Recent Advances in Graph Partitioning

We survey recent trends in practical algorithms for balanced graph partitioning together with applications and future research directions

Dynamic load-balancing of finite element applications with the DRAMA library

The DRAMA library, developed within the European Commission funded (ESPRIT) project DRAMA, supports dynamic load-balancing for parallel (message-passing) mesh-based applications. The target applications are those with dynamic and solution-adaptive features. The focus within the DRAMA project was on finite element simulation codes for structural mechanics. An introduction to the DRAMA library will illustrate that the very general cost model and the interface designed specifically for application requirements provide simplified and effective access to a range of parallel partitioners. The main body of the paper will demonstrate the ability to provide dynamic load-balancing for parallel FEM problems that include: adaptive meshing, re-meshing, the need for multi-phase partitioning

Global software development: practices for cultural differences

Drivers for globalization are significant where today's organizations look for cheaper and faster ways to develop software as well as ways to satisfy quality and investment requirements imposed by customers, shareholders, and governments. Given these needs, Global Software Development (GSD) has become a "normal" way of doing business. Working in GSD often require teams of different cultures to work together. A poor understanding of cultural differences can create barriers to trust or missed opportunities. The literature on culture in GSD is either outdated or disparate, requiring practitioners to read many papers to get an overview of how to manage multi-cultural teams. In this study, we aim to highlight how to increase cultural awareness within teams, avoid potential conflict and harness differences for improved team spirit. To answer our research question, "How should cultural differences be managed, identified and communicated to a GSD team?", we conducted a systematic literature review of the GSD literature. A synthesis of solutions found in nineteen studies provided 12 distinct practices that organizations can implement, to include, "provide a cultural knowledge base", "understand and make team members aware of cultural differences" and "plan responses to mitigate occurrences of cultural misunderstandings". These implementable cultural practices go some way to providing solutions to managing multi-cultural development teams, and thus to support one of the problem dimensions in GSD and embrace cultural differences

There is no evidence for a temporal link between pathogen arrival and frog extinctions in North-Eastern Australia

Pathogen spread can cause population declines and even species extinctions. Nonetheless, in the absence of tailored\ud monitoring schemes, documenting pathogen spread can be difficult. In the case of worldwide amphibian declines the best\ud present understanding is that the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has recently spread, causing\ud amphibian declines and extinction in the process. However, good evidence demonstrating pathogen arrival followed by\ud amphibian decline is rare, and analysis of putative evidence is often inadequate. Here we attempt to examine the\ud relationship between Bd arrival and amphibian decline across north-eastern Australia, using sites where a wave-like pattern\ud of amphibian decline was first noticed and at which intensive research has since been conducted. We develop an analytical\ud framework that allows rigorous estimation of pathogen arrival date, which can then be used to test for a correlation\ud between the time of pathogen arrival and amphibian decline across sites. Our results show that, with the current dataset,\ud the earliest possible arrival date of Bd in north-eastern Australia is completely unresolved; Bd could have arrived\ud immediately before sampling commenced or may have arrived thousands of years earlier, the present data simply cannot\ud say. The currently available data are thus insufficient to assess the link between timing of pathogen arrival and population\ud decline in this part of the world. This data insufficiency is surprising given that there have been decades of research on\ud chytridiomycosis in Australia and that there is a general belief that the link between Bd arrival and population decline is well\ud resolved in this region. The lack of data on Bd arrival currently acts as a major impediment to determining the role of\ud environmental factors in driving the global amphibian declines, and should be a major focus of future research

Older adults and hackathons: a qualitative study

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Chytridiomycosis

The amphibian fungal disease chytridiomycosis is considered one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. This lethal skin disease is caused by chytridiomycete fungi belonging to the genus Batrachochytrium. Although sudden amphibian population declines had occurred since the 1970s in the Americas and Australia, mass mortalities were not observed until the 1990s. The fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) was identified as the cause of these declines. It is estimated that Bd has caused the rapid decline or extinction of at least 200 amphibian species, which is probably an underestimation due to the cryptic behaviour of many amphibians such as many salamanders and also the lack of monitoring. A second chytrid species, B. salamandrivorans (Bsal), has recently emerged and caused mass mortality in salamanders in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, affecting most salamander and newt taxa in the amphibian community and is considered a major threat to the western Palearctic amphibian biodiversity. In this chapter we review the epidemiology, host pathogen interactions and mitigation strategies of both chytrid pathogens