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Mathematical Model For Number Dynamics Of Populations With Varying Reproductive Age, Galina Neverova, Efim Frisman Jul 2012

Mathematical Model For Number Dynamics Of Populations With Varying Reproductive Age, Galina Neverova, Efim Frisman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper investigates a two-component model of population dynamicswith seasonal reproduction. Density-dependent regulation is realized by varying thereproductive age. Analytical and numerical research of the model is made, and themodel is approved using data on the natural population number. It is shown that theregulation of reproductive age is realized primarily by the number of matureanimals. The growth of juvenile survival leads to the emergence of biennialoscillation.

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The Use Of Models To Design Pest Suppressive Landscapes For Sustainable Agricultural Practice, Hazel R. Parry, Felix J J A Bianchi, Nancy A. Schellhorn Jul 2012

The Use Of Models To Design Pest Suppressive Landscapes For Sustainable Agricultural Practice, Hazel R. Parry, Felix J J A Bianchi, Nancy A. Schellhorn

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This study integrates field-based survey data with spatially-explicitsimulation modelling to assess the relative benefits of different landscapemanagement strategies for sustainable agricultural practice. We focus on the roleof native vegetation remnants in Australian agricultural landscapes in harbouringpests and beneficial insects for Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Nativevegetation remnants exist in most agricultural regions of Australia, although theirextent and composition varies greatly. Field-based surveys conducted in 2010 and2011 across three states provide important information on source habitats for pestsand natural enemies and their movement between habitats during the croppingseason. Building on this novel information, spatially-explicit simulation models wereconstructed integrating natural enemy life history …

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A Gis-Based Data Analysis Platform For Analyzing The Time-Varying Quality Of Animal Feed And Its Impact On The Environment, A. Taliun, M. Bohlen, A. Bracher, F. Cafagna Jul 2012

A Gis-Based Data Analysis Platform For Analyzing The Time-Varying Quality Of Animal Feed And Its Impact On The Environment, A. Taliun, M. Bohlen, A. Bracher, F. Cafagna

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Swiss Feed Data Warehouse is a public service for companies, farmersand research institutions that provides detailed and up-to-date information about the concentrationof nutrients in animal feed from all across Switzerland. The core of the SwissFeed Data Warehouse is a carefully curated data warehouse with more than 2 millionchemical analyses of 600 feed types and 400 nutrients. The nutrient measurements areenriched with geographical (as postal code and altitude), temporal (as harvesting andanalyses dates), biological (as variety and botanical composition) and technical information(as conservation and production methods). We propose a solution that offers tousers a fast, effective and intuitive approach to …

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Optimising Land Use For Multiple Ecosystem Services Objectives: A Case Study In The Waitakicatchment, New Zealand, Anne-Gaelle Ausseil, Alexander Herzig, John Dymond Jul 2012

Optimising Land Use For Multiple Ecosystem Services Objectives: A Case Study In The Waitakicatchment, New Zealand, Anne-Gaelle Ausseil, Alexander Herzig, John Dymond

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In New Zealand there has been rapid land-use change over the last 170 years, from all natural ecosystems to a mix of natural ecosystems (alpine ecosystems, indigenous forests, and tussock grasslands) and managed ecosystems (primarily pastoral farming and forestry). Tools are required to assess the balance between natural and managed ecosystems, and to ensure the sustainability of human development and equity in resource use. We use the ecosystem services approach to help resource managers achieve that balance. In this paper we combine several critical ecosystem services (provision of food and fibre, provision of clean water, regulation of water-flow, provision of …

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Assessing Land-Cover/Land-Use Change And Its Impacts On Surface Water Quality In The Ziarat Catchment, Golestan Province-Iran, Mojtaba Zamani, Amir Sadoddin, Arash Zare Garizi Jul 2012

Assessing Land-Cover/Land-Use Change And Its Impacts On Surface Water Quality In The Ziarat Catchment, Golestan Province-Iran, Mojtaba Zamani, Amir Sadoddin, Arash Zare Garizi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper outlines a study aimed to assess the long-term association between land-cover/land-use change and water quality changes occurred in the Ziarat Catchment, upstream of the Ghara-soo River basin, Golestan Province northeast, of Iran. To assess the significance of trends in the time series of water quality variables, non-parametric trend tests (the Mann-Kendall and the seasonal Kendall) or parametric trend tests (linear regression and ANCOVA) were performed after removing variance due to discharge. The water quality and quantity data available for the analysis in this study belong to the observed period from 1974 to 2008 in a river gauge station …

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Credal Model Averaging: Dealing Robustly With Model Uncertainty On Small Data Sets., A. Mignatti, G. Corani, Andrea-Emilio Rizzoli Jul 2012

Credal Model Averaging: Dealing Robustly With Model Uncertainty On Small Data Sets., A. Mignatti, G. Corani, Andrea-Emilio Rizzoli

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Datasets of population dynamics are typically characterized by a short temporal extension. In this condition, several alternative models typically achieve close accuracy, though returning quite different predictions (model uncertainty). Bayesian model averaging (BMA) addresses this issue by averaging the prediction of the different models, using as weights the posterior probability of the models. However, an open problem of BMA is the choice of the prior probability of the models, which can largely impact on the inferences, especially when data are scarce. We present Credal Model Averaging (CMA), which addresses this problem by simultaneously considering a set of prior probability distributions …

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A Generic Data Schema For Crop Experiment Data In Food Security Research, Sander Janssen, Daniel Van Kraalingen, Hendrik Boogaard, Allard De Wit, Jappe Franke, Cheryl Porter, Ioannis N. Athanasiadis Jul 2012

A Generic Data Schema For Crop Experiment Data In Food Security Research, Sander Janssen, Daniel Van Kraalingen, Hendrik Boogaard, Allard De Wit, Jappe Franke, Cheryl Porter, Ioannis N. Athanasiadis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In agricultural research targeted at food security, crop experiments in fields are a crucial source of information for statistical or model based analyses or purely a system description. In these crop experiments or field trials, crop responses are investigated to a change a management or in different climatic or soil conditions, and thus provide an understanding of production potential in different circumstances. Though crucial, these crop experiments are currently poorly available to the crop research community, which proves an obstacle to developments in the domain. The aim of this paper is to propose a generic data schema, Spatial Temporal Attribute …

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Agent-Based Modeling Of Agricultural Adaptation To Climate Change In A Mountainous Area Of Southwest Germany, Christian Troost, G. Calberto, Thomas Berger, J. Ingwersen, E. Priesack, K. Warrach-Sagi, T. Walter Jul 2012

Agent-Based Modeling Of Agricultural Adaptation To Climate Change In A Mountainous Area Of Southwest Germany, Christian Troost, G. Calberto, Thomas Berger, J. Ingwersen, E. Priesack, K. Warrach-Sagi, T. Walter

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We present an agent-based model of climate change adaptation for the agricultural sector of the Central Swabian Alps, a mountainous area in South Western Germany. Apart from climate effects on crop yields, the model also captures effects on crop rotation options, available time for fieldwork and exogenous price effects as potential pathways of climate change impact. First results underline the capacity of the model to simulate short-term adaptation and point to the importance of capturing future price developments to predict land-use effects of adaptation. For full dynamic simulations of the process of adaptation, the model will be extended with realistic …

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Steady-State Soil Organic Matter Approximation Model: Application To The Pasture Simulation Model, Romain Lardy, Anne-Isabelle Graux, Bruno Bachelet, David R. C. Hill, Gianni Bellocchi Jul 2012

Steady-State Soil Organic Matter Approximation Model: Application To The Pasture Simulation Model, Romain Lardy, Anne-Isabelle Graux, Bruno Bachelet, David R. C. Hill, Gianni Bellocchi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Spin-up runs usually used to initialize mechanistic biogeochemical models highly increase the time required to make simulations. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the use of linear and quadratic regression models, as an alternative way to initialize such models. This option is illustrated with the grassland ecosystem Pasture Simulation model (PaSim) under a range of climate, soil and management conditions. Coupled to the CENTURY model for the soil processes, PaSim simulates fluxes of C, N, water and energy at the soil-plant-animalatmosphere interface for managed grasslands at the plot scale. This study demonstrates the feasibility of approximating steady state …

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The Spatial Data Analyzer As A Model Visualization And Analysis Tool, Qimiao Lu, Thorsten Arnold Jul 2012

The Spatial Data Analyzer As A Model Visualization And Analysis Tool, Qimiao Lu, Thorsten Arnold

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Landscape processes are dynamic in time. Models are readily available to describe these processes in time and space, and watershed managers worldwide are handling a great number and variety of models and highdimensional data. With a variety of scenarios of each model type, and with increasing temporal resolution, model outputs quickly exceed the quantity that GIS applications can handle conveniently. Tools are needed that allow analyzing diverse models and their scenarios within a single software front-end, such that modelers minimize the time spent on quality control, peer review, data reformatting, error tracking and software handling. The Spatial Data Analyzer© (SDA), …

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Modelling Water Use Intensity At Farm Scale – An Interdisciplinary Study Of Agriculture And Hydrology (Agrohyd), Simone Kraatz, Uwe Hunstock, Judy A. Libra, Katrin Drastig Jul 2012

Modelling Water Use Intensity At Farm Scale – An Interdisciplinary Study Of Agriculture And Hydrology (Agrohyd), Simone Kraatz, Uwe Hunstock, Judy A. Libra, Katrin Drastig

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Efficient water management strategies based on knowledge about how agricultural and hydrological processes affect local and regional water flows are needed to deal with changes in water availability due to global change. Transparent and flexible tools that can predict the effect of farm systems on these water flows are required. Such a new modelling tool is being built based on the database platform MongoDB. It will be able to calculate the influence of natural processes and of management decisions on the water use intensity in a variety of farm systems for the production of food and biomass for energy. Instead …

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Uncertainty Analysis Of An Integrated Water System In Southern England: Exploring Physical And Socio-Economic Uncertainties, Lan Hoang, Suraje Dessai, Richard Brazier Jul 2012

Uncertainty Analysis Of An Integrated Water System In Southern England: Exploring Physical And Socio-Economic Uncertainties, Lan Hoang, Suraje Dessai, Richard Brazier

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Climate change risk assessment of water resources is fraught withuncertainty. Such uncertainty is not only the accumulation of individual uncertaintycomponents, but also the results of intricate interactions amongst the physicalenvironment and the socio-economic system. There is often a mismatch of modelrepresentation of these two systems: while uncertainty of physical factors has oftenbeen described using quantitative methods, socio-economic factors have largelybeen qualitative. In our drought assessment case study, we evaluate uncertainty inthe physical factors and demand responses in the context of climate change. Inparticular, we focus on structural uncertainty of the supply component and datauncertainty of the demand component. To explore …

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Hydrotam: 3d Model For Hydrodynamic And Transport Processes In Coastal Waters, Lale Balas, Aslı Numanoğlu Genç, Asu Inan Jul 2012

Hydrotam: 3d Model For Hydrodynamic And Transport Processes In Coastal Waters, Lale Balas, Aslı Numanoğlu Genç, Asu Inan

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

HYDROTAM is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) integrated three-dimensional baroclinic numerical model that has been developed to simulate the hydrodynamic and transport processes in coastal waters. The infrastructure of the program is based on cloud computing technology. GIS platform of HYDROTAM facilitates the time consuming task of preparation of data input and output. On the model interface, all functions of the MS Silverlight framework are available to the user with a menu driven graphical user interface (GUI). The numerical model consists of hydrodynamic, transport, turbulence and wave propagation model components. In the hydrodynamic model component, the 3D Navier–Stokes equations are …

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Model Lifecycle Management: Options For A Rural Watershed Practitioners In Ontario, Thorsten Arnold Jul 2012

Model Lifecycle Management: Options For A Rural Watershed Practitioners In Ontario, Thorsten Arnold

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper makes the argument that the lifecycles of numerical models changesdramatically if the paradigm of watershed management (WM) organizations shifts towardadaptive management practices. However, model lifecycle management has not receivedsufficient attention. As a result, WM organizations are struggling to apply numericalmodeling efficiently and cost-effectively under their obligation to promote cyclic learning. Inthis paper, Model Lifecycle Management (MLM) is defined as the process of organizingmodel building and maintenance within organizations. It includes procedural guidelines,standards on commissioning consultant work and deliverables, knowledge managementsuch that relevant knowledge is available to watershed practitioners, and embeddedsoftware solutions that minimize technical knowledge requirements. As a …

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Modelling Water Use Intensity At Farm Scale – An Interdisciplinary Study Of Agriculture And Hydrology (Agrohyd), Simone Kraatz, Uwe Hunstock, Judy A. Libra, Katrin Drastig Jul 2012

Modelling Water Use Intensity At Farm Scale – An Interdisciplinary Study Of Agriculture And Hydrology (Agrohyd), Simone Kraatz, Uwe Hunstock, Judy A. Libra, Katrin Drastig

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Efficient water management strategies based on knowledge about how agricultural and hydrological processes affect local and regional water flows are needed to deal with changes in water availability due to global change. Transparent and flexible tools that can predict the effect of farm systems on these water flows are required. Such a new modelling tool is being built based on the database platform MongoDB. It will be able to calculate the influence of natural processes and of management decisions on the water use intensity in a variety of farm systems for the production of food and biomass for energy. Instead …

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Participatory Analysis Of The Sustainability Of Livelihoods In The Agro-Ecosystem Of Abesard, Iran, Hadi Veisi, Sahar Bagheri Toulabi Jul 2012

Participatory Analysis Of The Sustainability Of Livelihoods In The Agro-Ecosystem Of Abesard, Iran, Hadi Veisi, Sahar Bagheri Toulabi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper reports some of the results of a study to explore vulnerabilitycontexts i.e. trends, shocks and local cultural practices that affect livelihood assetsi.e. natural capital (land, water, biodiversity), physical capital (infrastructure,machinery), human capital (labour, skills), financial capital (savings, disposableassets), and social capital (rights, support systems) in Abesard, Iran. It alsodescribes structures, including organizations (government, private), and processes,including policies, laws and incentives, that determine the livelihood strategies ofhouseholds (agricultural intensification or expansion, livelihood diversification, andmigration) which, in turn, impact the assets. Participatory vulnerability analysis(PVA) was used within a sustainable rural livelihoods (SRL) framework to assessthe differences of the livelihoods of …

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Adaptation To Climate Change By Agri- Environmental Policy In Finland, Katri Rankinen, Pirjo Peltonen-Sainio, Mikko Laapas, Kalle Sippel Jul 2012

Adaptation To Climate Change By Agri- Environmental Policy In Finland, Katri Rankinen, Pirjo Peltonen-Sainio, Mikko Laapas, Kalle Sippel

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

An agri-environmental subsidy program that states water protection as one of its main objectives has been in place in Finland since 1995. The programme is the main tool within Water Framework Directive (WFD) to control nutrient load from agricultural areas in Finland. In this work we created story-lines for agricultural production influenced by climate change on a small agricultural catchment in southern Finland. We used dynamic, catchment scale model to simulate the influence of increased precipitation and temperature on runoff and nutrient leaching with and without different water protection methods, including the changes in production and field use. This study …

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Quantitative Assessment Of Natural And Anthropogenic Factors In Forest Carbon Sequestration, Peter A. Khaiter, Marina G. Erechtchoukova Jul 2012

Quantitative Assessment Of Natural And Anthropogenic Factors In Forest Carbon Sequestration, Peter A. Khaiter, Marina G. Erechtchoukova

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The ability of the ecosystems to generate services is vital for humanwell-being, economic development and even survival. The production ofecosystem services is influenced by a complex interplay of natural andanthropogenic factors. Quantitative assessment of the ecosystem services as wellas natural and anthropogenic factors affecting them is a crucial aspect ofsustainable environmental development and management. The paper discusses atheoretical framework for quantifying ecosystem services and their changes inresponse to natural and anthropogenic factors on the basis of a meta-modellingapproach. The effect of anthropogenic factors on the ecosystem components andservices is modelled using corresponding transformation functions. Forestecosystems and their services, with a …

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Adaptation Strategies For New Zealand Dairy Farms Under Climate Change Scenarios, Electra Kalaugher, Pierre Beukes, Anthony Clark, Janet F. Bornman Jul 2012

Adaptation Strategies For New Zealand Dairy Farms Under Climate Change Scenarios, Electra Kalaugher, Pierre Beukes, Anthony Clark, Janet F. Bornman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Assessments of climate change for New Zealand indicate not only increasing average temperatures but also more climatic variability with moderate to high likelihood of increases in the frequency of extreme events such as droughts and floods. Detailed Whole Farm Model simulations of climate change impacts and potential adaptation options were undertaken for five representative, pasture based dairy farms located in the major dairying regions of New Zealand. First, tactical changes to current management practices were considered, followed by three strategic adaptations that introduced larger changes into the farming system: a reduction in intensity, the introduction of irrigation and an alternative …

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An Intelligible Assessment Of Climatic Exposure Of Grassland-Based Livestock Systems, Marion Sautier, Roger Martin-Clouaire, Michel Duru Jul 2012

An Intelligible Assessment Of Climatic Exposure Of Grassland-Based Livestock Systems, Marion Sautier, Roger Martin-Clouaire, Michel Duru

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Research on the potential impact of weather, including its year-to-yearvariability, and on climate change effects on agricultural systems requires a clearappreciation of their exposure to the related hazards. Usually exposure is assessedthrough analysis of temporal patterns of physical variables (e.g. temperature,precipitation). The method presented in this paper provides a means of fitting thesedata into an intelligible frame specific to the grassland-based livestock systemsmotivating this work. The basic idea consists in quantifying the seasonal balancebetween herbage growth and livestock feeding requirements, considering aroughly-defined type of grassland systems differentiated on soil type, vegetationtype and management practices. Based on a daily growth computer …

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Weight-Of-Evidence-Based Assessment Of Sediment Quality Of The São Francisco River (Brazil) With The Help Of Software Tool Sqa, Alla Khosrovyan, Maria Jose Salamanca Marin, André Moldenhauer Peret, Débora Fernandes De Almeida, T. Angel Delvalls, Inmaculada Riba Jul 2012

Weight-Of-Evidence-Based Assessment Of Sediment Quality Of The São Francisco River (Brazil) With The Help Of Software Tool Sqa, Alla Khosrovyan, Maria Jose Salamanca Marin, André Moldenhauer Peret, Débora Fernandes De Almeida, T. Angel Delvalls, Inmaculada Riba

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Weight-of-evidence (WOE) approach is a requirement for comprehensive integrated sediment quality assessment and management worldwide. WOE is a system approach based on collection of several lines of evidences that are able to derive multi-aspect characterization of availability and adverse effects of contaminants for living organisms in water environments. A software tool addressing this approach is already available and based on the statistical package STATISTICA 6.0. The tool provided user-friendly and user-assisting interface for entering and analyzing of data, as well as presented a summary of the results of the conducted analysis. It was designed for environmental scientists and managers, academia …

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Species Distribution Modelling And Open Source Gis: Why Are They Still So Loosely Connected?, Anne Ghisla, Duccio Rocchini, Markus Neteler, Michael Forster, Birgit Kleinschmit Jul 2012

Species Distribution Modelling And Open Source Gis: Why Are They Still So Loosely Connected?, Anne Ghisla, Duccio Rocchini, Markus Neteler, Michael Forster, Birgit Kleinschmit

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are correlative models that use environmental and/or geographical information to explain patterns of species occurrences. Those models are being used in various fields including climate change, invasive species research, evolutionary biology and epidemiology. Thanks to the availability of increasing computational resources, new methods continue to be developed. However, software packages that include the SDM algorithms usually focus on one or few methods, and have different degrees of integration with other geographical and statistical software. Specifically, SDM implementations are often standalone programs developed by university laboratories, either as extensions to statistical software. In few cases they are …

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Identifying Optimum Strategies For Land Management Adaptation To Climate Change - A Multiobjective Approach, T. Klein, A. Holzkämper, P. Calanca, J. Fuhrer Jul 2012

Identifying Optimum Strategies For Land Management Adaptation To Climate Change - A Multiobjective Approach, T. Klein, A. Holzkämper, P. Calanca, J. Fuhrer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Climate change is likely to alter the conditions for agricultural production with distinct regional patterns, which necessitates adaptation measures that are adjusted to local conditions, but adaptation to maximize production may increase environmental impacts. The objective of this research is to identify sustainable regional land management adaptation strategies to maximize agricultural productivity, while minimizing environmental impacts such as nutrient leaching, soil erosion and an excessive use of water resources. The study area is the Broye catchment in Western Switzerland, where water shortage is common and irrigation is already applied regularly. For this region, the generic crop model CropSyst was calibrated …

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Semi-Automatic Delimitation Of Buffer Zones For Protected Areas: A Contribution From Species Distribution Modelling, Cuitlahuac Hernandez-Santiago, Martin Volk Jul 2012

Semi-Automatic Delimitation Of Buffer Zones For Protected Areas: A Contribution From Species Distribution Modelling, Cuitlahuac Hernandez-Santiago, Martin Volk

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Preservation of natural protected areas in Mexico requires human activities regulation in the Buffer Zones (Zona de Influencia). These zones have been defined conceptually by law and delineated spatially using physiographical and anthropogenic criteria. The presented study proposes a demarcation based on species distribution modeling as an ecological criterion to prioritize environmental requirements of protected species in “Laguna de Chacahua” National Park. To achieve this, a model in ArcGIS ModelBuilder was developed and applied for the delimitation of a buffer zone for the National Park. The proposed model involve a) obtaining data of 90 species (mammals, reptiles and amphibians) of …

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Particles In The Cloud – Running Gis-Based Particle Tracking Models For Fish Larval Dissemination In Traditional And Cloud Computing Architectures, Tiffany C. Vance, Kyle Wilcox Jul 2012

Particles In The Cloud – Running Gis-Based Particle Tracking Models For Fish Larval Dissemination In Traditional And Cloud Computing Architectures, Tiffany C. Vance, Kyle Wilcox

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Models provide a way to understand the complex interactions of biological and physical process. As an example, the movement of dust plumes generated on continents over the adjoining oceans can be modeled for both the physical process of particle transport and for the geochemical effects of the dust deposition on life in the oceans. Models can also describe and link two physical processes; a model can be used to simulate the complex 3-dimensional movement of ocean currents and these model results can be linked to models that predict the movement of many waterborne objects such as fish and larvae, oil …

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Joseph Smith And The Spirit Of Optimism, Mark D. Ogletree Jul 2012

Joseph Smith And The Spirit Of Optimism, Mark D. Ogletree

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

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Post-Fire Soil Water Repellency: Extent, Severity And Thickness Relative To Ecological Site Characteristics Within Piñon-Juniper Woodlands, Daniel Lewis Zvirzdin Jun 2012

Post-Fire Soil Water Repellency: Extent, Severity And Thickness Relative To Ecological Site Characteristics Within Piñon-Juniper Woodlands, Daniel Lewis Zvirzdin

Theses and Dissertations

Erosion and weed dominance often limit the recovery of burned piñon-juniper woodlands. Soil water repellency (SWR) is one factor that may contribute to this by increasing overland flow and impeding seedling establishment. In spite of these effects, the extent of SWR within piñon-juniper woodlands is unknown. In this study, the extent, severity and thickness of SWR were sampled across 41 1,000 m2 plots within three 2009 Utah wildfires. Predictive models of SWR were built from ecological site characteristic data collected at each site. Across the study, SWR was found at 37% of the points sampled. SWR extent was strongly related …

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Xprime-Em: Eliciting Expert Prior Information For Motif Exploration Using The Expectation-Maximization Algorithm, Wei Zhou Jun 2012

Xprime-Em: Eliciting Expert Prior Information For Motif Exploration Using The Expectation-Maximization Algorithm, Wei Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the possible mechanisms of gene transcription regulation is a primary challenge for current molecular biologists. Identifying transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs), also called DNA motifs, is an important step in understanding these mechanisms. Furthermore, many human diseases are attributed to mutations in TFBSs, which makes identifying those DNA motifs significant for disease treatment. Uncertainty and variations in specific nucleotides of TFBSs present difficulties for DNA motif searching. In this project, we present an algorithm, XPRIME-EM (Eliciting EXpert PRior Information for Motif Exploration using the Expectation-Maximization Algorithm), which can discover known and de novo (unknown) DNA motifs simultaneously from a …

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The Putative Cannabinoid Receptor Gpr55 Modulates Synaptic Plasticity In The Hippocampus, Corinne Marie Badgley Jun 2012

The Putative Cannabinoid Receptor Gpr55 Modulates Synaptic Plasticity In The Hippocampus, Corinne Marie Badgley

Theses and Dissertations

Endocannabinoids (eCBs) are small molecules that are capable of modulating synaptic plasticity of both excitatory and inhibitory synapses in the brain. While eCBs bind to transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) and cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) in the central nervous system, we recently identified a form of non-CB1, non-TRPV1 mediated long term depression activated by the eCB anandamide at CA1 hippocampal stratum radiatum interneurons. GPR55, an orphan G-protein receptor, has been identified in the hippocampus and is capable of activation by eCBs, making it a good candidate for mediating this non-CB1, non-TRPV1 form of synaptic plasticity. Here we performed whole-cell …

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Truth Begins In Lies': The Paradoxes Of Western Society In House M.D., Jason A. Hagey Jun 2012

Truth Begins In Lies': The Paradoxes Of Western Society In House M.D., Jason A. Hagey

Theses and Dissertations

The core of House M.D. is its assertion that current Western civilization lives in a perpetual state of dissonance: we desire to have the rawness of emotion but we can only handle this rawness when we combine it with intellect, even if that intellect lies to us. This is the ontological paradox that the televisual text grapples with. Through the use of archetypal analysis and allegorical interpretation, this thesis reveals that dissonance and its relationship to contemporary Western society. Through House M.D. we realize that there are structures to the paradoxes that we live and there are paradoxes in our …

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