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2008

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Xplorah, A Multi-Scale Integrated Land Use Model, Hedwig Van Delden, E. R. Gutiérrez, Jasper Van Vliet, Jelle Hurkens Jul 2008

Xplorah, A Multi-Scale Integrated Land Use Model, Hedwig Van Delden, E. R. Gutiérrez, Jasper Van Vliet, Jelle Hurkens

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Processes of land use change and their drivers take place at different spatial and temporal scales. The fact that these processes are very often interacting with each other throughout these scales provides major challenges to modellers. Xplorah is a tailor made Spatial Decision Support System for the three major islands of Puerto Rico. It aims to assess the impact of different scenarios on the development of the island. The system encompasses an integrated set of dynamically linked models working at different scales and incorporating knowledge from numerous disciplines. This paper describes the integrated model as well as its individual components. …

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Field Measurement Network In The Mesoscale Catchment Of The Gera River, Manfred Fink, Marcel Wetzel, Daniel Varga, Sven Kralisch, Wolfgang-Albert Flügel Jul 2008

Field Measurement Network In The Mesoscale Catchment Of The Gera River, Manfred Fink, Marcel Wetzel, Daniel Varga, Sven Kralisch, Wolfgang-Albert Flügel

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In many cases, applications of water-quality models have a poor basis of calibration and validation due to limited or lack of input data. Water-quality monitoring often is limited to a few sites within the stream network at which samples are collected and analysed at some intermittent frequency (e. g. monthly). In particular, this limited temporal sample coverage causes problems in modelling water-quality variables such as phosphorous that are mainly transported during short-time events. The resultant loads calculated based upon these data are often subject to large errors, due to this sparse time resolution. In order to address this problem, a …

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The Growing Importance Of Open Service Platforms For The Design Of Environmental Information Systems, Thomas Usländer Jul 2008

The Growing Importance Of Open Service Platforms For The Design Of Environmental Information Systems, Thomas Usländer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental Information Systems (EIS) play a key role in our understanding of the past, current and future status of the environment. In the last 10-15 years, the design of EIS has undergone fundamental changes following both the requirements of the users and the capabilities of the underlying information technologies (IT). This paper first identifies three major trends that have determined these changes: 1) integration of several thematic domains to support interdisciplinary environmental tasks, 2) distribution of EIS to a wider spectrum of users, and 3) permanent functional enrichment with sophisticated functions such as environmental simulations or geo-processing capabilities. It then …

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Reclaiming Garbage: Interaction Design For Participation, Marijke Rijsberman Jul 2008

Reclaiming Garbage: Interaction Design For Participation, Marijke Rijsberman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Since the introduction of organized sanitation practices in the West, local governments and waste management business in the private sector have essentially adhered to an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to residential garbage, by which, for a modest fee, individuals are relieved from responsibility for their own waste and from awareness of its impact on the planet. Together with the systematic deferral of the environmental costs of current activities, this out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach has fostered individual behaviors that exert a great deal of pressure on the environment. Current environmental challenges and rising environmental concern now dictate a greater awareness of the impacts …

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Multi-Agent Models For Teaching, Extension And Collaborative Learning, Thomas Berger, Pepijn Schreinemachers Jul 2008

Multi-Agent Models For Teaching, Extension And Collaborative Learning, Thomas Berger, Pepijn Schreinemachers

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper describes an agent-based land use modeling approach, called MPMAS,developed at Hohenheim University. The main focus of this approach is theintegration of economic decision-models with biophysical models of water supply and soilfertility at a fine spatial resolution. Short-term production and consumption decisions ofagents are represented as mathematical programming problems, whereas longer-termdecisions, for example investment and migration, are represented using heuristics. Here, weposition the approach in relation to alternative agent-based models of land use and watermanagement and describe empirical applications to Chile, Uganda, Ghana, and Thailand.Based on these practical experiences, we discuss the use of MP-MAS as a tool forcollaborative …

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User Driven Application And Adaptation Of An Existing Policy Support System To A New Region, Hedwig Van Delden, M. Ouessar, M. Sghaier, A. Ouled Belgacem, M. Mulligan, P. Luja, J. De Jong, M. Fetoui, M. Ben Zaied Jul 2008

User Driven Application And Adaptation Of An Existing Policy Support System To A New Region, Hedwig Van Delden, M. Ouessar, M. Sghaier, A. Ouled Belgacem, M. Mulligan, P. Luja, J. De Jong, M. Fetoui, M. Ben Zaied

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The development of a decision or policy support system is a very time consuming and expensive process. Reusing an existing system provides therefore major benefits. This paper describes the process followed when applying the existing MedAction Policy Support System, developed for Northern Mediterranean regions, to the Oum Zessar watershed in south east Tunisia. The paper presents the differences and similarities of the problems and processes in the different regions and describes how they relate to the adaptation of the existing model and the place the system could take in the decision-making process. Furthermore, it discusses the likelihood of its actual …

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Catchment-Scale Water Quality Modelling And Integration Of Collateral Information, Lachlan T. H. Newham, John J. Drewry, Baihua Fu Jul 2008

Catchment-Scale Water Quality Modelling And Integration Of Collateral Information, Lachlan T. H. Newham, John J. Drewry, Baihua Fu

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper describes progress on techniques in the modelling of sediments andnutrients to inform management effort. It describes a catchment-scale model known asCatchMODS, and the integration of knowledge from a range of collateral sources to informits development and application. A full description of the model, including its hydrologic,sediment and nutrient modules, is presented. The paper describes how knowledge fromfield-based studies is incorporated to support the modelling. Knowledge is generated from:(i) water quality monitoring; (ii) sediment tracing of critical source areas and relativesubcatchment contributions (using geochemical, and mineralogy techniques); and (iii) fieldinvestigation, particularly landscape measurement. This knowledge is used for modelconceptualisation, …

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Effects Of „Enso-Events” And Rainforest Conversion On River Discharge In Central Sulawesi (Indonesia) – Problems And Solutions With Coarse Spatial Parameter Distribution For Water Balance Simulation, G. Gerold, C. Leemhuis Jul 2008

Effects Of „Enso-Events” And Rainforest Conversion On River Discharge In Central Sulawesi (Indonesia) – Problems And Solutions With Coarse Spatial Parameter Distribution For Water Balance Simulation, G. Gerold, C. Leemhuis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Natural interannual climate fluctuation as ENSO-events and forest conversion play an important role for the water balance of tropical catchments. Distributed hydrological modelling that relate land cover changes and climate changes with river discharge changes for humid tropical catchment areas at the mesoscale level are rare. This article applies a hydrological modelling approach to analyse the impact of land cover changes and ENSO-events on the water resources of a mesoscale humid tropical catchment.Because of a lack of detailed spatial soil information, a topographic based nested scale approach to parameterise soil physical properties was used for the hydrological model WASIM-ETH (Schulla …

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Actor Modeling And Actor-Based Modeling: New Methods To Analyze The Human Component Of Human-Environment Systems, Petra Döll, Christiane Doll, Alexandra Titz Jul 2008

Actor Modeling And Actor-Based Modeling: New Methods To Analyze The Human Component Of Human-Environment Systems, Petra Döll, Christiane Doll, Alexandra Titz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The future of natural resources depends on the actions of people. Thus, whenever assessing options for a sustainable management of natural resources, it may not good enough to provide decision makers with a decision support system that integrates the technical and natural system components only. To include the human system component, it is state-ofthe- art to — in addition to demographic modeling and economic optimization — consider human actions in storylines of qualitative scenarios, which are then translated ad-hoc into quantitative scenarios of input variables of models of the technical and natural systems components. We propose modeling of societal actors …

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Community Modelling, And Data-Model Interoperability, Alexey Voinov, Ilya Zaslavskiy, David Arctur, C. J. Duffy, Ralf Seppelt Jul 2008

Community Modelling, And Data-Model Interoperability, Alexey Voinov, Ilya Zaslavskiy, David Arctur, C. J. Duffy, Ralf Seppelt

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Community modelling is a promising paradigm to develop complex evolving and adaptable modelling systems that can share methods, data and models more easily within specialized communities. Why then are cooperative modelling communities still quite rare and do not propagate easily? Why has open source been so successful for software development, yet open models are still quite exotic? One difference between software and models is that software shares some common language. Models often use very different principles, theories, and semantics. For example hydrodynamic models, ecological models, and decision support models may have limited commonalities, In these cases, the disciplinary problem being …

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Application Of The Hspf Model For Flood Simulation With Analysis Of The Results In Terms Of Monitoring Uncertainties /Case Study Of The Lesnovska River, Bulgaria/, P. Ninov, I. Ribarova, P. Kalinkov, G. Dimova Jul 2008

Application Of The Hspf Model For Flood Simulation With Analysis Of The Results In Terms Of Monitoring Uncertainties /Case Study Of The Lesnovska River, Bulgaria/, P. Ninov, I. Ribarova, P. Kalinkov, G. Dimova

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Floods are amongst the most damaging natural disasters worldwide. The newEU Floods Directive and the implementation of the EU Adaptation Green Paper willrequire improving of the flood-related research. In this study, the HSPF model was appliedto simulate and analyze a very significant and unexpected flood occurred in 2005 along theLesnovska River, a right tributary of the Iskar mainstream in the western part of Bulgaria.The difference between the simulated and the measured flood volumes was found veryhigh and equal to 130% for the flood of 2005, while percent differences of 25-33% wereobserved for the seasonal, annual and low flow distribution. These …

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Go East: A Residential Land Use Model For The Periphery Of Rome, G. L. Ciampaglia, B. Tirozzi Jul 2008

Go East: A Residential Land Use Model For The Periphery Of Rome, G. L. Ciampaglia, B. Tirozzi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this paper we present a model of urban growth and its preliminary application to acase study of the phenomena of residential development in the setting of the eastern periphery ofRome, Italy’s capital city. The modeling approach we use synthesises the two typical paradigmswidespread in the community of quantitative urban planning: the traditional one, based on cellularautomata (CA), and the (relatively) new one, which is agent-based. In particular, our multi-agentsystem (MAS) is in-between a reactive MAS, with agents carrying out a two-staged decision processin a complex environment, and a model of statistical physics, since we use populations ofagents in order …

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Bottom-Up Methodologies For The Modeling And Upscaling Of Farm Nitrogen Losses In European Landscapes, Tommy Dalgaard, C. Kjeldsen Jul 2008

Bottom-Up Methodologies For The Modeling And Upscaling Of Farm Nitrogen Losses In European Landscapes, Tommy Dalgaard, C. Kjeldsen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper presents bottom-up scaling methodologies, implemented in the MEA-Scope strategic research project, and in the NitroEurope landscape level component. Both projects are based on a bottom-up approach, where farm information are collected for landscapes in Germany, Slovakia, Poland, France, Hungary, Italy, Scotland, The Netherlands and Denmark; and landscape level impacts of the Model for European Agriculture (MEA) are assessed. This paper is about the upscaling from farm to landscape level, and focuses on the modelling of Nitrogen surplus from agriculture as an indicator for water pollution. It is demonstrated in detail how farm information from the Danish landscape is …

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A Software Component For Model Output Evaluation, Gianni Bellocchi, Marcello Donatelli, Marco Acutis, E. Habyarimana Jul 2008

A Software Component For Model Output Evaluation, Gianni Bellocchi, Marcello Donatelli, Marco Acutis, E. Habyarimana

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

As the role of biophysical models in ecological, biological and agronomic areas grows in importance, there is an associated increase in the need for suitable approaches to evaluate the adequacy of model outputs (model testing, often referred as to “validation”). Effective testing techniques are required to assess complex models under a variety of conditions, including a wide range of validation measures, possibly integrated into composite metrics. Both simple and composite metrics are being proposed by the scientific community, continuously broadening the pool of options for model evaluation. However, such new metrics are not available in commonly used statistical packages. At …

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Semi-Supervised Support Vector Machine For Natural Hazards Forecasting. Case Study: Snow Avalanches, A. Pozdnukhov, R. S. Purves, M. Kanevski Jul 2008

Semi-Supervised Support Vector Machine For Natural Hazards Forecasting. Case Study: Snow Avalanches, A. Pozdnukhov, R. S. Purves, M. Kanevski

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper explores the use of Support Vector Machine (SVM) as a predictive engine for natural hazards forecasting. It particularly discusses the issues of incorporating this classification method into a decision-support system for operational use in avalanche forecasting. The recent developments concerned with semi-supervised and transductive SVM-based learning targeted at applications in natural hazards forecasting on geomanifolds are presented. The real case study on spatio-temporal avalanche forecasting deals with the development of a predictive engine for the decision support system used at the avalancheprone site of Ben Nevis, Lochaber region in Scotland.

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Geo-Communication For Risk Assessment And Catastrophe Prevention Of Flood Events In The Coastal Areas Of Chennai, S. Glaser, R. Glaser, A. Drescher, C. Pfeiffer, E. Schliermann-Kraus, M. Lechner, J. Vencatesan Jul 2008

Geo-Communication For Risk Assessment And Catastrophe Prevention Of Flood Events In The Coastal Areas Of Chennai, S. Glaser, R. Glaser, A. Drescher, C. Pfeiffer, E. Schliermann-Kraus, M. Lechner, J. Vencatesan

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Risk assessment of environmental stressors in the context of information and communication technologies is an emerging field of scientific research, for example to gain an understanding of how floods will develop. Geo-information technologies are accepted as powerful tools in crisis situations. To be successful in risk assessment and catastrophe prevention, it is essential to follow an interdisciplinary approach combining natural scientific, socio-economic and technical knowledge. At the same time it is important to combine top down (planning, official institutions) with bottom up views of the affected people. Interconnecting computational resources, human interdisciplinary expertise and local knowledge, following a top down …

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Actors And Factors – Bridging Social Science Findings And Urban Land Use Change Modeling, Dagmar Haase, S. Kabisch, A. Haase, Tatiana Filatova, A. Van Der Veen, T. Totzer, W. Loibl, S. Scatasta, Sophie Schetke, A. Zuin, F. Von Walter Jul 2008

Actors And Factors – Bridging Social Science Findings And Urban Land Use Change Modeling, Dagmar Haase, S. Kabisch, A. Haase, Tatiana Filatova, A. Van Der Veen, T. Totzer, W. Loibl, S. Scatasta, Sophie Schetke, A. Zuin, F. Von Walter

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Recent uneven land use dynamics in urban areas resulting from demographic change, economic pressure and the cities’ mutual competition in a globalising world challenge both scientists and practitioners, among them social scientists, modellers and spatial planners. Processes of growth and decline specifically affect the urban environment, the requirements of the residents on social and natural resources. Social and environmental research is interested in a better understanding and ways of explaining the interactions between society and landscape in urban areas. And it is also needed for making life in cities attractive, secure and affordable within or despite of uneven dynamics. The …

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Implementation Of A Geodatabase To Administrate Global Energy Resources, M. Biberacher, S. Gadocha, S. Gluhak, N. Dorfinger, D. Zocher Jul 2008

Implementation Of A Geodatabase To Administrate Global Energy Resources, M. Biberacher, S. Gadocha, S. Gluhak, N. Dorfinger, D. Zocher

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The future development of our energy system is still unclear. This uncertainty isbased on numerous aspects. In addition to the currently most relevant climate debate thiswill also be a question of available technologies as well as of available resources. Hencethe global energy resources and their distribution will be one of the most influencingfactors in the design of our future energy system. To model and administrate global energypotentials a geographical (GEO) database has been implemented. The intention toimplement such a global GEO database is based on the fact that numerous aspectsdescribing our energy system rely on spatial characteristics. Particularly renewable energyresources …

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Starred Wire By Ange Mlinko, Edward Mcfadden Jul 2008

Starred Wire By Ange Mlinko, Edward Mcfadden

CutBank

No abstract provided.

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Enough Already? Linking Science, Geography, Mathematics, And Sociology Through Population Study, Roxanne Greitz Miller, Lilian M. Were Jul 2008

Enough Already? Linking Science, Geography, Mathematics, And Sociology Through Population Study, Roxanne Greitz Miller, Lilian M. Were

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In several previous Issues In-Depth columns, science topics deeply affected by population size--such as climate change, fuel and agricultural resources, and ecology--have been discussed. In this column, we will discuss the issue of population growth in developed and developing countries, why this is an important topic to discuss with young adolescents, and how interdisciplinary connections can be made between science and several other subject areas through an examination of populations across the globe.

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The Use Of Co-Management And Protected Land-Use Designations To Protect Tribal Cultural Resources And Reserved Treaty Rights On Federal Lands, Martin Nie Jul 2008

The Use Of Co-Management And Protected Land-Use Designations To Protect Tribal Cultural Resources And Reserved Treaty Rights On Federal Lands, Martin Nie

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

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A Survey Of International Law Relating To Flood Management: Existing Practices And Future Prospects, Allistair S. Rieu-Clarke Jul 2008

A Survey Of International Law Relating To Flood Management: Existing Practices And Future Prospects, Allistair S. Rieu-Clarke

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

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A Cartographic Journey Through Las Vegas History: Tracing The Las Vegas Landscape Through Maps Pt. 2, Su Kim Chung, Katherine Rankin Jul 2008

A Cartographic Journey Through Las Vegas History: Tracing The Las Vegas Landscape Through Maps Pt. 2, Su Kim Chung, Katherine Rankin

Library Faculty Research

An interesting set of historical maps of Nevada and the Las Vegas area.

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Review: Faithfully Yours: The Letters Of Byron Herbert Reece, Julie Camp Jul 2008

Review: Faithfully Yours: The Letters Of Byron Herbert Reece, Julie Camp

Georgia Library Quarterly

Review of the non-fiction book "Faithfully Yours: The Letters of Byron Herbert Reece," edited by Raymond A. Cook and Alan Jackson.

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11th International Coral Reef Symposium Abstracts, Bernhard Riegl (Editor), Richard E. Dodge (Editor) Jul 2008

11th International Coral Reef Symposium Abstracts, Bernhard Riegl (Editor), Richard E. Dodge (Editor)

ICRS Conference Proceedings

No abstract provided.

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The "Exile" Of Malcolm Watson: Was This United States Citizen And Convicted Sexual Offender Really Expatriated To Canada?, N. Pieter M. O'Leary Jul 2008

The "Exile" Of Malcolm Watson: Was This United States Citizen And Convicted Sexual Offender Really Expatriated To Canada?, N. Pieter M. O'Leary

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Measuring Outcomes: Post-Graduation Measures Of Success In The U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings, Andrew P. Morris, William D. Henderson Jul 2008

Measuring Outcomes: Post-Graduation Measures Of Success In The U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings, Andrew P. Morris, William D. Henderson

Indiana Law Journal

The U.S. News & World Report annual rankings play a key role in ordering the market for legal education, and, by extension, the market for entry level lawyers. This Article explores the impact and evolution of placement and post-graduation data, which are important input variables that comprise twenty percent of the total rankings methodology. In general, we observe clear evidence that law schools are seeking to maximize each placement and post-graduation input variable. During the 1997 to, 2006 time period, law schools in all four tiers posted large average gains in employment rates upon graduation and nine months, which appear …

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Mormon Memories And The Tragedy At Mountain Meadows, Ronald W. Walker Jul 2008

Mormon Memories And The Tragedy At Mountain Meadows, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Studying the Mountain Meadows Massacre is difficult because of the conflicting collective memories held by the groups involved—Mormons, anti-Mormons, descendants of the perpetrators, and descendants of the victims, for example. Walker discusses the merits of pursuing such a difficult topic and the importance of remembering the tragic event. He argues that having knowledge of the truth, admitting fault, and remembering the event lead to a healthier psyche and help serve justice by memorializing the victims. Walker outlines the ways participants in the Mountain Meadows Massacre violated Mormon beliefs while at the same time asking readers to try to comprehend the …

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Review: Marianne Pade. The Reception Of Plutarch’S Lives In Fifteenth-Century Italy., Julia H. Gaisser Jul 2008

Review: Marianne Pade. The Reception Of Plutarch’S Lives In Fifteenth-Century Italy., Julia H. Gaisser

Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Review: The Historic Oakland Cemetery Of Atlanta: Speaking Stones, Ronda Sanders Jul 2008

Review: The Historic Oakland Cemetery Of Atlanta: Speaking Stones, Ronda Sanders

Georgia Library Quarterly

Review of the non-fiction book "The Historic Oakland Cemetery of Atlanta: Speaking Stones," by Cathy J. Kaemmerlen.

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