RGtk2: A Graphical User Interface Toolkit for R

Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are growing in popularity as a complement or alternative to the traditional command line interfaces to R. RGtk2 is an R package for creating GUIs in R. The package provides programmatic access to GTK+ 2.0, an open-source GUI toolkit written in C. To construct a GUI, the R programmer calls RGtk2 functions that map to functions in the underlying GTK+ library. This paper introduces the basic concepts underlying GTK+ and explains how to use RGtk2 to construct GUIs from R. The tutorial is based on simple and pratical programming examples. We also provide more complex examples illustrating the advanced features of the package. The design of the RGtk2 API and the low-level interface from R to GTK+ are discussed at length. We compare RGtk2 to alternative GUI toolkits for R.

Above and below the water: Social/ecological transformation in northwest Newfoundland

Marine fisheries and fishing societies develop around the resources provided by a particular ecosystem. As they exploit these resources, fisheries transform the ecosystem, which pushes fishery and society to adapt in turn. This process is illustrated by fisheries, ecological and social data tracking dramatic changes on Newfoundland\u27s Northern Peninsula and its adjacent marine ecosystem, the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence. There a longstanding fishery for cod and other groundfish collapsed in the 1990s, and was replaced by fisheries targeting invertebrates. The new invertebrate fisheries have different socioeconomic characteristics than the former groundfish fisheries. The shift in target species reflects deep ecological changes that were underway at least a decade before official recognition of the crisis. Our analysis of biological data reveals that the main ecological changes occurred during “the glory years” of the 1980s, when Newfoundland\u27s domestic fisheries were at their peak. Overfishing and interactions with adverse climatic conditions drove the changes. As the ecosystem transformed, human population declined due to outmigration, and social indicators show signs of distress. Accounts by outport residents paint a generational picture of social change

Place effects on environmental views

How people respond to questions involving the environment depends partly on individual characteristics. Characteristics such as age, gender, education, and ideology constitute the well-studied social bases of environmental concern, which have been explained in terms of cohort effects or of cognitive and cultural factors related to social position. It seems likely that people\u27s environmental views depend not only on personal characteristics but also on their social and physical environments. This hypothesis has been more difficult to test, however. Using data from surveys in 19 rural U.S. counties, we apply mixed-effects modeling to investigate simple place effects with respect to locally focused environmental views. We find evidence for two kinds of place effects. Net of individual characteristics, specific place characteristics have the expected effect on related environmental views. Local changes are related to attitudes about regulation and growth. For example, respondents more often perceive rapid development as a problem, and favor environmental rules that restrict development, in rural counties with growing populations. Moreover, they favor conserving resources for the future rather than using them now to create jobs in counties that have low unemployment. After we controlled for county growth, unemployment and jobs in resource based industries, and individual social-position and ideological factors, there remains significant place-to-place variation in mean levels of environmental concern. Even with both kinds of place effects in the models, the individual level predictors of environmental concern follow patterns expected from previous research. Concern increases with education among Democrats, whereas among Republicans, the relationship is attenuated or reversed. The interaction marks reframing of environmental questions as political wedge issues, through nominally scientific counterarguments aimed at educated, ideologically receptive audiences. © 2010, by the Rural Sociological Society

Quantifying inherent safety of chemical process routes

Inherent safety is that which is intrinsic to a chemical plant. Chemical plants should be designed to be acceptably safe and it is better if this can be achieved through inherent safety, which can not be compromised, rather than engineered safety. The earlier that inherent safety is considered, the greater are the benefits. The choice of chemical route, that is the raw materials and the sequence of reactions that converts them to the desired products, is a key early design decision that influences the inherent safety of a plant. The inherent safety must be quantified in order to choose the optimum route from a number of alternatives. A trial inherent safety index has been developed for ranking alternative chemical routes by inherent safety. The physical properties of the chemicals involved, and the conditions in the reaction steps are parameters in the index calculation procedure. The index has been tested on a number of routes to methyl methacrylate (MMA). In order to verify and improve the index, a panel of experts was asked to rank the routes, and to make comments about the index and how it could be improved. This expert judgement exercise used three questionnaires and a group meeting to elicit the required information. Statistical methods were used to analyse the results from the questionnaires. The experts agreed closely among themselves on the rankings. The rankings from the trial index and the rankings from the experts matched closely. A new index was produced based on the comments of the experts and further research. The new index is more structured than the trial index, and separation and storage steps are included in addition to reaction steps. The inherent safety of the routes to MMA has been assessed with the new index. Developing a method for quantifying the inherent safety of chemical routes has proved to be a large and difficult task. Further research is needed to decide how the interactions between parameters affect the assessment of inherent safety. The ultimate goal is a computerised tool that could be used in the early stages of industrial process development

Ethnic identity and aspirations among rural Alaska youth

The villages of rural Alaska comprise one of the most exceptional, yet least visible, sociocultural environments in the United States They are geographically remote, and set off from the mainstream also by their unique Eskimo, Indian or Aleut cultures. At the same time many economic, legal and cultural connections pull these villages toward the dominant U.S. society, impelling continual and rapid social change. Our research focuses on adolescents growing up in this culturally complex and changing environment. We employ survey data from adolescents in 19 rural schools to explore relationships between ethnic identity and students\u27 expectations about moving away or attending college. Many students describe their ethnic identity as mixed, both Native and non-Native. On some key variables, the responses of mixed-identity students fall between those of Natives and non-Natives, supporting a theoretical conception of ethnicity as a matter of degree rather than category. Migration and college expectations vary with ethnic identity, but the college expectations/identity relationship fades when we adjust for other variables. Ethnicity affects expectations for the most part indirectly, through “cultural tool kit” variables including family role models and support. Gender differences in expectations, on the other hand, remain substantial even after adjusting for other variables

Place matters: challenges and opportunities in four rural Americas

A survey of 7,800 rural Americans in 19 counties across the country has led to the Carsey Institute\u27s first major publication that outlines four distinctly different rural Americas—amenity, decline, chronic poverty, and those communities in decline that are also amenity-rich—each has unique challenges in this modern era that will require different policies than their rural neighbors

RGtk2: A Graphical User Interface Toolkit for R

Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are growing in popularity as a complement or alternative to the traditional command line interfaces to R. RGtk2 is an R package for creating GUIs in R. The package provides programmatic access to GTK+ 2.0, an open-source GUI toolkit written in C. To construct a GUI, the R programmer calls RGtk2 functions that map to functions in the underlying GTK+ library. This paper introduces the basic concepts underlying GTK+ and explains how to use RGtk2 to construct GUIs from R. The tutorial is based on simple and pratical programming examples. We also provide more complex examples illustrating the advanced features of the package. The design of the RGtk2 API and the low-level interface from R to GTK+ are discussed at length. We compare RGtk2 to alternative GUI toolkits for R

When lives are put on hold: lengthy asylum processes decrease employment among refugees

European governments are struggling with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, but there exists little evidence regarding how the management of the asylum process affects the subsequent integration of refugees in the host country. We provide new causal evidence about how one central policy parameter, the length of time that refugees wait in limbo for a decision on their asylum claim, affects their subsequent economic integration. Exploiting exogenous variation in wait times and registry panel data covering refugees who applied in Switzerland between 1994 and 2004, we find that one additional year of waiting reduces the subsequent employment rate by 4 to 5 percentage points, a 16 to 23% drop compared to the average rate. This deleterious effect is remarkably stable across different subgroups of refugees stratified by gender, origin, age at arrival, and assigned language region, a pattern consistent with the idea that waiting in limbo dampens refugee employment through psychological discouragement, rather than a skill atrophy mechanism. Overall, our results suggest that marginally reducing the asylum waiting period can help reduce public expenditures and unlock the economic potential of refugees by increasing employment among this vulnerable population

Interferometric and Holographic Imaging of Surface-Breaking Cracks

Two advanced nondestructive evaluation systems are developed for imaging surface-breaking cracks in aerospace materials. The systems use scanning heterodyne interferometry and frequency-translated holography principles to image ultrasonic displacement fields on material surfaces with high resolution and sensitivity. Surface-breaking cracks are detected and characterized by visualizing near-field ultrasonic scattering processes, which in turn results in local intensification of ultrasonic displacement fields in the immediate vicinity of a crack. The local intensification permits cracks to be easily distinguished from background levels, and creates unique displacement field images that follow the contours and morphology of the cracks with microscopic precision. The interferometric and holographic imaging approaches each provide noncontact and near optical-diffraction-limited measurement capabilities that are essential for probing ultrasonic displacement fields in the immediate vicinity of cracks. Several representative crack-imaging results are provided, along with detailed descriptions of both experimental techniques, and the capabilities and limitations of each method. The resulting systems provide simple yet very powerful tools for evaluating surface-breaking cracks in detail