Age determination by sclerite numbers, and scale variations in six fish species from the Central Amazon (Osteichthyes, Characoidei)

The scales of 6 different species of three families (Brycon cf. melanopterus (Characidae), Semaprochilodus theraponura (Curimatidae), Semaprochilodus taeniulus (Curimatidae), Prochilodus nigricans (Curimatidae), Curimata cf . rutiloides (Curimatidae), Colossoma macropomum (Serrasalmidae)) from the Central Amazon are described with regard to their size, shape, and number of sclerites originated from different parts of the body. For each species the body area is defined from which standard scales should be taken, and age determination is conducted by the sclerite method after WERDER (1983)

Age determination by scale analysis in juvenile matrinchã (Brycon cf. melanopterus MÜLLER & TROSCHEL, Teleostei: Characoidei) a tropical characin from the Central Amazon

- The experimental results prove the existence of a two-days' rhythm of sclerite formation in juvenile Matrinchâ (Brycon sp.). - Identical scale patterns of wild-fish and pond-fish permit the application of a formula for age determination derived from pond experiments, also to fish from natural environments. - The exactness of the formula for age determination can only be met by the otolith method. since the latter requires considerably more technical effort, and includes the risk of dealing with unreadable otoliths, the scale method presents itself as quite feasable, also for field work. - All back-calculated spawning events coincide with increasing water-level, and high precipitations, thus confirming the fishermens' knowledge about interactions between these two ecological factors and their importance for the onset of spawning. - The back-calculated spawning events let assume, that no spawning takes place before a certain level of the river (ca. 20 m above sea-level) has been surpassed, which seems to be an ecological necessity. Large numbers of fry can only survive when sufficiently large areas of land have become inundated. Further research is necessary to confirm whether the method for age determination is applyable to other populations and age groups, too

Data integration in a modular and parallel grid-computing workflow

In the past decades a wide range of complex processes have been developed to solve specific geospatial data integration problems. As a drawback these complex processes are often not sufficiently transferable and interoperable. We propose modularisation of the whole data integration process into reusable, exchangeable, and multi-purpose web services to overcome these drawbacks. Both a high-level split of the process into subsequent modules such as pre-processing and feature matching is discussed as well as another fine-granular split within these modules. Thereby complex integration problems can be addressed by chaining selected services as part of a geo-processing workflow. Parallelization is needed for processing massive amounts of data or complex algorithms. In this paper the two concepts of task and data parallelization are compared and examples for their usage are given. The presented work provides vector data integration within grid-computing workflows of the German Spatial Data Infrastructure Grid (SDI-Grid) project.BMB

Health information technology: A key ingredient of the patient experience

In this exploration to understand the linkages of health information technology (HIT) and patient experience, a comprehensive literature search was conducted using the key words, “information technology, HIT, patient experience, patient satisfaction, and technology”, on the MEDLINE, PubMed, and EMBASE databases resulting in over 1,000 citations. Eventually, 35 of the most relevant articles were reviewed and 11 identified as key references to include in beginning to explore the question, as the transformation of healthcare continues, how can technology enable a positive return on investment to a patients’ perception of their care in an organization and how can technology impact the patient experience? The results reveal there is in fact more questions than answers that exits and therefore further opportunities for exploration and research are encouraged. That noted, the literature and examples emerging in practices across healthcare are showing that technology and the patient experience are moving closer to one another as each day passes. HIT is truly evolving as a key ingredient in the patient experience conversation

TEAM AGILITY AND TEAM PERFORMANCE – THE MODERATING EFFECT OF USER INVOLVEMENT

Software development organizations increasingly adopt agile software development (ASD) in order to react to manifold challenges and respond to increasing user expectations. User involvement is men-tioned as the most important success factor in software development projects. However, little is known about the right intensity of user involvement for development teams. The paper investigates the mod-erating effect of different dimensions of user involvement intensity are investigated, i.e. types, practic-es and continuity. While prior research in ASD focuses on the project or method, this paper adopts a team-theoretical view towards agility. In addition, the effect of user involvement on the relationship between team agility on team performance is investigated. A model for team agility and its empirical survey-based investigation is proposed. The expected results extend the nomological net of team re-search in IS and help scholars to extend ASD theory. Practitioners benefit by identifying the right in-tensity of user involvement for their development team