance. Balanced vines exhibit timely and quasi-uniform 100 percent budburst. To understand how vine capacity and balance are expressed before flowering, mature Sauvignon blanc vines were pruned according to a 5 [total node numbers on canes: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50] x 3 [total node numbers on spurs: 1, 2, 3] factorial design in one site, and in two other sites according to a 5 [total node numbers on canes: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50] x 2 [total node numbers on spurs: 1, 2] factorial design. Two spurs of one, two or three nodes each were retained on either side of the vine. The number of canes laid down per vine was one, two, three and four canes each of 10 nodes for the 10-, 20-, 30-and 40-node treatments, and four canes averaging 12.5 nodes for the 50-node treatment. The budburst percentage was calculated on the whole vine, canes, and spurs. Blind nodes, count shoots, non-count shoots and double shoots were counted and mapped along canes and spurs. Many non-count shoots were measured on the vine head of 10-node vines (29.5 ± 3.0 shoots, p < 0.001), compared to 50-node vines (2.8 ± 1.9 shoots, p < 0.001). 50-node vines had an overall budburst of 100 %, despite having the highest number of blind nodes (7.6 ± 0.3 nodes, p < 0.001). These were mainly located at the canes’ proximal sections relative to the vine head and were likely caused by correlative inhibition and primary bud necrosis. Cane budburst provided a more accurate assessment of the vine response to node loading than vine budburst. The number of double shoots was not associated with the vine node load, as they appeared on both low-node and high-node vines. Three-node spurs developed more blind nodes than one-node and two-node spurs (p < 0.001). Based on the findings of this research, we recommend a composite metric (cane percent budburst, cane blind node count and head shoot count) to assess vine capacity and balance between budburst and flowering, and the practice of retaining one-or two-node spurs at cane pruning is also justified

Visualization for eResearch: past, present and future

Visualization has been a part of computing for a long time, however with the growth in data produced by researchers and the computing resources available visualization capability has not developed in a way that provides researchers with the ability to include visualization as part of their standard analysis of these very large datasets. To address this issue and to understand how visualization systems must adapt to meet the new needs the eResearch brings we examine the past, present and begin to look into the future at visualization systems and architectures, to aid in understanding how visualization may be used or wish to be used a scenario involving a variety of Earth Science researchers working at a variety of locations to collect data and conduct analysis is presented. Reviewing traditional visualization systems, in particular, Modular Visualization Environments and Visualization Toolkits, to understand the heritage of visualization systems and the challenges that researchers have identified face. We look at current visualization systems that begin to take advantage of grid computing technologies, including those that modify traditional systems, those that a new architectures and those that have been developed in a bespoke manner for particular eResearch projects. Whilst these current visualization systems address some of the challenges of visualization for eResearch several challenges still exist and we examine ways in which these systems need to develop into the future to meet these challenges relating to use of multiple datasets, display devices, variation in bandwidth availability, the need for interaction and the role that predictive rendering can play in this, the need for new and revised algorithms, a focus on the end to end performance of visualization pipelines and the ability to integrate in to a researchers workflow rather than be an additional activity

Hivemind Beehive Monitoring System field trial and management practice change study report

The current Hivemind Beehive Monitoring System aims to provide timely information to beekeepers on the current status (weight and temperature) of their hives through a central hub and wireless scales backed by an online portal. This study through survey and field trial gathered data on beekeepers views of the installation and operation of the system and gathered data on hive performances in the field.This field trial was funded through an Agribusiness Innovation Grant from the New Zealand Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust (AGMARDT)

Bringing users into BeSTGRID – from technology to people

The researchers using eResearch tools, techniques and technologies are central to the eResearch landscape, we however often focus on the technology itself over what the users of the technology are achieving. We discuss the evolution of the New Zealand BeSTGRID collaboration [1] since it began in 2006 through to the present day and how the focus of the collaboration and the supporting materials the collaboration produces have changed over time to focus more on the end users, the researchers making use of the infrastructure to conduct their research