Are we on the verge of something new? An analysis of community perceptions and ecological value of local green space

Urban green spaces are under threat by current urban densification practices, so Australian local councils are looking at innovative ways to utilise current green spaces, such as road verges. However councils often lack resources to properly manage these areas, so many local councils are turning to their residents to help manage these spaces, which is what the City of Vincent’s Adopt a Verge program aims to do. This study uses the City of Vincent’s Adopt a Verge program as a case study to (1) evaluate the quality of the verge plantings in regards to ecological value, (2) establish participant’s motives for adoption and non-adoption of verges, and (3) determine whether there is any relationship between the participant’s motives for adoption and the ecological value of verge plantings. Residents were classified as “Adopters” (participants in the Adopt a Verge program) and” Non-adopters” (those who did not participate).In-situ vegetation surveys were conducted to assess percent cover, and plant diversity and richness of adopted verges. In-person and online social surveys considered the motivations behind adoption or non-adoption (respectively), beliefs about the program aims, ecological world view using the New Ecological Paradigm, and general demographics. Of 198 adopted verges surveyed, 85% had non-grass vegetation, and were covered on average by 29% non-grass vegetation. Adopters participated in the program to improve aesthetics of their verge (76%) while Non-adopters were unaware of the program (18%). Both groups were told of the aims of the program and it was found that Adopters had more positive attitudes towards the program aims than Non-adopters, and Adopters were more eco-centric in their ecological world view (t=3499, p<0.05). A third group of people who had planted native vegetation on their verge outside of the program was revealed—the Self-adopters (n=15). Verge vegetation percent cover, diversity and richness were correlated with increased positive attitudes for Adopters. Adoption of verges by residents, as part of a wider urban greening program, was well received by those residents aware of the program. Most residents had a positive attitude towards the Adopt a Verge program, while the program was also successful in increasing native vegetation cover on verges over time. This study highlights potential motivations for verge adoption, including residents’ aesthetic appreciation for native vegetation, understanding the likely benefits of verge planting and effective awareness of the program itself. Understanding the motivations of residents may aid in program uptake and enhance the contribution of resident verge adoption as part of an urban greening strategy

Requiem for Chorus and Harp: Conductor as Composer, Composer as Conductor

Western music history is filled with composers who also conduct their own works, and conductors who also devote time to composing. This project will attempt to examine the experience of the composer-conductor by addressing the following questions: First, what is it like to compose a piece of music for a group one conducts regularly? How does one's experience as a conductor influence compositional decision-making? Second, what is it like to conduct one's own music? How does one's experience as a composer influence rehearsal planning and performance conducting? The inquiry will focus on the preparation for and performance on May 16 of three pieces: Advent Antiphons and The Transfiguration, both written for the St. Matthew's Schola Cantorum in 2000, and the Requiem for chorus and harp, begun in January 2007 and completed in April 2008, all with the composer conducting. The completed project will include copies of scores, a DVD of rehearsal excerpts, CDs and DVDs of the performance, and a text document examining the questions mentioned above. The text document will address biographical information on the composer-conductor, focusing on experiences relevant to the inquiry; composition and history of the St. Matthew's Schola Cantorum and of his relationship with them; information about the compositions themselves and the compositional process; and a discussion of the rehearsal process and performance of the pieces

Developing an Honors Peer Mentoring Program in Higher Education

The Merrimack College Honors Peer Mentoring Program is currently one of the effective and successful aspects of the Honors Program. The purpose of the peer mentoring program is to help first-year honors students with their transition not only into the Honors community, but Merrimack as a whole

Comptonisation of Cosmic Microwave Background Photons in Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies

We present theoretical modelling of the electron distribution produced by annihilating neutralino dark matter in dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs). In particular, we follow up the idea of Colafrancesco (2004) and find that such electrons distort the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. For an assumed neutralino mass of 10 GeV and beam size of 1'', the SZ temperature decrement is of the order of nano-Kelvin for dSph models with a soft core. By contrast, it is of the order of micro-Kelvin for the strongly cusped dSph models favoured by some cosmological simulations. Although this is out of reach of current instruments, it may well be detectable by future mm telescopes, such as ALMA. We also show that the upscattered CMB photons have energies within reach of upcoming X-ray observatories, but that the flux of such photons is too small to be detectable soon. Nonetheless, we conclude that searching for the dark matter induced Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect is a promising way of constraining the dark distribution in dSphs, especially if the particles are light.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS, in pres

User-Centric Quality of Service Provisioning in IP Networks

The Internet has become the preferred transport medium for almost every type of communication, continuing to grow, both in terms of the number of users and delivered services. Efforts have been made to ensure that time sensitive applications receive sufficient resources and subsequently receive an acceptable Quality of Service (QoS). However, typical Internet users no longer use a single service at a given point in time, as they are instead engaged in a multimedia-rich experience, comprising of many different concurrent services. Given the scalability problems raised by the diversity of the users and traffic, in conjunction with their increasing expectations, the task of QoS provisioning can no longer be approached from the perspective of providing priority to specific traffic types over coexisting services; either through explicit resource reservation, or traffic classification using static policies, as is the case with the current approach to QoS provisioning, Differentiated Services (Diffserv). This current use of static resource allocation and traffic shaping methods reveals a distinct lack of synergy between current QoS practices and user activities, thus highlighting a need for a QoS solution reflecting the user services. The aim of this thesis is to investigate and propose a novel QoS architecture, which considers the activities of the user and manages resources from a user-centric perspective. The research begins with a comprehensive examination of existing QoS technologies and mechanisms, arguing that current QoS practises are too static in their configuration and typically give priority to specific individual services rather than considering the user experience. The analysis also reveals the potential threat that unresponsive application traffic presents to coexisting Internet services and QoS efforts, and introduces the requirement for a balance between application QoS and fairness. This thesis proposes a novel architecture, the Congestion Aware Packet Scheduler (CAPS), which manages and controls traffic at the point of service aggregation, in order to optimise the overall QoS of the user experience. The CAPS architecture, in contrast to traditional QoS alternatives, places no predetermined precedence on a specific traffic; instead, it adapts QoS policies to each individual’s Internet traffic profile and dynamically controls the ratio of user services to maintain an optimised QoS experience. The rationale behind this approach was to enable a QoS optimised experience to each Internet user and not just those using preferred services. Furthermore, unresponsive bandwidth intensive applications, such as Peer-to-Peer, are managed fairly while minimising their impact on coexisting services. The CAPS architecture has been validated through extensive simulations with the topologies used replicating the complexity and scale of real-network ISP infrastructures. The results show that for a number of different user-traffic profiles, the proposed approach achieves an improved aggregate QoS for each user when compared with Best effort Internet, Traditional Diffserv and Weighted-RED configurations. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the proposed architecture not only provides an optimised QoS to the user, irrespective of their traffic profile, but through the avoidance of static resource allocation, can adapt with the Internet user as their use of services change.France Teleco

The Collaborative Process in Directing A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

With this thesis I will explore the many challenges that confront a leader on a creative project, the difficulties that prevent open communication, and the discoveries that I will use to serve myself on future projects. Through diligent notes during the multiple months that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof took to produce, I was able to re-create what my experience was and how it benefitted me moving forward. This thesis will document the entire process from play selection, through the final product including the response from the audience. Through this document I will try and highlight, how my own skills were tested, expanded, and seasoned throughout the process. In addition to the study of my own learning, this thesis will highlight the valuable advice that I received from instructors, as well as documenting the implementation of said advice in this university setting. In addition to looking at myself, I also will identify some things that I will be on the lookout for in future creative ventures, both from fellow collaborators, and from institutions. Eventually when this process was in the books, I looked back on the experience fondly, and with a sense of pride. I was able to reflect in the post-mortem phase of the production, and identify room for growth, but above and beyond that identify where growth had occurred during the work, not only in this process, but also in my three-year journey at the University of Massachusetts Amherst