Digital Commons Network^™

How To Manage Hydrological Measurements?, Tadesse Alemayehu

Open Water Journal

Hydrological measurements need good management for the data not to be lost. Multiple, often overlapping files from various loggers with heterogeneous formats need to be merged. Data needs to be validated and cleaned and subsequently converted to the format for the hydrological target application. Preferably, all these steps should be easily tracable.

RObsDat is an R package designed to support such data management. It is a command line user interface to support hydrologists to enter and adjust their data in a database following the Observations Data Model (ODM) standard by QUASHI. RObsDat helps in the setup of the database within …

Open Source Development Of Exploration And Graphics For River Trends (Egret): An R-Package For The Analysis Of Long-Term Changes In Water Quality And Streamflow, Including The Water-Quality Method Weighted Regressions On Time, Discharge, And Season, Laura Decicco, Robert Hirsch

Open Water Journal

The development of an R package: Exploration and Graphics for River Trends (EGRET) is discussed. R is a free programming language developed for statistical computing and graphics. The development of this package was done using gitHub, allowing for easy collaboration between colleagues. The EGRET package includes 3 major features. The first is simplifying the methods for obtaining water quality, streamflow, and metadata. A large collection of United States river data is available through web services from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS). Functions for importing data from the NWIS system were included in a supplement to …

Using Catchment Modeling Framework For Modeling Of Water And Pesticide Fate At Hillslope Scale, K. Djabelkhir, P. Kratt, C. Lauvernet, N. Carluer

Open Water Journal

Control and reduction of water contamination by pesticides are major issues for the protection of aquatic ecosystems. In order to better understand and formalize the main pathways of pesticides transport, the Catchment Modeling Framework (Kraft et al., 2011) has been chosen, which is an open source hydrological framework providing a spatial distribution with an object-oriented approach. Modularity characteristic of CMF, allows users given a modular design to our landscape, and to choose equations describing flux connection between hydrological response units either in surface and subsurface, and to add new modules and functions.

The aim of this study is to better …

The “Acronet Paradigm”, An “Open Hardware” Project, Adriano Fedi, Daniele Ferrari, Marco Lima, Fabio Pintus, Cosimo Versace, Giorgio Boni

Open Water Journal

For the monitoring of hydrometeorological variables, and more generally, for decision support systems, the instrumental in-situ measurement is crucial.

Referring to professional micrometeorological stations, there is a problem represented by the high costs of measures.

The high cost can be substantially related to the quality of the materials, to the array of industrial production processes and to the costs of skilled workers, needed for the installation and for the maintenance of the equipment.

A further problem in the development of such measuring networks is represented by "closed" products which, for structural layouts, data management and communications, are almost always referred …

Social.Water—An Open-Source Python Code For Citizen-Driven Data Acquisition, Michael N. Fienen, Christopher S. Lowry

Open Water Journal

Remote telemetry has a long history at the USGS and other hydrologic monitoring organizations, enabling real-time hydrologic data presentation on the Web. Citizen volunteers have also long contributed to hydrologic data–Wisconsin’s USGS and Wisconsin State Geological and Natural History Survey (WGNHS) groundwater network has nearly 100 volunteers participating. Ubiquitous short message service (SMS) messaging and email-capable mobile phones mean nearly everyone can provide telemetric data if they know what information to provide and the infrastructure to accept the information exists: this is “crowdsourcing.”

Crowdhydrology.org, a crowdsourcing project originating in New York State, USA, was implemented by posting signs near stream …

Discontinuous Finite Element Mechanistic Water Quality Model For The Simulation Of Adsorptive Pollutants Transport In River Systems., F. P. Fiengo, L. Sweeck, M. Elskens, W. Bauwens

Open Water Journal

The close interaction between humans, animals and the river system requires to have control about the concentration of different pollutants in the water column in order to avoid damage to the environment. Due to the fact that the measurements are time consuming, expensive and in most of the cases very local, it is required to develop tools in order to predict the spatial and temporal distribution of the pollutants in the system.

Once pollutant effluents are discharged in waters, part of them is transported in liquid phase and the rest is attached to the suspended sediments and to the bed …

Software Tools For Rapid Integrated Model Setup, Gennadii Donchyts, Bert Jagers

Open Water Journal

Impact assessments need to be carried out in more and more detail, both with respect to resolution and number of environmental processes included, and in an ever decreasing amount of time. For the researcher it is important to easily integrate increasing amounts of data from heterogeneous sources into multi-disciplinary models, while at the same time the overall model validity can still be guaranteed. It is important to develop tools that assist both the skilled modeller and beginning user, each at the right level.

Availability of a good quality data on a large geospatial extent is a crucial element of an …

Python Package For Model Structure Analysis (Pystan), S. Van Hoey, Johannes Van Der Kwast, I Nopens, P. Seuntjens

Open Water Journal

The selection and identification of a suitable hydrological model structure is more than fitting parameters of a model structure to reproduce a measured hydrograph. The procedure is highly dependent on various criteria, i.e. the modelling objective, the characteristics and the scale of the system under investigation as well as the available data. Rigorous analysis of the candidate model structures is needed to support and objectify the selection of the most appropriate structure for a specific case (or eventually justify the use of a proposed ensemble of structures). This holds both in the situation of choosing between a limited set of …

Monte Carlo Based Parameterization And Uncertainty Analysis Of A Coupled Crop Growth And Hydrological Model, T. Houska, S. Multsch, P. Kraft, H.-G. Frede, L. Breuer

Open Water Journal

Abstract computer simulations are widely used to support decision making and planning in the agriculture sector. The model structure and parameterization are important to achieve reliable results. On the one hand, many 1D crop growth models are using simplified hydrological processes and structures, e.g. by the use of a small number of soil layers or by the application of simple water flow approaches. On the other hand, in many hydrological models crop growth processes are poorly represented. Hence, fully coupled models with a high degree of process representation, would allow analysing the dynamic behaviour of the soil-plant interface in more …

H2pl: A New Open Source Library For Hydrological Modeling, Khodayar Abdollahi, Okke Batelaan, Marijke Huysmans

Open Water Journal

Due to spatial and temporal variation of hydrologic processes, development of distributed hydrological models remained a difficult task over the last decades. As a consequence application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become a useful and popular tool not only for hydrology but also in many different fields of science. On the other hand, literature emphasizes that hydrological modelers use GIS blindly but should take the advantage of advances in computing technology. This issue generates a demand for development of hydrological frameworks to conceptualize time and space models which targets hydrological modeling specifically.

This study presents the development of an …

Parallel Session: Identifying Factors Leading To The Success Of Social Justice Campaigns Driven By Social Networking Engines In Engaging The Online Youth Audience, Sara Khan, Rida Sarwar, Mehar Naeem

International Conference on Marketing

Background. In the recent years there has been a significant exposure to relatively new media for communication. The online social media networking engines has not only facilitated the business organization but has opened the gateways of expression for the consumers. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are now considered one of the key media to initiate a campaign which becomes viral in no time. A high percentage of such campaigns are based on social justice related to the violence, criminal, and injustice incidents taking place in Pakistan. The objective of this study was to identify factors that are leading to potential engagement …

Parallel Session: Ethics Of Serving The Bottom Of Pyramid Market- A Study In Context Of Indian Food Market, Yukti Sharma, Dr. Reshma Nasreen

International Conference on Marketing

Purpose of study: BOP 1.0 proposition considers BOP market as consumer and a market based approach for alleviating poverty. Free market mechanism fails to inculcate the role of state for protecting the interest of vulnerable consumer. This paper reviews the vulnerabilities of BOP consumers and reality of marketing strategies for engaging this segment. This paper presents, the current legislative framework and suggestive guidelines to be considered while forming a marketing mix for subsistence market. It suggests a theoretical framework for ethical interaction and provides recommendation for marketers and policy makers for formulating and implementing policy at BOP.

Findings – Key …

Parallel Session: Founder Characteristics And Small Firm Performance In Pakistan, Ejaz Mian, Osman Mohamad

International Conference on Marketing

Although there is a large body of research on small firms, there is dearth of studies on small firms in developing countries. Developing countries present new sets of challenges which need new approach. Small firm founders in developing countries often lack marketing and general management knowledge, have low levels of literacy, lack training facilities for various types of skills, and have weak government support and infra-structure. Literature suggests founder characteristics have profound effect on the performance of small firms. This study seeks to investigate role of founder characteristics in performance of small firms in Pakistan. Small firms are defined as …

Parallel Session: Viral Marketing Via The New Media: The Case Of Communication Behavior In Whatsapp, Wan Yu Chong, Yusniza Kamarulzaman

International Conference on Marketing

WhatsApp is the number one smartphone application in Malaysia. With its enormous user base, WhatsApp is a platform with considerable potential for viral marketing, which is a form of electronic word-of-mouth. Past literature indicates that the success of viral marketing greatly depends on a user’s decision to forward viral content, with the user’s intention being the key factor leading up to it. Although different models have been proposed in electronic word-of-mouth viral marketing behaviour, these platforms do not work entirely the same way as WhatsApp, which is a mobile instant messaging application. In addition, the factors affecting the user’s participation …

Parallel Session: Rent Discrimination In Sarajevo, Recai Aydin, Sejma Aydin

International Conference on Marketing

Following the relative stabilization of the country after Dayton Peace agreement, B&H has been attracting growing number of foreigners who come to Bosnia for work or education. In recent years, Ilidza area of Sarajevo city has faced with an influx of such foreigners due to recently established university campuses in the area. This development caused large number of foreign students and professors, mostly from Turkey, to reside in and around Ilidza. This study investigates if these foreign students and professors face with discrimination in the rental market, using Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method as a statistical tool. Ordinary least square (OLS) regressions …

Parallel Session: The Impact Of Industry Type, Business Age And Size On Proactive And Responsive Customer Orientation (Market Strategy), Corrinne Lee, Norbani Che Ha

International Conference on Marketing

This study investigates on proactive customer orientation and responsive customer orientation among business units operating in the technology, information, communication and entertainment (TICE) industry of Malaysia. The impact of the demographic factors of these business units on proactive and responsive customer orientation is examined. The results revealed that the business unit size has statistically significant impact on the variables of interest. The difference in t he business unit size based number of employees has an influence on both the proactive and responsive constructs. In contrast, the difference in the business unit size based on the amount of annual sales turnover …

Parallel Session: A Study Of Buyers' And Sellers' Perception Of Organic Foods In Pakistan: Towards A More Effective Marketing Mix (Green Field Marketing), Sara Khan

International Conference on Marketing

Issues of food safety, nutritional value as well as environmental and ecological damage as a result of agricultural abuse have acquired global significance. Many people are looking for equitable, less cruel and sustainable answers to these problems. Organic foods / products are one such solution to people's food and agricultural needs. Looking at the viewpoints of both consumers (including prospective consumers) and producers, this research undertakes to study the marketing mix of the organic foods / products market in Pakistan and explores marketing solutions to enhance its development (research objective). Using qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, respondents' answers are coded …

Parallel Session: Trends On Green Consumer Behaviors (Gcb): A Viewpoint From Developed And Developing Countries, Siti Aisyah Asrul

International Conference on Marketing

Green consumers are those who purchase and consume green products and the one who persevere the environment with being green. The effort of these green consumers is with regards to their awareness of how the environment has been savagely polluted and they are working hard to reduce the pollution by saving the environment. They play their role as one of the living mechanism with purchasing and consuming eco-friendly products and even influence their family and peers to be part of it. Green behaviour has been well-developed by the consumers all around the continents, be it from developing country or developed …

Parallel Session: Traces Of Company Strategy For Bottom Of Income Pyramid In Pakistan - A Probing Analysis, Mohammad Ekhlaque Ahmed, Marium Mateen Khan, Mohammad Taha Kalam

International Conference on Marketing

This is an exploratory research making an attempt to probe the awareness of the “Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP)” concept among selected renowned companies in Pakistan. The research focused on what contributions have been made by the selected companies so far and how the marketing strategies for BoP are structurally shaping up in the Pakistani context. A qualitative research methodology has been employed. The data was collected through interviews from senior professionals from different industries, engaged actively in marketing assignments. Industries include Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Banking, Beverage and Telecommunication which contribute sizeable business and their market scope covers both …

Parallel Session: Customer’S Attitude Towards Ramadan Advertising, Farheen Khalid, Muhammad Sufyan Ramish, Junaid Ansari, Dr. Tariq Jalees

International Conference on Marketing

Ramadan is the only religious festival in which marketing & advertising activities are carried for whole month. This provides opportunities & challenges to the marketers along with controversies. This paper will not address the controversies but will measure the effect of Ramadan advertisements on consumer attitude. Three hundred and ninety one (391) students of different universities in Karachi participated in this study. The questionnaire adopted for this study had established reliabilities and validates which were re-ascertained for the present set of data. All the five constructs used in this study had five items all based on seven point Likert scale. …

Parallel Session: What Constitutes The Bottom Of Pyramid Market For Innovation?, Fasiha Subhan, Amira Khattak

International Conference on Marketing

The BOP is a concept of dividing the world into an economic pyramid by keeping the privileged on the top and unprivileged poor at the bottom. Businesses need to adopt innovative ways of doing businesses in a market consisting of billions of underprivileged poor consumers. However, the main question is, does this huge segment have the capability of becoming profitable for companies? This research analyzes the viewpoints of various theorists and organizations about the agreed income level of a typical BOP and in doing so attempts to arrive at an ideal definition of the BOP market for businesses. Further, the …

Parallel Session: Moving Towards Sustainable Consumption: A Study Of Reduce, Reuse And Recycle (3rs) Adoption Among Malaysians, Regina Yan Ginny, Yusniza Kamarulzaman

International Conference on Marketing

Over the last decade, rapid globalization, industrial development, economic growth and technological advancement has resulted in population growth and unprecedented changes to the social and cultural lifestyle in Malaysia. One of the dramatic increase was witnessed in the consumption of goods and services due to the rising household income and progressive consumption-oriented lifestyles. On one hand, it helps to stimulate economic activities, but on the other hand, it poses threat to the diversity and stability of the natural environment in various ways. Hence, the key purpose of this study is to identify the factors that affects Reduce, Reuse and Recycle …

Art-Integration Through Making Dioramas Of Women Mathematicians’ Lives Enhances Creativity And Motivation, Audrey C. Rule, Dana L. Atwood-Blaine, Clayton M. Edwards, Mindy M. Gordon

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

Creativity is essential for solving problems in the workplace, natural environment, and everyday life, necessitating that creativity be nurtured in schools. Identification of factors that intrinsically motivate students to learn difficult or initially unappealing content is also important. This project, in which 24 racially diverse fifth grade girls created dioramas of the lives of diverse successful women mathematicians, explored the girls’ reactions to art integration into mathematics through a phenomenological qualitative analysis of their products, essays, and responses to questionnaires. The project supported the Next Generation Science Standard for engineering design, Standard 3-5-ETS1-1 and two National Core Arts Standards for …

Three- And Four-Year Olds Learn About Gears Through Arts Incorporation, Dessy Stoycheva, Leann M. Perkins

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

This research paper explores art integration into a science lesson unit that follows the Next Generation Science Standards (K-PS2-1) and focuses on the effects on memory retention of key concepts along with levels of enjoyment. An experiment was conducted with children ages 3 and 4 teaching scientific concepts about gears while incorporating student-made art products. The children were assigned to alternating experimental (art-integrated) or control (no art) conditions during the four stages of the lesson. The results did not show statistically significant differences at the alpha = 0.05 level between conditions in the amount of information retained based on the …

Fourth Graders Make Inventions Using Scamper And Animal Adaptation Ideas, Mahjabeen Hussain, Anastasia Carignan

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

This study explores to what extent the SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Rearrange) technique combined with animal adaptation ideas learned through form and function analogy activities can help fourth graders generate creative ideas while augmenting their inventiveness. The sample consisted of 24 fourth grade students (14 female, 10 male) ages 9-10 at a suburban Midwestern elementary school. A repeated-measures design involving all participants alternately in the two conditions measured students under each treatment condition. In the experimental condition, students used SCAMPER charts with animal adaptation ideas to generate ideas to improve a product using …

Second-Graders Beautify For Butterflies, Andrea E. Anderson, Jessica A. Meier

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

This practical article presents activities that support previous research suggesting the integration of art with science is beneficial to the learning and cooperative processes of children. The project showcased here highlights the ability of elementary school children to collaborate with their peers for problem solving and critical thinking through the artistic use of observation and sketching. This article discusses effective lesson activities in which students combined art and science by creating and cultivating a butterfly garden on the school’s property.

Who Moved Those Rain Clouds To Town? Making Windbirds To Learn About The Power Of Wind, Deepanee Samarakoon, Latisha L. Smith

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

In this practical article, a kindergarten teacher shares a lesson designed to teach students about the power of wind. To address the Next Generation Science Standards engineering standards, students discussed the negative and positive aspects of wind and made daily weather observations (K-ESS2-1). Students constructed bird-shaped windsocks, called windbirds, to explore how the shape of the object allowed it to move in the wind (K-2-ETS1-2). To address the National Core Arts Standards, creative arts were integrated as students designed cylindrical windbirds of colorful materials. The windbirds were used to observe the effects of wind in the students’ outdoor environment at …

Water Play, Jane E. Cline, Brandy A. Smith

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

The inclusion of activities to develop sensory awareness, spatial thinking, and physical dexterity, operationalized through hands-on science lessons such as water play, have long been part of early childhood education. This practical article addresses Next Generation Science Standards K-2 ETS1-3 and K-2 ETS1-2 by having four-year-old prekindergarten students direct the path of water on a vertical pegboard water table with strategically-placed, attached plastic cups with holes drilled into them that leak streams of water into each other. Students enhanced their retelling of the story of the Billy Goats Gruff by placing student-made watercolor artwork along the path of the water, …

Using Creativity From Art And Engineering To Engage Students In Science, Mason Albert Kuhn, Scott Greenhalgh, Mark Mcdermott

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

STEAM education, referring to integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics, is a contemporary buzzword that is popular in many schools. In particular, many elementary school teachers who have been tasked to incorporate STEM teaching, because of the requirements of the Next Generation Science Standards, attempt to apply the arts in their science curriculum because they feel more comfortable using instructional approaches that incorporate creative activities such as crafts, drawing, and model construction than the core practices of STEM disciplines. Teachers can use the creative arts activities in two ways to enhance the STEM learning environment: 1) Using creative processes …

Spatial Thinking Skills And Stem Connections: How Does This Issue Address Them?, Audrey C. Rule

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

In this editorial, the Editor considered the importance of spatial thinking skills to STEM careers, provided examples of ways scientists use spatial thinking, noted sex and socioeconomic differences in spatial skill proficiency, and reviewed ways that activities included in articles in this issue involved spatial thinking. Brief summaries and preview images were provided for the articles in the issue. The four-component spatial thinking classification scheme with categories of intrinsic-static, intrinsic-dynamic, extrinsic-static and extrinsic dynamic was applied to the activities from this issue of the Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions. All categories of this classification scheme were addressed, providing …