116 research outputs found
Supporting collaboration with non-literate forest communities in the congo-basin
Providing indigenous communities with ICT tools and methods
for collecting and sharing their Traditional Ecological
Knowledge is increasingly recognised as an avenue
for improvements in environmental governance and socialenvironmental
justice. In this paper we show how we carried
out a usability engineering effort in the âwildâ context
of the Congolese rainforest â designing, evaluating and iteratively
improving novel collaborative data collection interfaces
for non-literate forest communities that can subsequently
be used to facilitate communication and information
sharing with logging companies. Working in this context
necessitates adopting a thoroughly flexible approach to the
design, development, introduction and evaluation of technology
and the modes of interaction it offers. We show that we
have improved participant accuracy from about 75% towards
95% and provide a set of guidelines for designing and evaluating
ICT solutions in âextreme circumstancesâ â which hold
lessons for CSCW, HCI and ICT4D practitioners dealing with
similar challenges
CiĂȘncia CidadĂŁ Extrema: Uma Nova Abordagem
A conservação da biodiversidade Ă© uma questĂŁo que tem preocupado o mundo todo. Nas Ășltimas dĂ©cadas, centenas de ĂĄreas protegidas foram criadas para assegurar a preservação da biodiversidade no planeta. Um grande nĂșmero de ĂĄreas protegidas Ă© habitado por comunidades que dependem do uso de seus recursos naturais nĂŁo apenas para a sua sobrevivĂȘncia, mas tambĂ©m para a sua reprodução social e cultural. Em muitos casos, as populaçÔes locais tĂȘm sido diretamente responsĂĄveis pela gestĂŁo sustentĂĄvel desses complexos ecossistemas por sĂ©culos. Iniciativas de CiĂȘncia CidadĂŁ â entendida como a participação de amadores, voluntĂĄrios e entusiastas em projetos cientĂficos â tĂȘm envolvido o pĂșblico na produção cientĂfica e em projetos de monitoramento da biodiversidade, mas tĂȘm limitado essa participação Ă coleta de dados, e tĂȘm normalmente ocorrido em locais afluentes, excluindo as populaçÔes nĂŁo alfabetizadas ou letradas e que vivem em ĂĄreas remotas. Povos e comunidades tradicionais conhecem os aspectos ambientais das ĂĄreas por eles habitadas, o que pode ser benĂ©fico para a gestĂŁo e o monitoramento bem-sucedidos da biodiversidade. Portanto, ao se tratar do monitoramento e da proteção da biodiversidade em ĂĄreas habitadas por populaçÔes humanas, o seu envolvimento Ă© central e pode conduzir a um cenĂĄrio onde todas as partes envolvidas se beneficiam. Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) Ă© um grupo de pesquisa interdisciplinar criado em 2011, na University College London, com a finalidade de avançar o atual conjunto de prĂĄticas da CiĂȘncia CidadĂŁ. A ideia Ă© permitir que qualquer comunidade, em qualquer lugar do mundo â desde grupos marginalizados que vivem nas periferias de ĂĄreas urbanas atĂ© grupos de caçadores e coletores da floresta amazĂŽnica â, comece um projeto de CiĂȘncia CidadĂŁ para lidar com suas prĂłprias questĂ”es. Este artigo apresenta os diversos aspectos que tornam a CiĂȘncia CidadĂŁ âextremaâ no trabalho do grupo ExCiteS, por meio da exposição de suas teorias, mĂ©todos e ferramentas, e dos estudos de caso atuais que envolvem comunidades tradicionais ao redor do mundo. Por fim, ressalta-se a maior preocupação do grupo, que Ă© tornar a participação verdadeiramente efetiva, e sugere-se como iniciativas de monitoramento da biodiversidade podem ser realizadas de maneira colaborativa, trazendo benefĂcios a todos os atores envolvidos
Introducing Sapelli: A mobile data collection platform for non-literate users
With this poster we announce the imminent release of Sapelli, a new mobile data collection and sharing platform designed with a particular focus on non-literate and illiterate users
Taking Participatory Citizen Science to Extremes
University College London's Extreme Citizen Science research group (UCL ExCiteS) is experimenting with ways to incorporate the most marginalized communities into participatory citizen science activities through which they can share their indigenous knowledge. The group works with communities at the extremes of the globalized world--both because of nonliteracy and the remote or forbidding environments they inhabit. These groups are the gatekeepers of some key environments on which the future health of the planet depend--from tropical forests to Arctic sea-ice. This article presents the methodologies and tools the group is developing to give these people a voice. This article is part of a special issue on pervasive analytics and citizen science
Everyday Diplomacy: UKUSA Intelligence Cooperation and Geopolitical Assemblages
This article offers an alternative to civilizational thinking in geopolitics and international relations predicated on assemblage theory. Building on literature in political geography and elsewhere about everyday practices that produce state effects, this article theorizes the existence of transnational geopolitical assemblages that incorporate foreign policy apparatuses of multiple states. Everyday material and discursive circulations make up these assemblages, serving as conduits of affect that produce an emergent agency. To demonstrate this claim, I outline a genealogy of the UKUSA alliance, an assemblage of intelligence communities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. I then trace the circulation of materialities and affectsâat the scales of individual subjects, technological systems of mediation, and transnational processes of foreign policy formation. In doing so, I offer a bottom-up process of assemblage that produces the emergent phenomena that proponents of civilizational thinking mistakenly attribute to macroscaled factors, such as culture
Writing Russia's future: paradigms, drivers, and scenarios
The development of prediction and forecasting in the social sciences over the past century and more is closely linked with developments in Russia. The Soviet collapse undermined confidence in predictive capabilities, and scenario planning emerged as the dominant future-oriented methodology in area studies, including the study of Russia. Scenarists anticipate multiple futures rather than predicting one. The approach is too rarely critiqued. Building on an account of Russia-related forecasting in the twentieth century, analysis of two decades of scenarios reveals uniform accounts which downplay the insights of experts and of social science theory alike
Outcomes from elective colorectal cancer surgery during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
This study aimed to describe the change in surgical practice and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on mortality after surgical resection of colorectal cancer during the initial phases of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
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Fundamental Science Investigations to Develop a 6-MV Laser Triggered Gas Switch for ZR: First Annual Report.
In October 2005, an intensive three-year Laser Triggered Gas Switch (LTGS) development program was initiated to investigate and solve observed performance and reliability issues with the LTGS for ZR. The approach taken has been one of mission-focused research: to revisit and reassess the design, to establish a fundamental understanding of LTGS operation and failure modes, and to test evolving operational hypotheses. This effort is aimed toward deploying an initial switch for ZR in 2007, on supporting rolling upgrades to ZR as the technology can be developed, and to prepare with scientific understanding for the even higher voltage switches anticipated needed for future high-yield accelerators. The ZR LTGS was identified as a potential area of concern quite early, but since initial assessments performed on a simplified Switch Test Bed (STB) at 5 MV showed 300-shot lifetimes on multiple switch builds, this component was judged acceptable. When the Z{sub 20} engineering module was brought online in October 2003 frequent flashovers of the plastic switch envelope were observed at the increased stresses required to compensate for the programmatically increased ZR load inductance. As of October 2006, there have been 1423 Z{sub 20} shots assessing a variety of LTGS designs. Numerous incremental and fundamental switch design modifications have been investigated. As we continue to investigate the LTGS, the basic science of plastic surface tracking, laser triggering, cascade breakdown, and optics degradation remain high-priority mission-focused research topics. Significant progress has been made and, while the switch does not yet achieve design requirements, we are on the path to develop successively better switches for rolling upgrade improvements to ZR. This report summarizes the work performed in FY 2006 by the large team. A high-level summary is followed by detailed individual topical reports
Effect of salinity on natural community and production of <i>Litopenaeus vannamei</i> (Boone), within experimental zero-water exchange culture systems
Recent efforts have been made to culture marine shrimp in systems operating under low or zero-water exchange and with decreased water salinity. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of various salinity levels on qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the natural community and, more particularly, ciliated protozoa, and compare this information with shrimp growth and survival. Tanks with 9parts per thousand salinity were characterized by a higher pH, but also by a significantly higher concentration of chlorophyll a (Chl a ) per weight of suspended matter (1.93+/-0.72 mug Chl a/mg TSS) than tanks with 18parts per thousand (1.29+/-0.68 mug Chl a/mg TSS) or 36parts per thousand (1.37+/-0.61 mug Chl a/mg TSS) salinity. Concentrations of ciliates (max 6000 cells mL-1) showed considerable fluctuations over the sampling period, reflecting the impact of water salinity, dynamic interactions between ciliates and their diverse roles within the shrimp production system. There was no significant difference between survival rates of shrimp reared at 9parts per thousand, 18parts per thousand or 36parts per thousand, but decreasing salinity from 36parts per thousand to 9parts per thousand led to a significant decrease in final shrimp body weight (from 13.40+/-0.26 g to 10.23+/-2.72 g). Future work should address the potential of ciliates as an indicator of aquaculture water quality, as is currently being done in the wastewater industry, and the contribution of ciliates as food sources
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