Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Powering Down Technology, Janine Jacques

The University Dialogue

This paper will examine the issue of energy consumption resulting from the use of technology. It will identify and evaluate potential solutions currently being deployed by data center managers. In addition, the paper will recommend guidelines for reducing energy consumption for both the individual and business consumer.

Energy – The Not-So Bottomless Oil Well And The Alternatives, P.T. Vasudevan

The University Dialogue

This essay examines both sides of the “Hubbert’s peak” debate and their implications for energy policy. If there is a strong case for governments to wean their economies of oil, how do they do it? What low-carbon or alternative technologies bear watching? How will these technologies affect the environment? How long will the world remain reliant on oil considering that industries are 98% dependent on petroleum products?

Climate In The Balance, Cameron P. Wake

The University Dialogue

This essay explores how our climate system works, how humans are changing the climate system, and how we might face the challenges of reducing our negative impact on the climate system in the future.

Iowa Academy Of Science: The New Bulletin, V02n1, Winter 2006, Iowa Academy Of Science

New Bulletin

Inside This Issue:

--Message from the Executive Director

--Pare Lorentz Award for Iowa Documentary

--118th Iowa Academy of Science Annual Meeting

--Iowa Summit on Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education

--Iowa Science Teachers Journal

--Considering Reorganizing the IAS Sections

--GLOBE ONE

--Grants & Award Program Announcements

--IAS Honors New Fellows

--Now Accepting 2006 Fellows Nominations

Evaluation Of Cauliflower And Broccoli Varieties: Summer Planting (November 2005 - February 2006), Department Of Food And Agriculture, Western Australia

Horticulture research reports

This document has been prepared from a cauliflower and broccoli variety evaluation trial conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute, South Western Highway, Manjimup WA 6258. The results reflect the growth characteristics, yield, quality and density of the cauliflower and broccoli varieties as recorded at this site during the conditions of the growing period (November 2005 to February 2006).

This report is the first in a series of four produced from the evaluation of cauliflower and broccoli varieties conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute.

The results are provided to allow seed suppliers, seedling nurseries, producers, packers and marketers to …

Taxaminer: Improving Taxonomy Label Quality Using Latent Semantic Indexing, Cartic Ramakrishnan, Christopher Thomas, Vipul Kashyap, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

The development of taxonomies/ontologies is a human intensive process requiring prohibitively large resource commitments in terms of time and cost. In our previous work we have identified an experimentation framework for semi-automatic taxonomy/hierarchy generation from unstructured text. In the preliminary results presented, the taxonomy/hierarchy quality was lower than we had anticipated. In this paper, we present two variations of our experimentation framework, viz. Latent semantic Indexing (LSI) for document indexing and the use of term vectors to prune labels assigned to nodes in the final taxonomy/hierarchy. Using our previous results of taxonomy/hierarchy quality as the baseline we present results that …

Data Processing In Space, Time, And Semantics Dimensions, Farshad Hakimpour, Boanerges Aleman-Meza, Matthew Perry, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This work presents an experimental system for data processing in space, time and semantics dimensions using current Semantic Web technologies. The paper describes how we obtain geographic and event data from Internet sources and also how we integrate them into an RDF store. We briefly introduce a set of functionalities in space, time and semantics dimensions. These functionalities are implemented based on our existing technology for main-memory based RDF data processing developed in the LSDIS Lab. A number of these functionalities are exposed as REST Web services. We present two sample client side applications that are developed using a combination …

Front Matter

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Winter Bird Use Of Conservation Reserve Program Fields Harvested For Biomass, Les D. Murray, Louis B. Best

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

As Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts expire, many fields may be returned to agricultural production. Growing switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) as a biomass fuel is an alternative to returning fields to rowcrops. CRP fields provide winter cover for birds, but the harvest of biomass would remove most of the cover and affect bird use of the fields. We estimated winter bird abundances in nonharvested, total-harvested, and partially (strip) harvested switchgrass fields in southern Iowa. Song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) were observed only in strip-harvested fields and ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) were observed only in nonharvested fields and uncut areas of strip-harvested fields. …

Changes In Land Cover And Breeding Bird Populations With Restoration Of Riparian Habitats In East-Central Iowa, Thomas J. Benson, James J. Dinsmore, William L. Hohman

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Conversion of Midwestern riparian areas for agricultural production has greatly altered their function and suitability for birds and other wildlife. Recently, however, restoration of riparian functions has been a major focus of land management agencies in the Midwest. We used historic land-use data to describe land-cover changes since European settlement and the subsequent effects of habitat restoration efforts on the landscape along a section of the Iowa River in east-central Iowa. We then used bird-density data collected in a subset of the study area in 2001 and 2002 to estimate changes in breeding bird populations of the entire study area …

Front Matter

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Research Plan And Preliminary Results - A Field Research Site For Emerging Contaminants In Iowa, Douglas J. Schnoebelen, Dana W. Kolpin, Larry B. Barber, Edward T. Furlong, Michael M. Meyer, Mary Skopec

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Research has recently documented the prevalence of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals and other emerging contaminants (ECs) in streams across the United States. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been found to be an important source and collection point of ECs to streams as many ECs are incompletely removed during treatment. To investigate the complex instream processes (e.g., dilution, sorption, degradation, dispersion, etc.) chat can affect ECs following their input from a WWTP and determining if such input is having an effect on the aquatic ecosystem requires the integration of multi-disciplinary efforts at a carefully selected field site. Preliminary work has …

The Honey Creek Member: A New Holocene Alluvial Stratigraphic Unit In The Midwest, Jeremy S. Dillon, Rolfe D. Mandel

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

This paper describes the type locality and type section for the Honey Creek Member, a stratigraphic unit first recognized in the Honey Creek drainage in southeastern Nebraska. The alluvial chronology for Honey Creek basin is similar to the regional chronology of streams in the Midwest, and all of the formal members of the DeForest Formation occur in the basin. However, the lithology of one unit, the Honey Creek Member, does not correlate with any of the formally recognized members of the DeForest Formation. The Honey Creek Member is composed of grayish brown silt loam overbank facies coarsening downward to a …

Peak Oil, Geopolitics And The Need For Relocalization: Will Our Magnificent Obsession Become Our Obsolete Obsession?, John E. Carroll

The University Dialogue

This essay will look at the peak oil question, contemporary “oil geopolitics” and their effect not only on energy supplies, but also on transportation, agriculture and food supplies, and population distribution in the United States. While the war in Iraq forms a centerpiece in the geopolitical scene, Russia, China, and other nations will be discussed as well. This essay will also examine the inevitable relocalization which appears to be a necessary result.

What I Learned At The Maa Digital Library Workshop, Gizem Karaali

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Toward the end of July 2006, an item appeared briefly on the MAA website. This was the call for participants for the MAA Digital Library Workshop. Curious surfers like me clicked on it to find the description of this workshop, which was to be held over the course of a weekend in October 2006 in Washington, DC. The announcement included a cryptic sentence of the form “The primary aims of the workshop are to provide an overview of the two MAA digital libraries and of the National Science Digital Library, and to prepare participants to offer a short workshop on …

Data Mining Techniques To Study Therapy Success With Autistic Children, Gondy A. Leroy, Annika Irmscher, Marjorie H. Charlop

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Autism spectrum disorder has become one of the most prevalent developmental disorders, characterized by a wide variety of symptoms. Many children need extensive therapy for years to improve their behavior and facilitate integration in society. However, few systematic evaluations are done on a large scale that can provide insights into how, where, and how therapy has an impact. We describe how data mining techniques can be used to provide insights into behavioral therapy as well as its effect on participants. To this end, we are developing a digital library of coded video segments that contains data on appropriate and inappropriate …

Evaluation Of Cauliflower And Broccoli Varieties: Autumn Planting (January - May 2006), Kristen Stirling

Horticulture research reports

This document has been prepared from a cauliflower and broccoli variety evaluation trial conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute, South Western Highway, Manjimup WA 6258. The results reflect the growth characteristics, yield, quality and density of the cauliflower and broccoli varieties as recorded at this site during the conditions of the growing period (January to May 2006).

This report is the second in a series of four produced from the evaluation of cauliflower and broccoli varieties conducted at the Manjimup Horticultural Research Institute. The results are provided to allow seed suppliers, seedling nurseries, producers, packers and marketers to identify …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 48 Number 3, Winter 2006, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

8 - WELCOME HOME, STEVE By Steven Boyd Saum. Basketball superstar Steve Nash '96 comes home to Santa Clara for a unique honor: a ceremony retiring his Bronco jersey. In a convocation address, he tells how Santa Clara changed his life. Now he wants the University to take its mission global.

12 - THE SCHOOL OF HOPE By Martha Ellen Stortz. Scholar and teacher Bill Spohn earned deep affection and the respect of the Santa Clara community in his years directing the Bannan Center for Jesuit Education. When he was stricken with cancer, he and his wife, Marty Stortz, looked …

Science-Based Organic Farming 2006: Toward Local And Secure Food Systems, Charles A. Francis, Katja Koehler-Cole, Twyla Hansen, Peter Skelton

Publications from the Center for Applied Rural Innovation (CARI)

Organic farming includes growing food and fiber—animals, agronomic crops, horticultural fruits and vegetables, related products—as one dynamic and rapidly evolving component of our complex U.S. food system. Even as more farmers are moving toward organic certification and participation in an environmentally sound and economically lucrative market, questions arise about the long-term social impacts and sustainability of a set of practices that has gone from a movement to an industry. Consolidations in the organic trade have brought multinational corporations to the table, as they have observed a grassroots activity that has grown by 20% per year for the past two decades, …

Isotope Sourcing Of Prehistoric Willow And Tule Textiles Recovered From Western Great Basin Rock Shelters And Caves: Proof Of Concept, Larry V. Benson, E. M. Hattori, H. E. Taylor, S. R. Poulson, E. A. Jolie

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Isotope and trace-metal analyses were used to determine the origin of plants used to manufacture prehistoric textiles (basketry and matting) from archaeological sites in the western Great Basin. Research focused on strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) and oxygen (¹⁸O/¹⁶O) isotope ratios of willow (Salix sp.) and tule (Schoenoplectus sp.), the dominant raw materials in Great Basin textiles. The oxygen-isotope data indicated that the willow and tule used to produce the textiles were harvested from the banks of rivers or in marshes characterized by flowing water and not from lakes or sinks. The strontium-isotope …

The Agricultural Productivity Of Chaco Canyon And The Source(S) Of Pre-Hispanic Maize Found In Pueblo Bonito, Larry Benson, John Stein, Howard Taylor, Richard Friedman, Thomas C. Windes

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Agricultural productivity estimates suggest that the core area of Chaco Canyon could have sustained only a few hundred individuals. Modern analogues of existing Pueblo populations and their domestic habitations with Chaco structures suggest that Chaco at times had a resident population exceeding 2000 people. These data suggest that maize would have had to be imported to feed permanent residents and those visiting Chaco during ritual–political gatherings and those who participated in the accelerated construction and modification of great houses between AD 1030 and 1130. Comparison of strontium-isotope and trace-element ratios of synthetic soil and natural waters from sites within the …

Semi-Supervised Conditional Random Fields For Improved Sequence Segmentation And Labeling, Feng Jiao, Shaojun Wang, Chi-Hoon Lee, Russell Greiner, Dale Schuurmans

Kno.e.sis Publications

We present a new semi-supervised training procedure for conditional random fields (CRFs) that can be used to train sequence segmentors and labelers from a combination of labeled and unlabeled training data. Our approach is based on extending the minimum entropy regularization framework to the structured prediction case, yielding a training objective that combines unlabeled conditional entropy with labeled conditional likelihood. Although the training objective is no longer concave, it can still be used to improve an initial model (e.g. obtained from supervised training) by iterative ascent. We apply our new training algorithm to the problem of identifying gene and protein …

An Investigation Of Codon Usage Bias Including Visualization And Quantification In Organisms Exhibiting Multiple Biases, Douglas W. Raiford, Travis E. Doom, Dan E. Krane, Michael L. Raymer

Kno.e.sis Publications

Prokaryotic genomic sequence data provides a rich resource for bioinformatic analytic algorithms. Information can be extracted in many ways from the sequence data. One often overlooked process involves investigating an organism’s codon usage. Degeneracy in the genetic code leads to multiple codons coding for the same amino acids. Organism’s often preferentially utilize specific codons when coding for an amino acid. This biased codon usage can be a useful trait when predicting a gene’s expressivity or whether the gene originated from horizontal transfer. There can be multiple biases at play in a genome causing errors in the predictive process. For this …

A Semantic Future For Ai, Rudi Studer, Anupriya Ankolekar, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

In our modern information society, people need to manage ever-increasing numbers of personal devices and conduct more of their work and activities online, often making use of heterogeneous services. The amount of information to be processed by each individual is constantly growing, making it increasingly difficult to control, channel, share and make constructive use of it. To mitigate this, computing needs to become much more human-centered, e.g. by presenting personalised information to users and by respecting personal preferences in controlling multiple devices or invoking various services. Appropriate representation of the semantics of the information and functionality of devices and services …

Use Of Artificial Enclosures To Determine The Survival Of Rana Pipiens Larvae In Upper Midwestern Agricultural Ponds, Joshua M. Kapfer, Mark B. Sandheinrich, Melinda G. Knutson

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Amphibians in the upper Midwest use agricultural ponds for breeding. Unfortunately, the risks (both direct and indirect) associated with using these ponds are poorly understood in both amphibian adults and larvae. In order to quantify these risks, we performed a comparison of larval survival rates between agricultural and natural ponds in southeastern Minnesota during the spring and summer of 2001. During this time, larval survival was observed in Rana pipiens tadpoles raised through metamorphosis in enclosures placed in agricultural and natural ponds. In addition, we measured the levels of nutrients commonly linked with agricultural ponds (i.e., ammonia, total phosphorous, and …

Silicification Of Corals, Stromatoporids, And Brachiopods At The Weathered Surface Within The Devonian-Age Little Cedar Formation (Solon And Rapid Members) In Eastern Iowa, Adam L. Majeski, Paul L. Garvin

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Diagenesis of fossils contained in middle-Devonian limestones was studied at the Troy Mills and Robins quarries in Linn County, Iowa and at the Four County and Ernst quarries in Johnson County, Iowa. Fossils located at weathered bedrock surfaces were preferentially silicified, and the silicification affected corals, stromatoporids and, to a limited extent, brachiopods, but not other fossils or the host rock. The siliceous horizon extends no more than a few centimeters below the weathered surfaces, suggesting that silicification was constrained by them. Silica for silicification might have come from a variety of sources, including sponge spicules or radiolarian tests, insoluble …

Foreign-Born Population In Selected Ohio Cities, 1870 To 2000 A Brief Descriptive Report, Mark Salling, Ellen Cyran

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Cover - Table Of Contents

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

Relation Of Riparian Buffer Strips To In-Stream Habitat, Macroinvertebrates And Fish In A Small Iowa Stream, Jeremy P. Duehr, Michael J. Siepker, Clay L. Pierce, Thomas M. Isenhart

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Macroinvertebrate and fish habitat is often degraded as a result of agriculture. Riparian buffer strips are commonly used to counteract the negative effects of agriculture in headwater streams. We assessed the relation of multi-aged riparian buffer strips to in-stream habitat, macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in an Iowa stream. In-stream habitat, macroinvertebrates, and fish were sampled from two buffered sites and two unbuffered sites, with the greatest substrate, water depth, and velocity heterogeneity occurring in buffered sites. The highest macroinvertebrate richness (11) as well as fish species richness (14), diversity (1.99) and IBI score (3 7) were found in the site …

Back Cover

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.