Ornamental trees for the farm garden

THE need for trees in the farm garden is being realized by many people. Trees around the homestead are required to give such features as shade, colour, fragrance and many other advantages to generally make an area more livable. Besides these advantages, trees appear to help smaller plants flourish by increasing the humidity and providing various degrees of shade and sunlight

Dealing with mobility: Understanding access anytime, anywhere

The rapid and accelerating move towards the adoption and use of mobile technologies has increasingly provided people and organisations with the ability to work away from the office and on the move. The new ways of working afforded by these technologies are often characterised in terms of access to information and people ‘anytime, anywhere’. This paper presents a study of mobile workers that highlights different facets of access to remote people and information, and different facets of anytime, anywhere. Four key factors in mobile work are identified from the study: the role of planning, working in ‘dead time’, accessing remote technological and informational resources, and monitoring the activities of remote colleagues. By reflecting on these issues, we can better understand the role of technology and artefact use in mobile work and identify the opportunities for the development of appropriate technological solutions to support mobile workers

Recent Decisions

Comments on recent decisions by Joseph P. Summers, William J. Luff, Jr., Thomas Kavadas, Jr., Joseph A. Marino, James J. Harrington, Cornelius J. Collins, George P. McAndrews, Richard M. Bies, George A. Pelletier, Jr., Thomas M. Clusserath, and Rocco L. Puntureri

Secondary user relations in emerging mobile computing environments

Mobile technologies are enabling access to information in diverse environ.ments, and are exposing a wider group of individuals to said technology. Therefore, this paper proposes that a wider view of user relations than is usually considered in information systems research is required. Specifically, we examine the potential effects of emerging mobile technologies on end-­‐user relations with a focus on the ‘secondary user’, those who are not intended to interact directly with the technology but are intended consumers of the technology’s output. For illustration, we draw on a study of a U.K. regional Fire and Rescue Service and deconstruct mobile technology use at Fire Service incidents. Our findings provide insights, which suggest that, because of the nature of mobile technologies and their context of use, secondary user relations in such emerging mobile environments are important and need further exploration

Real-Time and Low-Cost Sensing Technique Based on Photonic Bandgap Structures

This paper was published in OPTICS LETTERS and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OL.36.002707. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law[EN] A technique for the development of low-cost and high-sensitivity photonic biosensing devices is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In this technique, a photonic bandgap structure is used as transducer, but its readout is performed by simply using a broadband source, an optical filter, and a power meter, without the need of obtaining the transmission spectrum of the structure; thus, a really low-cost system and real-time results are achieved. Experimental results show that it is possible to detect very low refractive index variations, achieving a detection limit below 2 x 10(-6) refractive index units using this low-cost measuring technique. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America[This work was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (MICINN) under contracts TEC2008-06333, JCI-009-5805, and TEC2008-05490. Support by the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia through program PAID-06-09 and the Conselleria d'Educacio through program GV-2010-031 is acknowledged.García Castelló, J.; Toccafondo, V.; Pérez Millán, P.; Sánchez Losilla, N.; Cruz, JL.; Andres, MV.; García-Rupérez, J. (2011). Real-Time and Low-Cost Sensing Technique Based on Photonic Bandgap Structures. Optics Letters. 36(14):2707-2709. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.36.002707S270727093614Fan, X., White, I. M., Shopova, S. I., Zhu, H., Suter, J. D., & Sun, Y. (2008). Sensitive optical biosensors for unlabeled targets: A review. Analytica Chimica Acta, 620(1-2), 8-26. doi:10.1016/j.aca.2008.05.022Homola, J., Yee, S. S., & Gauglitz, G. (1999). Surface plasmon resonance sensors: review. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 54(1-2), 3-15. doi:10.1016/s0925-4005(98)00321-9Kersey, A. D., Davis, M. A., Patrick, H. J., LeBlanc, M., Koo, K. P., Askins, C. G., … Friebele, E. J. (1997). Fiber grating sensors. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 15(8), 1442-1463. doi:10.1109/50.618377De Vos, K., Bartolozzi, I., Schacht, E., Bienstman, P., & Baets, R. (2007). Silicon-on-Insulator microring resonator for sensitive and label-free biosensing. Optics Express, 15(12), 7610. doi:10.1364/oe.15.007610Iqbal, M., Gleeson, M. A., Spaugh, B., Tybor, F., Gunn, W. G., Hochberg, M., … Gunn, L. C. (2010). Label-Free Biosensor Arrays Based on Silicon Ring Resonators and High-Speed Optical Scanning Instrumentation. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 16(3), 654-661. doi:10.1109/jstqe.2009.2032510Xu, D.-X., Vachon, M., Densmore, A., Ma, R., Delâge, A., Janz, S., … Schmid, J. H. (2010). Label-free biosensor array based on silicon-on-insulator ring resonators addressed using a WDM approach. Optics Letters, 35(16), 2771. doi:10.1364/ol.35.002771Skivesen, N., Têtu, A., Kristensen, M., Kjems, J., Frandsen, L. H., & Borel, P. I. (2007). Photonic-crystal waveguide biosensor. Optics Express, 15(6), 3169. doi:10.1364/oe.15.003169Lee, M. R., & Fauchet, P. M. (2007). Nanoscale microcavity sensor for single particle detection. Optics Letters, 32(22), 3284. doi:10.1364/ol.32.003284García-Rupérez, J., Toccafondo, V., Bañuls, M. J., Castelló, J. G., Griol, A., Peransi-Llopis, S., & Maquieira, Á. (2010). Label-free antibody detection using band edge fringes in SOI planar photonic crystal waveguides in the slow-light regime. Optics Express, 18(23), 24276. doi:10.1364/oe.18.024276Toccafondo, V., García-Rupérez, J., Bañuls, M. J., Griol, A., Castelló, J. G., Peransi-Llopis, S., & Maquieira, A. (2010). Single-strand DNA detection using a planar photonic-crystal-waveguide-based sensor. Optics Letters, 35(21), 3673. doi:10.1364/ol.35.003673Luff, B. J., Wilson, R., Schiffrin, D. J., Harris, R. D., & Wilkinson, J. S. (1996). Integrated-optical directional coupler biosensor. Optics Letters, 21(8), 618. doi:10.1364/ol.21.000618Sepúlveda, B., Río, J. S. del, Moreno, M., Blanco, F. J., Mayora, K., Domínguez, C., & Lechuga, L. M. (2006). Optical biosensor microsystems based on the integration of highly sensitive Mach–Zehnder interferometer devices. Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, 8(7), S561-S566. doi:10.1088/1464-4258/8/7/s41Densmore, A., Vachon, M., Xu, D.-X., Janz, S., Ma, R., Li, Y.-H., … Schmid, J. H. (2009). Silicon photonic wire biosensor array for multiplexed real-time and label-free molecular detection. Optics Letters, 34(23), 3598. doi:10.1364/ol.34.003598Povinelli, M. L., Johnson, S. G., & Joannopoulos, J. D. (2005). Slow-light, band-edge waveguides for tunable time delays. Optics Express, 13(18), 7145. doi:10.1364/opex.13.007145Garcia, J., Sanchis, P., Martinez, A., & Marti, J. (2008). 1D periodic structures for slow-wave induced non-linearity enhancement. Optics Express, 16(5), 3146. doi:10.1364/oe.16.003146Pérez-Millán, P., Torres-Peiró, S., Cruz, J. L., & Andrés, M. V. (2008). Fabrication of chirped fiber Bragg gratings by simple combination of stretching movements. Optical Fiber Technology, 14(1), 49-53. doi:10.1016/j.yofte.2007.07.00

Between overt and covert research: concealment and disclosure in an ethnographic study of commercial hospitality

This article examines the ways in which problems of concealment emerged in an ethnographic study of a suburban bar and considers how disclosure of the research aims, the recruitment of informants, and elicitation of information was negotiated throughout the fieldwork. The case study demonstrates how the social context and the relationships with specific informants determined overtness or covertness in the research. It is argued that the existing literature on covert research and covert methods provides an inappropriate frame of reference with which to understand concealment in fieldwork. The article illustrates why concealment is sometimes necessary, and often unavoidable, and concludes that the criticisms leveled against covert methods should not stop the fieldworker from engaging in research that involves covertness

Care-less spaces and identity construction: transition to secondary school for disabled children

There is a growing body of literature which marks out a feminist ethics of care and it is within this framework we understand transitions from primary to secondary school education can be challenging and care-less, especially for disabled children. By exploring the narratives of parents and professionals we investigate transitions and self-identity, as a meaningful transition depends on the care-full spaces pupils inhabit. These education narratives are all in the context of privileging academic attainment and a culture of testing and examinations. Parents and professionals, as well as children are also surveyed. Notably, until there are care-full education processes, marginalisation will remain, impacting on children’s transition to secondary school and healthy identity construction. Moreover, if educational challenges not addressed, their life chances are increasingly limited. Interdependent caring work enables engagement in a meaningful education and positive identity formation. In school and at home, care-full spaces are key in this process

A weighting method to improve habitat association analysis: tested on British carabids

Analysis of species’ habitat associations is important for biodiversity conservation and spatial ecology. The original phi coefficient of association is a simple method that gives both positive and negative associations of individual species with habitats. The method originates in assessing the association of plant species with habitats, sampled by quadrats. Using this method for mobile animals creates problems as records often have imprecise locations, and would require either using only records related to a single habitat or arbitrarily choosing a single habitat to assign. We propose and test a new weighted version of the index that retains more records, which improves association estimates and allows assessment of more species. It weights habitats that lie within the area covered by the species record with their certainty level, in our case study, the proportion of the grid cell covered by that habitat. We used carabid beetle data from the National Biodiversity Network atlas and CEH Land Cover Map 2015 across Great Britain to compare the original method with the weighted version. We used presence‐only data, assigning species absences using a threshold based on the number of other species found at a location, and conducted a sensitivity analysis of this threshold. Qualitative descriptions of habitat associations were used as independent validation data. The weighted index allowed the analysis of 52 additional species (19% more) and gave results with as few as 50 records. For the species we could analyse using both indices, the weighted index explained 70% of the qualitative validation data compared to 68% for the original, indicating no accuracy loss. The weighted phi coefficient of association provides an improved method for habitat analysis giving information on preferred and avoided habitats for mobile species that have limited records, and can be used in modelling and analysis that directs conservation policy and practice

Efficiency of benthic filter: Biological control of the emission of dissolved methane from sediments containing shallow gas hydrates at Hydrate Ridge

In marine sedimentary environments, microbial methanotrophy represents an important sink for methane before it leaves the seafloor and enters the water column. Using benthic observatories in conjunction with numerical modeling of pore water gradients, we investigated seabed methane emission rates at cold seep sites with underlying gas hydrates at Hydrate Ridge, Cascadia margin. Measurements were conducted at three characteristic sites which have variable fluid flow and sulfide flux and sustain distinct chemosynthetic communities. In sediments covered with microbial mats of Beggiatoa, seabed methane efflux ranges from 1.9 to 11.5 mmol m−2 d−1. At these sites of relatively high advective flow, total oxygen uptake was very fast, yielding rates of up to 53.4 mmol m−2 d−1. In sediments populated by colonies with clams of the genus Calyptogena and characterized by low advective flow, seabed methane emission was 0.6 mmol m−2 d−1, whereas average total oxygen uptake amounted to only 3.7 mmol m−2 d−1. The efficiency of methane consumption at microbial mat and clam field sites was 66 and 83%, respectively. Our measurements indicate a high potential capacity of aerobic methane oxidation in the benthic boundary layer. This layer potentially restrains seabed methane emission when anaerobic methane oxidation in the sediment becomes saturated or when methane is bypassing the sediment matrix along fractures and channels