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Systems thinking and Equity-focused evaluations
Questions about access to resources - who gets what? - ought not to be seen in isolation from related questions of power - who owns what? They also ought not to be seen in isolation from questions of knowledge and expertise - who does what? Moreover these questions relate to important questions regarding legitimacy - who gets affected by what some people get? Such questions are often more easily avoided in a normal evaluation for fear of the ethics and politics involved in addressing them. But such questions as formulated above also may not be easy to grasp or work with in terms of an approach to evaluating an intervention. To the systems thinker C. West Churchman (1913-2004), such ethical and political questions were profoundly important. It was Churchman's life-long task to surface the need to address such questions. One of the most significant insights offered by Churchman in order to address ethical issues was the need to engage meaningfully with different perspectives
Prosaic or Profound? The Adoption of Systems Ideas by Impact Evaluation
All evaluation approaches have to address questions about their legitimacy, validity, relevance and usefulness. As the complexity of interventions is more widely acknowledged, impact evaluation appears to be especially vulnerable to these challenges. This article explores the potential of the systems field to address these vulnerabilities. The systems field is conceptualised as understanding interrelationships, engaging with multiple perspectives and reflecting on where boundaries are drawn in terms of those interrelationships and perspectives. This article argues that achieving a balance between these three elements is critical. An emphasis on interrelationships is likely to bring only limited (prosaic) benefits to impact evaluation as a whole. On the other hand, a strong emphasis on perspectives and boundaries could result in profound changes to the way in which impact evaluation is conceived and delivered. In particular, it could change the nature of the relationship between the evaluator and key stakeholders, especially funders and managers of interventions
An Architecture for Scaling NVO Services to TeraGrid
The term "cyberinfrastructure" has been adopted by the US National Science Foundation to mean "advanced computing engines, data archives and digital libraries, observation and sensor systems, and other research and education instrumentation [linked] into a common framework". One of the largest awards in this program is the TeraGrid, a linkage of large supercomputer centers based on the Globus software. Another cyberinfrastructure program is the National Virtual Observatory, a linkage of astronomical data publishers into a service-oriented framework.
There are different philosophies behind the TeraGrid and the NVO architecture. This note explains a proposed service-oriented architecture for TeraGrid nodes that is an attempt to bridge these ways of working, and a prototype instantiation at Caltech
10. The Academic Departments
Includes: Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History: The Department of Economic and Social Statistics; Labor Economics and Income Security Department: A Parent Department: Human Resources and Administration; The Organizational Behavior Department; Evolution of the Human Resources and Administration Department
The Copernicus project
The Copernicus spacecraft, to be launched on May 4, 2009, is designed for scientific exploration of the planet Pluto. The main objectives of this exploration is to accurately determine the mass, density, and composition of the two bodies in the Pluto-Charon system. A further goal of the exploration is to obtain precise images of the system. The spacecraft will be designed for three axis stability control. It will use the latest technological advances to optimize the performance, reliability, and cost of the spacecraft. Due to the long duration of the mission, nominally 12.6 years, the spacecraft will be powered by a long lasting radioactive power source. Although this type of power may have some environmental drawbacks, currently it is the only available source that is suitable for this mission. The planned trajectory provides flybys of Jupiter and Saturn. These flybys provide an opportunity for scientific study of these planets in addition to Pluto. The information obtained on these flybys will supplement the data obtained by the Voyager and Galileo missions. The topics covered include: (1) scientific instrumentation; (2) mission management, planning, and costing; (3) power and propulsion system; (4) structural subsystem; (5) command, control, and communication; and (6) attitude and articulation control
Interaction of Soil Moisture and Seedling Shelters on Water Relations of Baldcypress Seedlings
Stomata1 conductance, transpiration, and leaf water potential were measured during the 1996 growing season on baldcypress (Taxodium disfichum (L.) Rich.) seedlings. Seedlings were hand-planted from 1-O bareroot stock in mesic and permanently Rooded soil conditions. One-half of all seedlings were fitted with 122-cm tall polyethylene tree shelters, Seedlings were planted 1 year before the initiation of plant water relation measurements. The study was located within the boundary of the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant, Kamack, TX. The objective of the research was to study the feasibility of artificially regenerating baldcypress along the shores of Caddo Lake. Stomata1 conductance and transpiration were consistently higher in seedlings planted in mesic soils versus seedlings planted in permanently flooded soils. Seedlings fitted with shelters regularly had higher stomatal conductance and transpiration then seedlings without shelters. Leaf water potential showed little consistency among treatments
Ariel - Volume 4 Number 4
Editors
David A. Jacoby
Eugenia Miller
Tom Williams
Associate Editors
Paul Bialas
Terry Burt
Michael Leo
Gail Tenikat
Editor Emeritus and Business Manager
Richard J. Bonnano
Movie Editor
Robert Breckenridge
Staff
Richard Blutstein
Mary F. Buechler
Meg Brunt
Steve Glinks
Len Grasman
Alice M. Johnson
J.D. Kanofsky
Tom Lehman
Dave Mayer
Bernie Odd
INTERACTION OF SOIL MOISTURE AND SEEDLING SHELTERS ON WATER RELATIONS OF BALDCYPRESS SEEDLINGS’
ABSTRACT-Stomata1 conductance, transpiration, and leaf water potential were measured during the 1996 growing season on baldcypress (Taxodium disfichum (L.) Rich.) seedlings. Seedlings were hand-planted from 1-O bareroot stock in mesic and permanently Rooded soil conditions. One-half of all seedlings were fitted with 122-cm tall polyethylene tree shelters, Seedlings were planted 1 year before the initiation of plant water relation measurements. The study was located within the boundary of the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant, Kamack, TX. The objective of the research was to study the feasibility of artificially regenerating baldcypress along the shores of Caddo Lake. Stomata1 conductance and transpiration were consistently higher in seedlings planted in mesic soils versus seedlings planted in permanently flooded soils. Seedlings fitted with shelters regularly had higher stomata1 conductance and transpiration then seedlings without shelters. Leaf water potential showed little consistency among treatments
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