Position paper on the future of social networking

Social networking mediated by web sites is a relatively new phenomenon and as with all technological innovations there continues to be a period of both technical and social adjustment to fit the services in with people’s behaviours, and for people to adjust their practices in the light of the affordances provided by the technology. Social networking benefits strongly from large scale availability. Users gain greater benefit from social networking services when more of their friends are using them.This applies in social terms, but also in eLearning and professional networks. The network effect provides one explanation for the popularity of internet based social networking sites (SNS) because the number of connections between people which can be maintained by using them is greatly increased in comparison to the networks available before the internet. The ability of users to determine how much they trust information available to them from contacts within their social network is important in almost all modes of use. As sources of information on a range of topics from academic to shopping advice, the level of trust which a user can put in other nodes is a key aspect of the utility of the system.

Maximising concurrency and scalability in a consistent, causal, distributed virtual reality system, whilst minimising the effect of network delays

The development of large scale virtual reality and simulation systems have been mostly driven by the DIS and HLA standards community. A number of issues are coming to light about the applicability of these standards, in their present state, to the support of general multi-user VR systems. This paper pinpoints four issues that must be readdressed before large scale virtual reality systems become accessible to a larger commercial and public domain: a reduction in the effects of network delays; scalable causal event delivery; update control; and scalable reliable communication. Each of these issues is tackled through a common theme of combining wall clock and causal time-related entity behaviour, knowledge of network delays and prediction of entity behaviour, that together overcome many of the effects of network delay.

Maximising concurrency and scalability in a consistent, causal, distributed virtual reality system, whilst minimising the effect of network delays

The development of large scale virtual reality and simulation systems have been mostly driven by the DIS and HLA standards community. A number of issues are coming to light about the applicability of these standards, in their present state, to the support of general multi-user VR systems. This paper pinpoints four issues that must be readdressed before large scale virtual reality systems become accessible to a larger commercial and public domain: a reduction in the effects of network delays; scalable causal event delivery; update control; and scalable reliable communication. Each of these issues is tackled through a common theme of combining wall clock and causal time-related entity behaviour, knowledge of network delays and prediction of entity behaviour, that together overcome many of the effects of network delays.

Effect of addition of protein fractions extracted from flours of different baking quality on gluten rheology

The effect of change of the rheological properties of gluten with the addition of fractions with specific molecular weight was investigated. Fractions extracted from Hereward, Riband and Soissons flours were added to the dough prior to gluten extraction. Once extracted, the glutens were subjected to temperature sweeps and creep recovery rheological tests. In the temperature sweeps, Hereward fractions containing the larger polypeptides had a strengthening effect on the gluten, indicated by a decrease in tan delta and an increase in elastic creep recovery, while those fractions that comprised monomeric gliadins had a weakening effect. Adding total gluten also had a strengthening effect. For the biscuit-making flour Riband, the results were quite the reverse: all fractions appeared to strengthen the gluten network, while the addition of total gluten did not have a strengthening effect. For Soissons gluten, the addition of total gluten had a strengthening effect while adding any individual fraction weakened the gluten. The results were confirmed with creep-recovery tests.

Effect of cutting time, temperature and calcium on curd moisture, whey fat loses and curd yield by response surface methodology

Response surface methodology was used to study the effect of temperature, cutting time, and calcium chloride addition level on curd moisture content, whey fat losses, and curd yield. Coagulation and syneresis were continuously monitored using 2 optical sensors detecting light backscatter. The effect of the factors on the sensors’ response was also examined. Retention of fat during cheese making was found to be a function of cutting time and temperature, whereas curd yield was found to be a function of those 2 factors and the level of calcium chloride addition. The main effect of temperature on curd moisture was to increase the rate at which whey was expelled. Temperature and calcium chloride addition level were also found to affect the light backscatter profile during coagulation whereas the light backscatter profile during syneresis was a function of temperature and cutting time. The results of this study suggest that there is an optimum firmness at which the gel should be cut to achieve maximum retention of fat and an optimum curd moisture content to maximize product yield and quality. It was determined that to maximize curd yield and quality, it is necessary to maximize firmness while avoiding rapid coarsening of the gel network and microsyneresis. These results could contribute to the optimization of the cheese-making process.

Attention through self-synchronisation in the spiking neuron stochastic diffusion network

The paper discusses ensemble behaviour in the Spiking Neuron Stochastic Diffusion Network, SNSDN, a novel network exploring biologically plausible information processing based on higher order temporal coding. SNSDN was proposed as an alternative solution to the binding problem [1]. SNSDN operation resembles Stochastic Diffusin on Search, SDS, a non-deterministic search algorithm able to rapidly locate the best instantiation of a target pattern within a noisy search space ([3], [5]). In SNSDN, relevant information is encoded in the length of interspike intervals. Although every neuron operates in its own time, ‘attention’ to a pattern in the search space results in self-synchronised activity of a large population of neurons. When multiple patterns are present in the search space, ‘switching of at- tention’ results in a change of the synchronous activity. The qualitative effect of attention on the synchronicity of spiking behaviour in both time and frequency domain will be discussed.

Regional and monthly and clear-sky aerosol direct radiative effect (and forcing) derived from the GlobAEROSOL-AATSR satellite aerosol product

Using the GlobAEROSOL-AATSR dataset, estimates of the instantaneous, clear-sky, direct aerosol radiative effect and radiative forcing have been produced for the year 2006. Aerosol Robotic Network sun-photometer measurements have been used to characterise the random and systematic error in the GlobAEROSOL product for 22 regions covering the globe. Representative aerosol properties for each region were derived from the results of a wide range of literature sources and, along with the de-biased GlobAEROSOL AODs, were used to drive an offline version of the Met Office unified model radiation scheme. In addition to the mean AOD, best-estimate run of the radiation scheme, a range of additional calculations were done to propagate uncertainty estimates in the AOD, optical properties, surface albedo and errors due to the temporal and spatial averaging of the AOD fields. This analysis produced monthly, regional estimates of the clear-sky aerosol radiative effect and its uncertainty, which were combined to produce annual, global mean values of (−6.7±3.9)Wm−2 at the top of atmosphere (TOA) and (−12±6)Wm−2 at the surface. These results were then used to give estimates of regional, clear-sky aerosol direct radiative forcing, using modelled pre-industrial AOD fields for the year 1750 calculated for the AEROCOM PRE experiment. However, as it was not possible to quantify the uncertainty in the pre-industrial aerosol loading, these figures can only be taken as indicative and their uncertainties as lower bounds on the likely errors. Although the uncertainty on aerosol radiative effect presented here is considerably larger than most previous estimates, the explicit inclusion of the major sources of error in the calculations suggest that they are closer to the true constraint on this figure from similar methodologies, and point to the need for more, improved estimates of both global aerosol loading and aerosol optical properties.

Network optimization for enhanced resilience of urban heat island measurements

The urban heat island is a well-known phenomenon that impacts a wide variety of city operations. With greater availability of cheap meteorological sensors, it is possible to measure the spatial patterns of urban atmospheric characteristics with greater resolution. To develop robust and resilient networks, recognizing sensors may malfunction, it is important to know when measurement points are providing additional information and also the minimum number of sensors needed to provide spatial information for particular applications. Here we consider the example of temperature data, and the urban heat island, through analysis of a network of sensors in the Tokyo metropolitan area (Extended METROS). The effect of reducing observation points from an existing meteorological measurement network is considered, using random sampling and sampling with clustering. The results indicated the sampling with hierarchical clustering can yield similar temperature patterns with up to a 30% reduction in measurement sites in Tokyo. The methods presented have broader utility in evaluating the robustness and resilience of existing urban temperature networks and in how networks can be enhanced by new mobile and open data sources.

Ungulate behavioral responses to the heterogeneous road-network of a touristic protected area in Africa

Understanding how wildlife responds to road and traffic is essential for effective conservation. Yet, not many studies have evaluated how roads influence wildlife in protected areas, particularly within the large iconic African National Parks where tourism is mainly based on sightings from motorized vehicles with the consequent development and intense use of roads. To reduce this knowledge gap, we studied the behavioral response and local spatial distribution of impala Aepyceros melampus along the heterogeneous (with variation in road surface type and traffic intensity) road-network of Kruger National Park (KNP, South Africa). We surveyed different types of roads (paved and unpaved) recording the occurrence of flight responses among sighted impala and describing their local spatial distribution (in relation to the roads). We observed relatively few flight responses (19.5% of 118 observations), suggesting impalas could be partly habituated to vehicles in KNP. In addition, impala local distribution is apparently unaffected by unpaved roads, yet animals seem to avoid the close proximity of paved roads. Overall, our results suggest a negative, albeit small, effect of traffic intensity, and of presence of pavement on roads on the behavior of impala at KNP. Future studies would be necessary to understand how roads influence other species, but our results show that even within a protected area that has been well-visited for a long time, wildlife can still be affected by roads and traffic. This result has ecological (e.g., changes in spatial distribution of fauna) and management implications (e.g., challenges of facilitating wildlife sightings while minimizing disturbance) for protected areas where touristic activities are largely based on driving.