Digital Commons Network^™

The Gpfarm Dss For Agroecosystem Sustainability: Past, Future, And Lessons Learned, James C. Ascough Ii, G. S. Mcmaster, G. H. Dunn, A. A. Andales

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The USDA-ARS Agricultural Systems Research Unit (ASRU), in a collaborative effort with Colorado State University (CSU), developed the Great Plains Framework for Agricultural Resource Management (GPFARM) DSS. The general purpose of GPFARM is to serve as a whole-farm/ranch DSS for strategic agroecosystem sustainability evaluation across the U.S. Great Plains. Despite a reasonable level of producer involvement in the requirements analysis, development, and evaluation phases of GPFARM, it can be argued that the rate of adoption has been slow compared with the rate predicted at the initial development stage. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of the GPFARM DSS. …

An Agent-Based Model Of Housing Search And Intraurban Migration In The Twin Cities Of Minnesota, Shipeng Sun, Steven M. Manson

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Intraurban migration defines many neighbourhood dynamics and consequentlyimpacts land use patterns in the long term. Housing location decision-making is a complexprocess involving many features of the housing market that interact with the perceptions ofhome searchers. Although modellers have paid much attention to the prices and utilities ofthe environmental, ecological, and public services associated with housing, the housingsearch process is neglected in many agent-based land use models involving urban housingmarket. The challenge of incorporating housing search partially lies in the prohibitive costof identifying, recording, and quantifying housing search activities at a large scale. Thispaper presents an agent-based model of intraurban migration …

Parcel Subdivision Automation For Agent-Based Land Use Modelling, Rohan Wickramasuriya, Laurie Chisholm, Marji Puotinen, Nicholas Gill

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

To a significant extent rural Australia is transforming into multifunctionallandscapes. Amenity migration (i.e. movement of people from metropolitan to ruralsettings) is a major driving force of this transition in many areas. However, the effects ofamenity migration on the receiving landscapes are not yet fully understood. Agent-basedland use modelling helps unravel the complex spatio-temporal relationships that affectlandscape response to change from amenity migration. A land subdivision module isessential for a complete agent-based land use model developed for these landscapesbecause the land sold to in-migrants are lots that are subdivided from much larger tracts. Inthis paper we describe a land subdivision automation …

Towards Adaptive Control Of Landscape Biodiversity, J. Gary Polhill, Andrew Jarvis, Alessandro Gimona, Nicholas M. Gotts

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper reports work using a coupled agent-based model of land use changeand species metacommunity model (FEARLUS-SPOMM) to explore biodiversity incentivemechanisms using adaptive control algorithms. Existing work at the LancasterEnvironment Centre has shown that such algorithms can help in analysing the adaptivecapabilities of climate-related policy interventions under uncertainty. In particular,feedback control is a practical approach that mimics many recognisable features of adaptivedecision making processes, including the sequential review of models and policies in thelight of new observations. In a companion paper, we show that FEARLUS-SPOMM showsnonlinear dynamics in the relationship between agricultural incentives and biodiversityoutcome. In this pilot study, we …

The Northern-Global Climate Change Adaptation Dialogue, J. I. Maclellan

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Although climate change adaptation can occur over various political, social, and institutionalscales, the majority of adaptation decisions take place at the local level where an intimate understanding ofthe particularities of local circumstances (i.e. successful responses to past extremes events) exist alongsidea lack of formalised expertise in projecting and analyzing future possibilities. The relationship between theexperts who produce counterfactual knowledge, and the individuals who apply it, is thus central to thechallenge of responding to climate change successfully. I present a deliberately polarized caricature of thisrelationship in an attempt to facilitate knowledge exchange (i.e. to identify barriers to knowledgeexchange). Through bibliometric analysis …

Integronsters' And The Special Role Of Data, Alexey Voinov

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In many cases model integration treats models as software components only, ignoring the fluid relationship between models and reality, the evolving nature of models and their constant modification and re-calibration. As a result, with integrated models we find increased complexity, where changes that used to impact only relatively contained models of subsystems, now propagate throughout the whole integrated system. This makes it harder to keep the overall complexity under control and, in a way, defeats the purpose of modularity, when efficiency is supposed to be gained from independent development of modules. Treating models only as software in solving the integration …

Interacting Environmental Interfaces: Synchronization In Substance Exchange Between Environmental Interfaces Regarded As Biophysical Complex Systems, Dragutin T. Mihailović, M. Budincevic, D. Perisic, Igor Balaž, A. Firanj

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In modeling environmental interfaces regarded as biophysical complex systems, one of the main tasks is to create an operative interface with the external environment. The interface should provide a robust and prompt translation of the vast diversity of external physical and/or chemical changes into a set of signals that are understandable for a biophysical entity. Although the organization of any system is of crucial importance for its functioning, it should not be forgotten that in biophysical systems we deal with real-life problems where a number of other conditions must be satisfied in order to put the system to work. One …

An Agent-Based Model Of Housing Search And Intraurban Migration In The Twin Cities Of Minnesota, Shipeng Sun, Steven M. Manson

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Intraurban migration defines many neighbourhood dynamics and consequentlyimpacts land use patterns in the long term. Housing location decision-making is a complexprocess involving many features of the housing market that interact with the perceptions ofhome searchers. Although modellers have paid much attention to the prices and utilities ofthe environmental, ecological, and public services associated with housing, the housingsearch process is neglected in many agent-based land use models involving urban housingmarket. The challenge of incorporating housing search partially lies in the prohibitive costof identifying, recording, and quantifying housing search activities at a large scale. Thispaper presents an agent-based model of intraurban migration …

Climate Change Impact On Agriculture: Devils Lake Basin, Andrei Kirilenko

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Northern Great Plains is one of the most important agricultural regionsworldwide. This is also a region expected to be heavily impacted by climate change. Thisand two other papers in this session concentrate on studying climate change impacts onwater resources of the region, and on the impacts of these changes on agriculture. Themajor focus of our interest is Devils Lake watershed in North Dakota. The watershed islocated in the Northern Great Plains, the area where intensive agriculture has caused anextreme change in land use and land cover, followed by substantial water pollution. DevilsLake is an endorheic (terminal) lake, which makes it …

Agent-Based Modeling Of A Rental Market For Agricultural Land In The Argentine Pampas, Federico Bert, Guillermo Podestá, Santiago Rovere, Michael North, Angel Menéndez, Carlos Laciana, Charles Macal, Elke Weber, Pamela Sydelko

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

More than half of land in the Argentine Pampas is cropped by tenants. Theimportance of production on rented land motivated development of a LAnd Rental MArket(LARMA) model with endogenous formation of Land Rental Price (LRP). LARMA is a“hybrid” model that relies partly on easy-to-implement concepts from neoclassicaleconomics, but addresses drawbacks of this approach by being integrated into an agentbasedmodel that involves heterogeneous agents interacting in a dynamic environment.LRP formation assumes economic equilibrium: it is the price at which supply of rental landarea equals land demand. LRP depends on (a) the “willing to accept” price (WTAP) ofowners renting out land due …

Integronsters' And The Special Role Of Data, Alexey Voinov

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In many cases model integration treats models as software components only, ignoring the fluid relationship between models and reality, the evolving nature of models and their constant modification and re-calibration. As a result, with integrated models we find increased complexity, where changes that used to impact only relatively contained models of subsystems, now propagate throughout the whole integrated system. This makes it harder to keep the overall complexity under control and, in a way, defeats the purpose of modularity, when efficiency is supposed to be gained from independent development of modules. Treating models only as software in solving the integration …

Modelling Human Health By Levels Of Biological Organization, Wilfred R. Cuff, Clifford Clark, Paulette Richard, Venkata R S K Duvvuri

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The hierarchy of levels in the organization of matter, or the “hierarchy of life”, is a fundamentalconcept in biology, and biologists are used to thinking about their work asbeing at a particular level. Yet medicine, in both research and application, operatessomewhat independently of this concept, working almost exclusively at levels at or belowthe individual. Through the relatively-recent expansion of epidemiology, medicinedoes reach up to the level of the population - but medicine at higher levels of biologicalorganization remains under-developed. In this paper we review the biological idea ofhierarchy of life and explore what medical research and practice might look like …

Modeling Hydrologic Regime Of A Terminal Lake Basin With Gcm Down-Scaled Scenarios, Yeo Howe Lim, Joshua Hassell, William Teng

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A dramatic phenomenon has been occurring in Devils Lake, a terminal lake inNorth Dakota: its inundated area has continually expanded since reaching its extreme lowin the 1940s. Devils Lake’s continual rise in water level has created immediate hardshipsfor local residents, particularly farmers who have lost large parcels of productive land andproperties. The search for solutions to the problems caused by the unique lake flooding hasmotivated our modeling of the lake basin’s hydrology, the lake processes, and climaticchange impacts. A distributed rainfall runoff model, HEC-HMS, has been calibrated forseveral major sub-basins that drain into the lake. A significant challenge has been …

Modeling Hydrologic Regime Of A Terminal Lake Basin With Gcm Down-Scaled Scenarios, Yeo Howe Lim, Joshua Hassell, William Teng

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A dramatic phenomenon has been occurring in Devils Lake, a terminal lake inNorth Dakota: its inundated area has continually expanded since reaching its extreme lowin the 1940s. Devils Lake’s continual rise in water level has created immediate hardshipsfor local residents, particularly farmers who have lost large parcels of productive land andproperties. The search for solutions to the problems caused by the unique lake flooding hasmotivated our modeling of the lake basin’s hydrology, the lake processes, and climaticchange impacts. A distributed rainfall runoff model, HEC-HMS, has been calibrated forseveral major sub-basins that drain into the lake. A significant challenge has been …

Latter-Day Saint Courtship Patterns, Jennifer Hurlbut, Thomas B. Holman, Kristi A. Young, Mary J. Woodger

BYU Studies

This book is a collection of twelve sociological studies that examine how active, faithful Latter-day Saint singles go about deciding to marry and selecting a mate. Since most of the research was conducted via surveys of BYU students and asks the question "What makes the Mormon marriage process different from the typical American process?" it accounts for a very narrow part of the worldwide LDS community. Focusing on this small segment is a good start but shows that research in LDS sociology is still often limited in its scope.

An introductory chapter by Thomas B. Holman provides the backdrop necessary …

The Use Of Experts’ Judgements To Assess Agri- Environmental Policies In The Venice Lagoon Watershed: A Bayesian Network Approach, Carpani Marta

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Expert elicitation processes are increasingly applied in environmental management, to deal with complex phenomena characterised by lack or scarcity of data. Information obtained from carefully defined elicitation protocols can overcome uncertainty limits and support decision-making processes. The work illustrates the potentials of an innovative methodological framework, built upon the integrated use of specific tools, such as cognitive maps and Bayesian networks (BNs). The methodology was applied to the Venice Lagoon Watershed (VLW) case study, to assess agri-environmental measures, adopted to reduce nitrogen diffuse pollution of water. The framework consisted of two main phases, both built upon processes eliciting judgments from …

Interacting Environmental Interfaces: Synchronization In Substance Exchange Between Environmental Interfaces Regarded As Biophysical Complex Systems, Dragutin T. Mihailović, M. Budincevic, D. Perisic, Igor Balaž, A. Firanj

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In modeling environmental interfaces regarded as biophysical complex systems, one of the main tasks is to create an operative interface with the external environment. The interface should provide a robust and prompt translation of the vast diversity of external physical and/or chemical changes into a set of signals that are understandable for a biophysical entity. Although the organization of any system is of crucial importance for its functioning, it should not be forgotten that in biophysical systems we deal with real-life problems where a number of other conditions must be satisfied in order to put the system to work. One …

Grand Valley Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 1 Summer 2010, Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Magazine

Grand Valley Magazine is a quarterly publication about Grand Valley State University produced by University Communications since 2001.

Utpa Commencement – Summer 2010, University Of Texas-Pan American

Edinburg Archives - Legacy Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Legislating In The Light: Considering Empirical Data In Crafting Arbitration Reforms, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

Consumer advocates and policymakers call for abolition of predispute arbitration clauses in consumer contracts, while proponents of arbitration claim such abolition would increase companies’ dispute resolution costs, leading to higher prices and interest rates. Policymakers on both sides of the debate, however, rarely consider the empirical research necessary for crafting informed arbitration disclosure rules. This article therefore focuses on how varied research, including my own empirical studies, may inform policies regarding arbitration disclosure regulations. The article also offers suggestions for regulations tailored to have the most impact for the cost in light of this research.

A. Lynn Martin. Alcohol, Violence, And Disorder In Traditional Europe, Ken Albala

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Dmitri Shalin Interview With Roy Turner About Erving Goffman Entitled "What Struck Me First About Goffman Was That He Had An Amazing Elegance In His Delivery", Roy Turner

Bios Sociologicus: The Erving Goffman Archives

This conversation with Dr. Roy Turner, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, was recorded over the phone on April 4, 2010. After Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, Dr. Turner edited the text and approved posting the present version in the Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information and additional materials inserted during the editing process appear in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”.

2010 - 2011 University Catalog, Loma Linda University

University Catalog (2005 - present)

Volume 100, Number 1, July 2010

Published once a year, July 2010

The Schooled Heart: Moral Formation In American Higher Education, Ronald E. Bartholomew, Michael D. Beaty, Douglas V. Henry

BYU Studies

The Schooled Heart: Moral Formation in American Higher Education is a deeply provocative work. Editors Michael D. Beaty and Douglas V. Henry, both of Baylor University, put forth the objectives of the book in what I found to be an enlightening and engaging introduction. Tracing the history of the institutional position of moral formation once held in higher education, they argue that the traditional emphasis on building morality was displaced primarily by the epistemological shift that occurred during the 1930s. According to their view, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, liberal education at universities embraced revelation from God as …

Seeing The State: Transparency As Metaphor, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

When applied as a public administrative norm, the term and concept “transparency” has two intertwined meanings. First, it refers to those constitutional and legislative tools that require the government to disclose information in order to inform the public and create a more accountable, responsive state. Second, it operates as a metaphor that identifies and decries the distance between the public and the state, and that drives and shapes the desire for a more perfect democratic order. Viewed together, these two meanings both demand efforts to impose legal obligations on the state to be “open” and suggest that such efforts are …

Georgia State News And Notes

Georgia Library Quarterly

Recent library news from Georgia State University.

Review: Outcasts United: An American Town, A Refugee Team, And One Woman's Quest To Make A Difference, Amy Harris

Georgia Library Quarterly

Review of the book "Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference," by Warren St. John.

Interpersonal Networks And Democratic Politics, Anand E. Sokhey, Paul Djupe

Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Restorative Writing: Connecting Adjudicated Students To Local And Global Communities, Cheryl Lynn Duckworth

CAHSS Faculty Presentations, Proceedings, Lectures, and Symposia

Poets and memoirists have known for millennia that the written word can clarify, beautify and heal, as the students of Room 5C often discover. Writing, of course, is also a key tool of peaceful social change. As such, the written word can be where personal and social change, structure and agency, meet in the classroom. Yet how often is this power leveraged in our juvenile detention home schools? How often do we ask juvenile offenders to be critical participants, even leaders, in their communities? Freire would remind us that the problems juvenile offender-students face are themselves the best curriculum.

This …

Marital Naming/Naming Marriage: Language And Status In Family Law, Suzanne A. Kim

Indiana Law Journal

What's in a name? Based on current family law and policy debates, the answer would seem to be: a whole lot. Today's discussion of legal prohibitions of same-sex marriage abounds with the assumption that language, in the form of names and labels, is deeply meaningful from a status perspective. Missing from this debate, however, is a careful examination of the role that names and labels play in the construction of the status category of marriage. This Article fills this gap in family law scholarship by providing an explicit account of how language plays a critical role in reflecting and reinforcing …