bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Partnerships between University and Adult Education Providers
Authors: Witte Maria Martinez , Ahmed Azzam Abd-El Naby , Witte James E.
Published: August 2013

Lifelong learning can be enhanced through the establishment of academic and societal community partnerships. Adults face a multitude of challenges and roles that impact their ability to succeed in a teaching and learning environment. The motivation to pursue learning experiences will also vary and needs to be accounted for when working with the individual adult education learner. Post-secondary institutions can serve to bridge education, research, training, and service to the community. This chapter discusses current practices and advances within partnerships that have been established between university and adult education providers.
Digital Citizenship Instruction in K-20 Education
Authors: Farmer Lesley S. J.
Published: August 2013

As technology advances, so do the techniques for abusing it. While traditional crime has not increased in some countries, cyber crime is becoming increasingly common and steadily growing. One of the duties of educators is to teach the learning community about digital citizenship so everyone can understand, address, and prevent technology abuse. This chapter defines digital citizenship, discusses its ramifications on individuals and the learning community at large, and recommends strategies for digital citizenship education.
A Qualitative Research Approach for the Investigation and Evaluation of Adult Users’ Participation Factors through Collaborative E-Learning Activities in the Virtual World of “Second Life”
Authors: Nikolaos Pellas , Ioannis Kazanidis
Published: August 2013

In the last thirty years, participation factors have particularly attracted the interest of Adult Education researchers, and it could be said that this is probably one of the most discussed topics in this field. Hence, “participation theories” that relate organized educational activities can give a logical explanation for the complexity and multifactor nature of adult leading to educational practices. In these circumstances, the chapter presents recent findings of a qualitative research effort, conducted in the virtual world of Second Life (SL). This premise is recapitulated in an attempt to illuminate the theme of trainee users’ broad participation in collaborative e-learning activities based on the interpretive framework of “adults’ participation theories” that can interpret the motivational factors, recommended from McGivney (1993). The value-added effect helps one to understand the mobilization of different adults’ perspectives and thoroughly enunciate the key factors that influence the decision to participate in teamwork activities.
The Perceived Work Ethic of K-12 Teachers by Grade Level Taught (K-6, 7-9, 10-12)
Authors: Petty Gregory C.
Published: August 2013

Most professional educators agree that K – 20 educators have difficult jobs. However, there has been little research conducted on whether the work ethic of teachers of the different grade levels is common to all levels of teachers. Knowledge of any differences could affect training strategies and educational practices. The science of pedagogy implies that all teaching structures and curriculum are the same for teaching children. However, this chapter shows that there are significant differences between teachers of kindergarten through sixth grade from their counterparts teaching seventh grade through twelfth grade. Specific components that are the result of a factor analysis reveal definitive work ethic constructs that differ between levels of teachers. This information could be used to develop more appropriate curriculum for teachers at all levels of teaching.
Teaching and Learning to Communicate
Authors: Benton Cynthia J. , Lawrence Kathleen A.
Published: August 2013

Effective presentation skills and communication competence are important developmental qualities for teachers’ professional success and K-12 students’ learning. Yet identifying the definitive qualities and methods to practice and evaluate those skills has had minimal emphasis in current education programs. In addition to traditional abilities such as making clear presentations, speaking well, and articulating an argument, K-20 learners are faced with an explosion of options for accessing, organizing, and presenting information using technology. This study documents methods for college-level instruction and assessment of presentation skills, which serve as evidence of preservice teachers' readiness to demonstrate effective communication skills for K-12 student learning. The report summarized in this chapter tracks two years of creating and evaluating methods for promoting professional presentation and communication skills, and includes rubrics focused on the development and evaluation of those skills.
K-20 Learning along a Novice to Expert Continuum in Online Learning Environments
Authors: Carbonara David D.
Published: August 2013

Online learning environments are offered in many modalities for many subjects. Students enter the environment as a novice and hopefully exit as more of an expert. The environment could be designed under a technological pedagogical content knowledge paradigm that uses specific technologies to present specific information to the student. Problem solving activities are embedded in the learning to provide experiences for the student to assimilate and accommodate the knowledge and to use it to solve authentic problems. As the problems increase in complexity, one can measure the growth of knowledge along a novice to expert continuum.
Recent Advances in Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Authors: Rodrigues Joel J. P. C. , João Pedro F. N. , Díez Isabel de la Torre
Published: August 2013

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) include interactive applications with some intelligence that supports the learning process. Some of ITS have had a very large impact on educational outcomes in field tests, and they have provided an important ground for artificial intelligence research. This chapter elaborates on recent advances in ITS and includes a case study presenting an ITS called EduTutor. This system was created for the Web-Based Aulanet Learning Management System (LMS). It focuses on subjects for the first cycle of studies of the Portuguese primary education system, between the first and the fourth year. It facilitates the perception of the learning process of each student, individually, in a virtual environment, as a study guide. Moreover, EduTutor has been designed and its architecture prepared for being easily integrated into higher levels of studies, different subjects, and several languages. Currently, it is used in the Aulanet LMS platform.
In the Nexus
Authors: Eichler Matthew , Boden-McGill Carrie J.
Published: August 2013

The higher education landscape is facing a time of unprecedented challenges, and public higher education is under pressure to provide value relative to rising costs. In this chapter, the authors discuss one strategy to respond to these trends and to meet the needs of students through the implementation of learning pods, which are small geographically oriented teams working on individual learning projects as self-directed communities of scholars. The theoretical underpinnings for learning pods come from best-practices in the communities of practice, novice to expert, self-directed learning, relational cultural theory, and mentoring literature. The learning pods approach is versatile and could be adapted for many K-20 and professional practice settings and is a good example of how the combinations of technology and in-person meetings serve the needs of 21st Century learners. Learning pods provide an environment for students to develop skills such as reflection, teamwork, and networking that are vital to success in the modern workplace.
The Visualization of a Critical Element in K-20 Learning
Authors: Risley Lori M.
Published: August 2013

This chapter addresses the necessity of a clearer understanding of the critical element of trust in all learning environments. Research on educational trust is limited, with research on trust from the learner’s perspective almost non-existent. Recent doctoral dissertation research provides a model of a trusting facilitator. This chapter presents result from that study, presenting results of a survey assessing the learners’ perspective of the facilitators’ trust and a new instrument to determine the presence of trust in the learning environment. The purpose in this chapter is to call attention to the elemental phenomenon of trust, to encourage individual reflection, to endorse trust from the learners’ perspective including continued research and implementation of trust into all educational environments.
The Changing Mission and Nature of Partnerships in Public Universities
Authors: Russo Marianne Robin , Brittain Kristin
Published: August 2013

Reasons for public education are many; however, to crystalize and synthesize this, quite simply, public education is for the public good. The goal, or mission, of public education is to offer truth and enlightenment for students, including adult learners. Public education in the United States has undergone many changes over the course of the last 200 years, and now public education is under scrutiny and is facing a continual lack of funding from the states. It is due to these issues that public higher education is encouraging participatory corporate partnerships, or neo-partnerships, that will fund the university, but may expect a return on investment for private shareholders, or an expectation that curriculum will be contrived and controlled by the neo-partnerships. A theoretical framework of an academic mission and a business mission is explained, the impact of privatization within the K-12 model on public higher education, the comparison of traditional and neo-partnerships, the shift in public higher education towards privatization, a discussion of university boards, and the business model as the new frame for a public university. A public university will inevitably have to choose between a traditional academic mission that has served the nation for quite some time and the new business mission, which may have negative implications for students, academic freedom, tenure, and faculty-developed curriculum.
Engaging Students in a Large Classroom and Distance Environment
Authors: Hamilton William R. , Padron Victor A. , Henriksen Jennifer A.
Published: August 2013

The economic climate is pushing educational institutions toward larger class sizes and distance education. As both physical and virtual class sizes increase, the use of active learning becomes a challenge. The authors report a decade-long experience converting students from passive to active learners in a large classroom with an asynchronous distance component. As class size increases and a distance pathway is added, the foundational pedagogy, technology, active learning strategies, the integration of distance and campus pathways, and the teaching of intangibles are recounted. This chapter describes a model that achieves a reasonable, efficient, learner-centered, delivery of an educational experience.
Determinants of Behavioral Intention to Mobile Banking in Arab Culture
Authors: Rashed Abdullah , Santos Henrique M.D.
Published: August 2013

Nowadays, new tools and technologies are emerging rapidly. They are often used cross-culturally before being tested for suitability and validity. However, they would be validated to ensure that they work with all users, not just part of them. Mobile banking (as a new technology tool) has been introduced assuming that it performs well concerning authentication among all members of the society. We aim to validate mobile banking intention to use, through Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), focused on security, in Arabic countries, namely Yemen. The results confirm the previous studies that have shown the importance of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness.
Mobile Accessibility in Touchscreen Devices
Authors: Çalışkan Volkan , Öztürk Özgürol , Rızvanoğlu Kerem
Published: August 2013

Mobile technology is a new frontier for accessibility. Although mobile developers need solid guidelines to provide accessible experiences, there is a limited number of empirical research on mobile accessibility of different mobile platforms that work through various assistive technologies. In this context, more information is needed to understand both usage patterns and hardware/software platforms to guide decisions to meet the needs of people with disabilities who use mobile devices. This study, which is a pilot study of a long-term research, evaluates the accessibility of selected built-in and third party iOS applications in the iPhone and iPad through an extensive accessibility test with two blind users who are novice users of touchscreen mobile devices. This qualitative study is based on a multi-method approach, which consists of a background questionnaire, task observation, and a structured debriefing interview. The study also employs observation methods of data collection in order to gain better insight in mobile accessibility. The participants are demanded to execute three different tasks on each platform by using VoiceOver, which is the built-in screen reader in iOS. The participants are observed during the task executions and the “think aloud” procedure and video recording of the participants collected additional data. A short debriefing interview was also made to gain a detailed insight into the user experience. The findings reveal significant accessibility problems caused specifically by design of the graphical user interface features of the applications and limitations of the screen reader. Finally, as part of future research directions, preliminary guidelines are proposed to improve accessibility for iOS applications in both platforms.
ConChi
Authors: Cagliero Luca
Published: August 2013

Mobile context-aware systems focus on adapting mobile service provisions to the actual user needs. They offer personalized services based on the context in which mobile users’ requests have been submitted. Since contextual information changes over time, the application of established itemset change mining algorithms to context-aware data is an appealing research issue. Change itemset discovery focuses on discovering patterns which represent the temporal evolution of frequent itemsets in consecutive time periods. However, the sparseness of the analyzed data may bias the extraction process, because itemsets are likely to become infrequent at certain time periods. This chapter presents ConChI, a novel context-aware system that performs change itemset mining from context-aware data with the aim at supporting mobile expert decisions. To counteract data sparseness itemset change mining is driven by an analyst-provided taxonomy which allows analyzing data correlation changes at different abstraction levels. In particular, taxonomy is exploited to represent the knowledge that becomes infrequent in certain time periods by means of high level (generalized) itemsets. Experiments performed on real contextual data coming from a mobile application show the effectiveness of the proposed system in supporting mobile user and service profiling.
Using Information Retrieval for Interaction with Mobile Devices
Authors: Ali YUKSEL Kamer
Published: August 2013

Future's environments will be sensitive and responsive to the presence of people to support them carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals, in an easy and natural way. Such interactive spaces will use the information and communication technologies to bring the computation into the physical world in order to enhance ordinary activities of their users. Human-computer interaction (HCI) and information retrieval (IR) fields have both developed innovative techniques to address the challenge of navigating complex information spaces, but their insights have often failed to cross-disciplinary borders. Human-computer information retrieval (HCIR) has emerged in academic research and industry practice to bring together research in the fields of IR and HCI, in order to create new kinds of search systems that depend on continuous human control of the search process. HCIR is the study of information retrieval techniques that bring human intelligence into the search process. This chapter will describe search-based interaction techniques using two human-computer interaction information retrieval systems: (1) a speech-based spoken multimedia retrieval system that can be used to present relevant video-podcast (vodcast) footage in response to spontaneous speech and conversations during daily life activities, and (2) a novel shape retrieval technique that allows 3D modeling of indoor/outdoor environments using multi-view sketch input from a mobile device.
Eliciting People’s Conceptual Models of Activities and Systems
Authors: Blandford Ann
Published: August 2013

People using computer systems are required to work with the concepts implemented by system developers. If there is a poor fit between system concepts and users’ pre-existing conceptualisation of domain and task, this places a high workload on the user as they translate between their own conceptualisation and that imposed by the system. The focus of this paper is on how to identify users’ conceptualisations of a domain – ideally, prior to system implementation. For this, it is necessary to gather verbal data from people that allows them to articulate their conceptual models in ways that are not overly constrained by existing devices but allows them to articulate taken-for-granted knowledge. Possible study types include semi-structured interviews, contextual inquiry interviews and think-aloud protocols. The authors discuss how to design a study, covering choosing between different kinds of study, detailed planning of questions and tasks, data gathering, and preliminary data analysis.
Towards Scalingless Generation of Formal Contexts from an Ontology in a Triple Store
Authors: Dau Frithjof
Published: August 2013

The EU-funded research project CUBIST investigates how Formal Concept Analysis can be applied as a Visual Analytics tool on top of information stored in a Triple Store (TS). This paper provides first steps for utilizing SPARQL in order to generate formal contexts out of the data in the TS, where the emphasis is put on using object-properties between individuals. Thus it complements FcaBedrock, which will be used in CUBIST as well and focuses on the scaling of datatype-properties between individuals and literals. It is discussed how the approaches of this paper and FcaBedrock can be combined.
From Existential Graphs to Conceptual Graphs
Authors: Sowa John F.
Published: August 2013

Existential graphs (EGs) are a simple, readable, and expressive graphic notation for logic. Conceptual graphs (CGs) combine a logical foundation based on EGs with features of the semantic networks used in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. CG design principles address logical, linguistic, and cognitive requirements: a formal semantics defined by the ISO standard for Common Logic; the flexibility to support the expressiveness, context dependencies, and metalevel commentary of natural language; and cognitively realistic operations for reasoning by induction, deduction, abduction, and analogy. To accommodate the vagueness and ambiguities of natural language, informal heuristics can supplement the formal semantics. With sufficient background knowledge and a clarifying dialog, informal graphs can be refined to any degree of precision. Peirce claimed that the rules for reasoning with EGs generate “a moving picture of the action of the mind in thought.” Some philosophers and psychologists agree: Peirce’s diagrams and rules are a good candidate for a natural logic that reflects the neural processes that support thought and language. They are psychologically realistic and computationally efficient.
CGs to FCA Including Peirce's Cuts
Authors: Polovina Simon , Andrews Simon
Published: August 2013

Previous work has demonstrated a straightforward mapping from Conceptual Graphs (CGs) to Formal Concept Analysis (FCA), and the combined benefits these types of Conceptual Structures bring in capturing and reasoning about the semantics in system design. As in that work, a CGs Transaction Model (or `Transaction Graph') exemplar is used, but in the form of a richer Financial Trading (FT) case study that has its business rules visualised in Peirce's cuts. The FT case study highlights that cuts can meaningfully be included in the CGs to FCA mapping. Accordingly, the case study's CGs Transaction Graph with its cuts is translated into a form suitable for the CGtoFCA algorithm described in that previous work. The process is tested through the CG-FCA software that implements the CGtoFCA algorithm. The algorithm describes how a Conceptual Graph (CG), represented by triples of the form source-concept, relation, target-concept can be transformed into a set of binary relations of the form target-concept, source-conceptnrelation thus creating a formal context in FCA. Cuts though can now be included in the same formal, rigorous, reproducible and general way. The mapping develops the Transaction Graph into a Transaction Concept, capturing and unifying the features of Conceptual Structures that CGs and FCA collectively embody.
The Tetraspanin CD63 Is Required for Efficient IgE-Mediated Mast Cell Degranulation and Anaphylaxis
Authors: Kraft Stefan , Jouvin Marie-Hélène , Kulkarni Nitin , Kissing Sandra , Morgan Ellen S. , Dvorak Ann M. , Schröder Bernd , Saftig Paul , Kinet Jean-Pierre
Published: August 2013

Mast cell (MC) activation through the high-affinity IgE receptor FcεRI leads to the release of mediators involved in immediate-type allergic reactions. Although Abs against the tetraspanins CD63 and CD81 inhibit FcεRI-induced MC degranulation, the intrinsic role of these molecules in FcεRI-induced MC activation is unknown. In MCs, CD63 is expressed at the cell surface and in lysosomes (particularly secretory lysosomes that contain allergic mediators). In this study, we investigated the role of CD63 in MC using a CD63 knockout mouse model. CD63-deficiency did not affect in vivo MC numbers and tissue distribution. Bone marrow–derived MC developed normally in the absence of CD63 protein. However, CD63-deficient bone marrow–derived MC showed a significant decrease in FcεRI-mediated degranulation, but not PMA/ionomycin-induced degranulation, as shown by β-hexosaminidase release assays. The secretion of TNF-α, which is both released from granules and synthesized de novo upon MC activation, was also decreased. IL-6 secretion and production of the lipid mediator leukotriene C4 were unaffected. There were no ultrastructural differences in granule content and morphology, late endosomal/lysosomal marker expression, FcεRI-induced global tyrosine phosphorylation, and Akt phosphorylation. Finally, local reconstitution in genetically MC-deficient Kitw/w-v mice was unaffected by the absence of CD63. However, the sites reconstituted with CD63-deficient MC developed significantly attenuated cutaneous anaphylactic reactions. These findings demonstrate that the absence of CD63 results in a significant decrease of MC degranulation, which translates into a reduction of acute allergic reactions in vivo, thus identifying CD63 as an important component of allergic inflammation.
Targeting of Autoantigens to DEC205+ Dendritic Cells In Vivo Suppresses Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis in Mice
Authors: Ring Sabine , Maas Michael , Nettelbeck Dirk M. , Enk Alexander H. , Mahnke Karsten
Published: August 2013

The dendritic and epithelial cell receptor with a m.w. of 205 kDa (DEC205) is expressed by dendritic cells (DCs) and facilitates Ag presentation. After injection of Ags coupled to Abs specific for DEC205 into mice, Ag presentation occurs by nonactivated DCs, which leads to induction of regulatory T cells (Tregs). To test this system for tolerance induction in experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), we created single-chain fragment variables (scFv) specific for DEC205 and fused the scFv to the self-Ag myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG; scFv DEC:MOG). An anti–β-galactosidase scFv:MOG fusion protein (scFv GL117:MOG) served as isotype control. After staining of DCs in vitro with purified scFv DEC:MOG, binding to DCs and colocalization with MHC class II was apparent, whereas isotype controls did not bind. We next injected scFv DEC:MOG into mice and observed elevated numbers of highly activated, IL-10–producing CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ Tregs (17% of CD4) in spleens, as compared with isotype controls and uninjected mice (12% of CD4). Furthermore, DCs isolated from scFv DEC:MOG-injected animals produced significantly increased levels of TGF-β. Most importantly, when EAE was induced in scFv DEC:MOG-injected mice, 90% of the mice were protected from EAE, whereas all mice in the isotype controls (scFv GL117:MOG) experienced development of EAE. When applying scFv DEC:MOG to mice that had already experienced EAE symptoms, abrogation of the disease in 90% of the animals was apparent, whereas all animals in the control groups experienced development of severe EAE. Thus, these data indicate that targeting of MOG to “steady-state” DCs in vivo may provide a tool to prevent and to treat EAE by a DC/Treg-driven mechanism.
Assessing the impact of sea-level rise on a vulnerable coastal community in Accra, Ghana
Authors: Appeaning Addo Kwasi , Adeyemi Michael
Published: August 2013

Climate change and its associated sea-level rise are expected to significantly affect vulnerable coastal communities. Although the extent of the impact will be localised, its assessment will adopt a monitoring approach that applies globally. The topography of the beach, the type of geological material and the level of human intervention will determine the extent of the area to be flooded and the rate at which the shoreline will move inland. Gleefe, a coastal community in Ghana, has experienced frequent flooding in recent times due to the increasing occurrence of storm surge and sea-level rise. This study used available geospatial data and field measurements to determine how the beach topography has contributed to the incidence of flooding at Gleefe. The topography is generally low-lying. Sections of the beach have elevations of around 1 m, which allows seawater to move inland during very high tide. Accelerated sea-level rise as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will destroy homes of the inhabitants and inundate the Densu wetlands behind the beach. Destruction of infrastructure will render the inhabitants homeless, whilst flooding of the wetlands will destroy the habitats of migratory birds and some endangered wildlife species such as marine turtle. Effective adaptation measures should be adopted to protect this very important coastal environment, the ecology of the wetlands and the livelihoods of the community dwellers.
L-Tryptophan Metabolism in Pregnant Mice Fed a High L-Tryptophan Diet and the Effect on Maternal, Placental, and Fetal Growth
Authors: Tsuji Ai , Nakata Chifumi , Sano Mitsue , Fukuwatari Tsutomu , Shibata Katsumi
Published: August 2013

Excess L-tryptophan (L-Trp) in the diet decreases fetal body weight. However, the relationship between L-Trp concentration and its effects on maternal, placental, and fetal growth are not well-understood. We investigated the effects of excess L-Trp intake on maternal, placental, and fetal growth. Female mice were fed a 20% casein diet (control diet) or control diet plus 2% or 5% L-Trp during gestation. Pup weights did not differ between the control (L-Trp intake: 0.04 g/kg body weight (BW)/day) and 2% L-Trp groups (L-Trp intake: 3.3 g/kg BW/day), but were significantly lower in the 5% L-Trp group (L-Trp intake: 7.0 g/kg BW/day) than in the control and 2% L-Trp groups. These results show that less than 3.3 g/kg BW/day L-Trp intake in pregnant mice during gestation does not affect fetal growth or L-Trp homeostasis in the placenta or fetus.
Influence of observed diurnal cycles of aerosol optical depth on aerosol direct radiative effect
Authors: Arola A. , Eck T. F. , Huttunen J. , Lehtinen K. E. J. , Lindfors A. V. , Myhre G. , Smirnov A. , Tripathi S. N. , Yu H.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. The diurnal variability of aerosol optical depth (AOD) can be significant, depending on location and dominant aerosol type. However, these diurnal cycles have rarely been taken into account in measurement-based estimates of aerosol direct radiative forcing (ADRF) or aerosol direct radiative effect (ADRE). The objective of our study was to estimate the influence of diurnal aerosol variability at the top of the atmosphere ADRE estimates. By including all the possible AERONET sites, we wanted to assess the influence on global ADRE estimates. While focusing also in more detail on some selected sites of strongest impact, our goal was to also see the possible impact regionally. We calculated ADRE with different assumptions about the daily AOD variability: taking the observed daily AOD cycle into account and assuming diurnally constant AOD. Moreover, we estimated the corresponding differences in ADREs, if the single AOD value for the daily mean was taken from the the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Terra or Aqua overpass times, instead of accounting for the true observed daily variability. The mean impact of diurnal AOD variability on 24 h ADRE estimates, averaged over all AERONET sites, was rather small and it was relatively small even for the cases when AOD was chosen to correspond to the Terra or Aqua overpass time. This was true on average over all AERONET sites, while clearly there can be much stronger impact in individual sites. Examples of some selected sites demonstrated that the strongest observed AOD variability (the strongest morning afternoon contrast) does not typically result in a significant impact on 24 h ADRE. In those cases, the morning and afternoon AOD patterns are opposite and thus the impact on 24 h ADRE, when integrated over all solar zenith angles, is reduced. The most significant effect on daily ADRE was induced by AOD cycles with either maximum or minimum AOD close to local noon. In these cases, the impact on 24 h ADRE was typically around 0.1–0.2 W m−2 (both positive and negative) in absolute values, 5–10% in relative ones.
Nadir airborne lidar observations of deep aerosol layers
Authors: Marenco F.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. The observation of deep and optically thick aerosol layers by a nadir-pointing lidar poses a challenge in terms of the signal inversion into a geophysically meaningful quantity such as extinction coefficient. A far-end reference molecular layer will usually be unavailable if the observed layer is near the surface, and using a near-end reference results in an unstable mathematical solution. In this paper, it is demonstrated that a far-end reference, taken within the aerosol layer, yields a better solution, and that the influence of the reference reduces strongly when coming inward, so that 1–2 km above reference the solution can be trusted. A method is developed to set the reference using the assumption of a well-mixed layer near the surface, and its effect is tested on data collected during recent aircraft-based campaigns. The method is also tested on simulated profiles in order to verify its limits and accuracy. The assumption of a well-mixed layer can be relaxed if one is able to set the reference well within a layer rather than at its boundaries.
Carbon balance of a partially harvested mixed conifer forest following mountain pine beetle attack and its comparison to a clear-cut
Authors: Mathys A. , Black T. A. , Nesic Z. , Nishio G. , Brown M. , Spittlehouse D. L. , Fredeen A. L. , Bowler R. , Jassal R. S. , Grant N. J. , Burton P. J. , Trofymow J. A. , Meyer G.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. The recent mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreak has had an impact on the carbon (C) cycling of lodgepole pine forests in British Columbia. This study examines how partial harvesting as a forest management response to MPB infestation affects the net ecosystem production (NEP) of a mixed conifer forest (MPB-09) in Interior BC. MPB-09 is a 70-year-old stand that was partially harvested in 2009 after it had been attacked by MPB. Using the eddy-covariance technique, the C dynamics of the stand were studied over two years and compared to an adjacent clear-cut (MPB-09C) over the summertime. The annual NEP at MPB-09 increased from −108 g C m−2 in 2010 to −57 g C m−2 in 2011. The increase of NEP was due to the associated increase in annual gross ecosystem photosynthesis (GEP) from 812 g C m−2 in 2010 to 954 g C m−2 in 2011, exceeding the increase in annual respiration (Re) from 920 g C m−2 to 1011 g C m−2 during the two years. During the four month period between June and September 2010, NEP at MPB-09C was −103 g C m−2, indicating high C losses in the clear-cut. MPB-09 was a C sink during the growing season of both years, increasing from 9 g C m−2 in 2010 to 47 g C m−2 in 2011. The increase of NEP in the partially harvested stand amounted to a recovery corresponding to a 26% increase in the maximum assimilation rate in the second year. This study shows that retaining the healthy residual forest can result in higher C sequestration of MPB-attacked stands compared to clear-cut harvesting.
Impacts of trait variation through observed trait–climate relationships on performance of an Earth system model: a conceptual analysis
Authors: Verheijen L. M. , Brovkin V. , Aerts R. , Bönisch G. , Cornelissen J. H. C. , Kattge J. , Reich P. B. , Wright I. J. , van Bodegom P. M.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. In many current dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs), including those incorporated into Earth system models (ESMs), terrestrial vegetation is represented by a small number of plant functional types (PFTs), each with fixed properties irrespective of their predicted occurrence. This contrasts with natural vegetation, in which many plant traits vary systematically along geographic and environmental gradients. In the JSBACH DGVM, which is part of the MPI-ESM, we allowed three traits (specific leaf area (SLA), maximum carboxylation rate at 25 °C (Vcmax25) and maximum electron transport rate at 25 °C (Jmax25)) to vary within PFTs via trait–climate relationships based on a large trait database. The R2adjusted of these relationships were up to 0.83 and 0.71 for Vcmax25 and Jmax25, respectively. For SLA, more variance remained unexplained, with a maximum R2adjusted of 0.40. Compared to the default simulation, allowing trait variation within PFTs resulted in gross primary productivity differences of up to 50% in the tropics, in > 35% different dominant vegetation cover, and a closer match with a natural vegetation map. The discrepancy between default trait values and natural trait variation, combined with the substantial changes in simulated vegetation properties, together emphasize that incorporating climate-driven trait variation, calibrated on observational data and based on ecological concepts, allows more variation in vegetation responses in DGVMs and as such is likely to enable more reliable projections in unknown climates.
Late Holocene summer temperatures in the central Andes reconstructed from the sediments of high-elevation Laguna Chepical, Chile (32° S)
Authors: de Jong R. , von Gunten L. , Maldonado A. , Grosjean M.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. High-resolution reconstructions of climate variability that cover the past millennia are necessary to improve the understanding of natural and anthropogenic climate change across the globe. Although numerous records are available for the mid- and high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, global assessments are still compromised by the scarcity of data from the Southern Hemisphere. This is particularly the case for the tropical and subtropical areas. In addition, high elevation sites in the South American Andes may provide insight into the vertical structure of climate change in the mid-troposphere. This study presents a 3000 yr-long austral summer (November to February) temperature reconstruction derived from the 210Pb- and 14C-dated organic sediments of Laguna Chepical (32°16' S, 70°30' W, 3050 m a.s.l.), a high-elevation glacial lake in the subtropical Andes of central Chile. Scanning reflectance spectroscopy in the visible light range provided the spectral index R570/R630, which reflects the clay mineral content in lake sediments. For the calibration period (AD 1901–2006), the R570/R630 data were regressed against monthly meteorological reanalysis data, showing that this proxy was strongly and significantly correlated with mean summer (NDJF) temperatures (R3 yr = −0.63, padj = 0.01). This calibration model was used to make a quantitative temperature reconstruction back to 1000 BC. The reconstruction (with a model error RMSEPboot of 0.33 °C) shows that the warmest decades of the past 3000 yr occurred during the calibration period. The 19th century (end of the Little Ice Age (LIA)) was cool. The prominent warmth reconstructed for the 18th century, which was also observed in other records from this area, seems systematic for subtropical and southern South America but remains difficult to explain. Except for this warm period, the LIA was generally characterized by cool summers. Back to AD 1400, the results from this study compare remarkably well to low altitude records from the Chilean Central Valley and southern South America. However, the reconstruction from Laguna Chepical does not show a warm Medieval Climate Anomaly during the 12–13th century, which is consistent with records from tropical South America. The Chepical record also indicates substantial cooling prior to 800 BC. This coincides with well-known regional as well as global glacier advances which have been attributed to a grand solar minimum. This study thus provides insight into the climatic drivers and temperature patterns in a region for which currently very few data are available. It also shows that since ca. AD 1400, long-term temperature patterns were generally similar at low and high altitudes in central Chile.
Towards understanding the dynamic behaviour of floodplains as human-water systems
Authors: Di Baldassarre G. , Kooy M. , Kemerink J. S. , Brandimarte L.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. This paper offers a conceptual approach to explore the complex dynamics of floodplains as fully coupled human-water systems. A number of hydrologists have recently investigated the impact of human activities (such as flood control measures, land-use changes, and settlement patterns) on the frequency and severity of floods. Meanwhile, social scientists have shown how interactions between society and waters in deltas and floodplain areas, including the frequency and severity of floods, have an impact on the ways in which social relations unfold (in terms of governance processes, policies, and institutions) and societies are organised (spatially, politically, and socially). However, we argue that the interactions and associated feedback mechanisms between hydrological and social processes remain largely unexplored and poorly understood. Thus, there is a need to better understand how the institutions and governance processes interact with hydrological processes in deltas and floodplains to influence the frequency and severity of floods, while (in turn) hydrological processes co-constitute the social realm and make a difference for how social relations unfold to shape governance processes and institutions. Our research goal, therefore, is not in identifying one or the other side of the cycle (hydrological or social), but in explaining the relationship between them: how, when, where, and why they interact, and to what result for both social relations and hydrological processes? We argue that long time series of hydrological and social data, along with remote sensing data, can be used to observe floodplain dynamics from unconventional approaches, and understand the complex interactions between water and human systems taking place in floodplain areas, across scales and levels of human impacts, and within different hydro-climatic conditions, socio-cultural settings, and modes of governance.
An evaluation of analytical streambank flux methods and connections to end-member mixing models: a comparison of a new method and traditional methods
Authors: Exner-Kittridge M. , Salinas J. L. , Zessner M.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. In this paper, a novel method for estimating gross gains and losses between streams and groundwater is developed and evaluated against two traditional approaches. These three streambank flux estimation methods are distinct in their assumptions on the spatial distribution of the inflowing and outflowing fluxes along the stream. The two traditional methods assume that the fluxes are independent and in a specific sequence, while the third and newly derived method assumes that both fluxes occur simultaneously and uniformly throughout the stream. The analytic expressions in connection to the underlying assumptions are investigated to evaluate the individual and mutual dynamics of the streambank flux estimation methods and to understand the causes for the different performances. The results show that the three methods produce significantly different results and that the mean absolute normalized error can have up to an order of magnitude difference between the methods. These differences between the streambank flux methods are entirely due to the assumptions of the streambank flux spatial dynamics of the methods, and the performances for a particular approach strongly decrease if its assumptions are not fulfilled. An assessment of the three methods through numerical simulations, representing a variety of streambank flux dynamics, show that the method introduced, considering simultaneous stream gains and losses, presents overall the highest performance. These streambank flux methods can also be used in conjunction with other end-member mixing models to acquire even more hydrologic information as both require the same type of input data.
Hydrological appraisal of operational weather radar rainfall estimates in the context of different modelling structures
Authors: Zhu D. , Xuan Y. , Cluckie I.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. Radar rainfall estimates have become increasingly available for hydrological modellers over recent years, especially for flood forecasting and warning over poorly gauged catchments. However, the impact of using radar rainfall as compared with conventional raingauge inputs, with respect to various hydrological model structures, remains unclear and yet to be addressed. In the study presented by this paper, we analysed the flow simulations of the Upper Medway catchment of Southeast England using the UK NIMROD radar rainfall estimates using three hydrological models based upon three very different structures, e.g. a physically based distributed MIKE SHE model, a lumped conceptual model PDM and an event-based unit hydrograph model PRTF. We focused on the sensitivity of simulations in relation to the storm types and various rainfall intensities. The uncertainty in radar-rainfall estimates, scale effects and extreme rainfall were examined in order to quantify the performance of the radar. We found that radar rainfall estimates were lower than raingauge measurements in high rainfall rates; the resolutions of radar rainfall data had insignificant impact at this catchment scale in the case of evenly distributed rainfall events but was obvious otherwise for high-intensity, localised rainfall events with great spatial heterogeneity. As to hydrological model performance, the distributed model had consistent reliable and good performance on peak simulation with all the rainfall types tested in this study.
Towards the design of monolithic decoupled XYZ compliant parallel mechanisms for multi-function applications
Authors: Hao G.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. This paper deals with the monolithic decoupled XYZ compliant parallel mechanisms (CPMs) for multi-function applications, which can be fabricated monolithically without assembly and has the capability of kinetostatic decoupling. At first, the conceptual design of monolithic decoupled XYZ CPMs is presented using identical spatial compliant multi-beam modules based on a decoupled 3-PPPR parallel kinematic mechanism. Three types of applications: motion/positioning stages, force/acceleration sensors and energy harvesting devices are described in principle. The kinetostatic and dynamic modelling is then conducted to capture the displacements of any stage under loads acting at any stage and the natural frequency with the comparisons with FEA results. Finally, performance characteristics analysis for motion stage applications is detailed investigated to show how the change of the geometrical parameters can affect the performance characteristics, which provides initial optimal estimations. Results show that the smaller thickness of beams and larger dimension of cubic stages can improve the performance characteristics excluding natural frequency under allowable conditions. In order to improve the natural frequency characteristic, a monolithic decoupled configuration that is achieved through employing more beams in the spatial modules or reducing the mass of each cubic stage mass can be adopted. In addition, an isotropic variation with different motion range along each axis and same payload in each leg is proposed. The redundant design for monolithic fabrication is introduced in this paper, which can overcome the drawback of monolithic fabrication that the failed compliant beam is difficult to replace, and extend the CPM's life.
Preparedness actions towards seismic risk mitigation for the general public in Martinique, French Lesser Antilles: a mid-term appraisal
Authors: Audru J. C. , Vernier J. L. , Capdeville B. , Salindre J. J. , Mouly É.
Published: August 2013

Abstract. Martinique is a French island in the Lesser Antilles, with a high seismic hazard. In 2006, Martinican stakeholders involved in seismic safety formed the "Réplik" working group ("Aftershock" in French), the first of its kind in this region. This paper addresses a mid-term appraisal of the first seismic awareness campaign organised by Réplik from 2006 to 2011, and how it has modified, or not, local earthquake and tsunami preparedness. Despite efforts from Réplik to assess its efficiency through surveys, a growing gap is noted between the observed awareness and the actual preparedness of the public. As usual, gender, age, educational level, then boredom and saturation contribute to this discrepancy; strong cultural items may also influence the perception of actions. To remain efficient and respond to the public's expectations, Réplik must redirect its actions towards a cultural congruence of information: consideration of religion and local beliefs, comprehensive messages on TV and radio, use of the Creole language, participatory experiences and drills, and a little science. With this, the Réplik stakeholders can hope to increase Martinicans' involvement into the preparedness process, to cope quickly with a strong earthquake and this know-how can be shared with other seismically active islands in the Caribbean.