Terra Populus: Workflows for Integrating and Harmonizing Geospatial Population and Environmental Data

The Terra Populus project (TerraPop) addresses a variety of data management, curation, and preservation challenges with respect to spatiotemporal population and environmental data. In this article, we describe our approaches to these challenges, with a particular focus on geospatial data workflows and associated provenance metadata. The goal of TerraPop is to enable research, learning, and policy analysis by providing integrated spatiotemporal data describing people and their environment. To do so, TerraPop is assembling a globe-spanning and temporally extensive collection of high-quality population and environmental data, ensuring good documentation, and developing a Web-based data access system that enables users to assemble customized integrated data sets drawing on a variety of data sources and formats. We describe TerraPop's collection strategies, detail the geospatial workflows involved in preparing data for ingest into the project database and those used to transform data across formats for dissemination, and discuss the system used to capture and manage provenance metadata throughout the project. A key aspect of the project is the development of global current and historical administrative unit boundaries that can be linked to census data. These boundaries serve as the linchpin of TerraPop's data integration strategy, and constitute an important data set in their own right.     

The match demands of international rugby sevens

The purpose of this study was to quantify the global match demands of international rugby sevens and to compare the match demands of forwards and backs, and between tournament rounds. To assess the match demands, global positioning system (GPS) and video analysis were collected from 27 international rugby sevens players from the same team across an entire International Rugby Board Sevens World Series season. Differences in running demands and match activities between forwards and backs were mostly trivial and small (ES = 0.05–0.84) while differences in running demands and match activities between Pool and Cup rounds were trivial (ES = 0.001–0.12). Cup round matches showed an increase in long-duration ball-in-play sequences (proportion ratio 0.46). These findings suggest international rugby sevens forwards and backs experience similar match demands while overall match demands remain consistent across tournament rounds.     

Materials and techniques: Early Buddhist wall paintings and sculptures at Sumda Chun,Ladakh

An assemblage of Buddhist wall paintings and sculptures dating to the twelfth/early thirteenth century are found distributed over the interiors of the temple complex at Sumda Chun, Ladakh. Detailed investigations carried out as part of a conservation project shed light on their antiquity and production technology. The sculptures are constructed with fine mud mortar applied over a wooden armature and affixed to the walls without any support from the ground. In both the sculptures and wall paintings, the paint layer is applied over a thin gypsum ground that functions as a white colourant where unpainted. For the paint layer, azurite, vermilion, and orpiment are the dominant mineral pigments utilized. Minium (red lead) has been used for preparatory drawings and as paint. Highlighting of special areas was achieved using a laminate of tin–lead alloy and gold on relief. Overall the material and techniques employed in the execution of the wall paintings and sculptures are consistent with those reported for other early sites in the region.     

The Undressed Newsroom

Rapidly changing working conditions in recent years, along with the need to reduce the costs of news production, require journalists to adapt. Our suggestion here is that many of the research methods for analysing journalists' work environments to date are no longer sufficient for capturing this ongoing change. In searching for new approaches to analysis of the journalistic environment, we decided to apply visual ethnography, a method not yet used in the Czech Republic and not much used in the world beyond. For our pilot study of Czech newsrooms, we worked with both photographs taken of the journalists involved in our project and photographs taken by our research team (photographs showed both journalists' working conditions and working processes). We then interviewed the journalists about the photographs and more widely about their working practices and conditions. This paper presents the results of the research but also considers the advantages and challenges of the visual ethnographic approach and its implementation in media environments.     

Effect of Resveratrol and Nicotine on PON1 Gene Expression: In Vitro Study

Dietary and lifestyle factors have been shown to have a profound effect on paraoxonase-1 (PON1) activity. Cigarette smoke has been shown to inhibit its mass and activity where as resveratrol has been shown to enhance it. We exposed hepatoma derived cell line (HepG2) to resveratrol and nicotine in varying doses and measured PON1 enzymatic activity and PON1 gene expression. In addition, total protein content of HepG2 cells was also measured. Resveratrol in a dose of 15 μmol/l or above significantly increased the PON1 enzyme activity (p > 0.001) where as nicotine in a dose of 1 μmol/l or higher significantly reduced it (p < 0.05). The resveratrol in this dose also enhanced the PON1 gene expression whereas nicotine decreased it as compared to controls. However, the protein conent of cells was not changed suggesting that they were not cytotoxic in the doses used. Till date the antioxidant vitamins have shown disappointing results against LDL oxidation and cardiovascular protection. However, the effect of resveratrol on PON1 gene expression and activity was significant, suggesting increase in PON1 activity and enhanced gene expression may be its alternative mechanism for offering protection against cardiovascular disease and may be an potential pharmacological agent which can be used for this.     

Solitary and Collaborative Pretense Play in Early Childhood: Sources of Individual Variation in the Development of Representational Competence

This study evaluates sources of individual variation in child pretense play as an expression of emerging mental representation. Family sociodemographic characteristics, maternal personological characteristics, and maternal affective and cognitive play behaviors, as well as children's gender, language competence, and play, were examined simultaneously. Naturalistic child solitary play and child collaborative play with mother were videorecorded in 141 20–month-olds. Child solitary play, child-initiated and mother-initiated collaborative play with mother, and maternal demonstrations and solicitations of play were then coded into nonsymbolic and symbolic acts. Zero-order relations obtained between child play and, respectively, child gender and language, family SES, and maternal verbal intelligence, personality, physical affection, and play demonstrations and solicitations. Structural equation modeling supported the following unique predictive relations: Child language and mothers' symbolic play positively influenced child collaborative play, and child gender and mothers' verbal intelligence predicted child solitary play. Child gender and mothers' verbal intelligence and physical affection influenced mothers' play and so influenced child collaborative play indirectly. The cognitive advantages of child play and maternal influences on child play are placed in an adaptive parenting framework.     

Modifying vocational education curricula to accommodate handicapped learners: combining the efforts of special and vocational teachers

A systems approach to modifying existing vocational curricula to meet the needs of handicapped learners is presented. The roles of both special and vocational educators at each level of the modification process are discussed, together with the process as it is applied to a component of agricultural education. A significant amount of instructional technology is necessary to successfully integrate many handicapped learners into the regular vocational education environment: vocational education for handicapped persons needs to move from the stage of awareness to that of implementation.     

Managing and leveraging knowledge for organisational advantage

This paper focuses on two elements of process knowledge that we call sticky and fluid knowledge. Process knowledge, we argue, differs from the more commonly described tacit or explicit knowledge due to its domain specificity. Process knowledge is a potential source of competitive advantage for an organisation and is key to the development of intellectual capital for an organisation. Knowledge management is the operational means of delivering this intellectual capital value. From empirical research conducted, two cases are presented that illustrate process knowledge and its value and exploitation for the development of intellectual capital. The findings emphasise the necessity for a multiplicity of means for process knowledge transfer in order to ensure the widest possible distribution. In particular, in order to ensure that sticky process knowledge is transformed into fluid process knowledge, it is recommended that, communities and face2face discussions supplement knowledge exchanges via electronic networks.     

A study of thyroid status in hyperemesis gravidarum

Study was undertaken to assess thyroid status in hyperemesis gravidarum. 150 women pregnant with <20 weeks of gestation were selected randomly and out of these 100 women presenting with hyperemesis formed study group while 50 normal pregnant women served as controls. 53% of hyperemetic pregnant women were primigravidae and 82% of pregnant women presented with vomiting at less than 12 weeks of gestation. Statistically significant, 22% of hyperemetic women had increased serum T₃ levels while T₄ levels were increased in 67% of women in study group as compared to 8% and 16% respectively in control group. TSH levels were decreased in 18% of hyperemetic women as compared to 8% in control group with decrease in mean TSH level statistically significant. 22% of hyperemetic women had electrolyte disturbances and 7% were ketonuric. In clinically euthyroid women, biochemically altered thyroid function can attribute to vomiting and its prolongation to second trimester     

Computer Manipulatives in an Ordinary Differential Equations Course: Development, Implementation, and Assessment

The d’Arbeloff Interactive Mathematics Project or d’AIMP is an initiative that seeks to enhance and ultimately transform the teaching and learning of introductory mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A result of this project is a suite of “mathlets,” a carefully developed set of dynamic computer applets for use in the university’s ordinary differential equations course. In this paper, we present the rationale for such computer innovations, the philosophy behind their design, as well as a discussion of their careful development and implementation. Survey results are reported which yielded positive student feedback and suggestions for improvement.