Forecasting enrollment in differential assessment programs using cellular automata

Urban growth models have been used for decades to forecast urban development in metropolitan areas. Since the 1990s cellular automata, with simple computational rules and an explicitly spatial architecture, have been heavily utilized in this endeavor. One such cellular-automata-based model, SLEUTH, has been successfully applied around the world to better understand and forecast not only urban growth but also other forms of land-use and land-cover change, but like other models must be fed important information about which particular lands in the modeled area are available for development. Some of these lands are in categories for the purpose of excluding urban growth that are difficult to quantify since their function is dictated by policy. One such category includes voluntary differential assessment programs, whereby farmers agree not to develop their lands in exchange for significant tax breaks. Since they are voluntary, today’s excluded lands may be available for development at some point in the future. Mapping the shifting mosaic of parcels that are enrolled in such programs allows this information to be used in modeling and forecasting. In this study, we added information about California’s Williamson Act into SLEUTH’s excluded layer for Tulare County. Assumptions about the voluntary differential assessments were used to create a sophisticated excluded layer that was fed into SLEUTH’s urban growth forecasting routine. The results demonstrate not only a successful execution of this method but also yielded high goodness-of-fit metrics for both the calibration of enrollment termination as well as the urban growth modeling itself.

The fisheries resources of Lake Nakivali: report of a rapid assessment of the Lake Nakivali fishery

Lake Nakivali is one of the four small lakes that form what is known as the Koki lakes system. It is 14 km long, 6 km wide, 26 km2 in area and has maximum depth of 3.5 m at high water level. The lake is located in a lake-swamp complex with River Rwizi as the principle inflow, and a number of peripheral lakes among which are four major ones, i.e. Lakes Nakivali, Mburo, Kachira, and Kijanebalola. The survey therefore established that Lake Nakivali is a healthy ecosystem capable of sustaining fisheries production. While stock enhancement through restocking with fry could boost fish stocks, especially of the Nile tilapia, effective management measures that allow natural regeneration of stocks of indigenous fish species is paramount. This may require closed fishing seasons and control of fishing effort. Tank aquaculture is a viable option for increasing fish production and Ngege (O. niloticus) and Male (C. gariepinus) are candidate fish species for fish farming.

Rapid assessment of the fish biodiversity of the Mburo-Nakivali wetland systems and Opeta-Bisina wetland systems, Uganda

There are 46 different fish species in the Lake Kyoga basin with some of them endemic. The Nile Perch (Lates niloticus) was introduced into the main Lake Kyoga, Nakuwa and Bisina in the late 1950s to increase the fish production. The Nile Perch profileration in lakes Kyoga and Nakuwa led to the almost complete elimination of many native fish species such as Orechromis esculentus and variabilis, Mormyrus kanumme, Schilbe mystus and several Haplochromines species. Lakes Mburo, Kachera, Nakivali and Kijjanebalora are part of the complex system of lakes separated from Lake Victoria by extended swamps known as the Koki lakes, some of the satellite lakes in the Lake Victoria basin. The fisheries of these lakes are important as they contribute to government efforts of increasing food security, poverty reduction and conservation of natural resource base. These lakes are important biodiversity areas because some of these lakes have been found to contain the native tilapiine Oreochromis esculentus (Ngege), absent or threatened with extinction in the main Lakes Victoria and Kyoga. It’s also important to note that this species is only unique to the Victoria and Kyoga lake basins (Graham, 1929, Worthington, 1929). The values of some of these lake fisheries are however, threatened by human activities such as over exploitation, introduction of exotics especially water hyacinth that is already present in River Rwizi and habitat degradation among others.

Development of a novel molecular tool for the rapid assessment of the biodiversity changes of benthic nematodes assemblages. Mares Conference Marine Ecosystems Helath and conservation

The molecular profiling system was developed using directed terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (dT-RFLP) to characterize soil nematode assemblages by relative abundance of feeding guilds and validation by comparison to traditional morphological method. The good performance of these molecular tools applied to soil nematodes assemblages create an opportunity to develop a novel approach for rapid assessment of the biodiversity changes of benthic nematodes assemblages of marine and estuarine sediments. The main aim of this research is to combine morphological and molecular analysis of estuarine nematodes assemblages, to establish a tool for fast assessment of the biodiversity changes within habitat recovery of Zostera noltii seagrass beds; and validate the dT-RFLP as a high-throughput tool to assess the system recovery. It was also proposed to develop a database of sequences related to individuals identified at species level to develop a new taxonomic reference system. A molecular phylogenetic analysis of the estuarine nematodes has being performed. After morphological identification, barcoding of 18S rDNA are being determined for each nematode species and the results have shown a good degree of concordance between traditional morphology-based identification and DNA sequences. The digest strategy developed for soil nematodes is not suitable for marine nematodes. Then five samples were cloned and sequenced and the sequence data was used to design a new dT-RFLP strategy to adapt this tool to marine assemblages. Several solutions were presented by DRAT and tested empirically to select the solution that cuts most efficiently, separating the different clusters. The results of quantitative PCR showed differences in nematode density between two sampling stations according the abundance of the nematode density obtained by the traditional methods. These results suggest that qPCR could be a robust tool for enumeration of nematode abundance, saving time.

On the use of 10-minute point counts and 10-species lists for surveying birds in lowland Atlantic Forests in southeastern Brazil

Due to rapid and continuous deforestation, recent bird surveys in the Atlantic Forest are following rapid assessment programs to accumulate significant amounts of data during short periods of time. During this study, two surveying methods were used to evaluate which technique rapidly accumulated most species (> 90% of the estimated empirical value) at lowland Atlantic Forests in the state of São Paulo, southeastern Brazil. Birds were counted during the 2008-2010 breeding seasons using 10-minute point counts and 10-species lists. Overall, point counting detected as many species as lists (79 vs. 83, respectively), and 88 points (14.7 h) detected 90% of the estimated species richness. Forty-one lists were insufficient to detect 90% of all species. However, lists accumulated species faster in a shorter time period, probably due to the nature of the point count method in which species detected while moving between points are not considered. Rapid assessment programs in these forests will rapidly detect more species using 10-species lists. Both methods shared 63% of all forest species, but this may be due to spatial and temporal mismatch between samplings of each method.

Ergonomic evaluation of office workplaces with Rapid Office Strain Assessment (ROSA)

The regular use of the computer in the office contributed to the appearance of many risk factors related with work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD) such as maintaining static sitting postures for long time and awkward postures of the head, neck and upper limbs, leading to increased muscle activity in the cervical spine and shoulders. The objective of this study was to evaluate the presence of risk factors for WRMSD in an office using the Rapid Assessment Office Strain method (ROSA). Based on the results of this ergonomic evaluation, an occupational gym program was designed and implemented. Thirty-eight workplaces were evaluated using the observation of the tasks and pictures records in order to characterize those tasks in more detail. The ROSA tool was applied by an observer, who selected the appropriate score based on the worker's posture as well as the time spent in each posture. Scores were recorded for the sections of the method, specifically Chair, Monitor and Mouse and Keyboard and Telephone. The scores were recorded in a sheet developed for the method. The mean ROSA final score was 3.61 ± 0.64, for Chair section was 3.45 ± 0.55, to Monitor and Telephone section was 3.11 ± 0.61, and to Mouse and Keyboard section was 2.11 ± 0.31. The results led to understand that the analyzed tasks represent situations of risk of discomfort and, according to the methods guidelines, further research and modifications of the workplace may be necessary. It should be emphasized that these scores may not be related to the poor available equipment but with the need to optimize their use by the workers. It was noticed also that the interaction of workers with the tasks and the adopted sitting posture at the computer throughout the day have effects at a muscular level, essentially for the cervical area and shoulders. ROSA tool is an useful and easy method to assess several risk factors associated with WRMSD, also allowing the design of specific occupational gym programs.

Rapid model quality assessment for protein structure predictions using the comparison of multiple models without structural alignments

MOTIVATION: The accurate prediction of the quality of 3D models is a key component of successful protein tertiary structure prediction methods. Currently, clustering or consensus based Model Quality Assessment Programs (MQAPs) are the most accurate methods for predicting 3D model quality; however they are often CPU intensive as they carry out multiple structural alignments in order to compare numerous models. In this study, we describe ModFOLDclustQ - a novel MQAP that compares 3D models of proteins without the need for CPU intensive structural alignments by utilising the Q measure for model comparisons. The ModFOLDclustQ method is benchmarked against the top established methods in terms of both accuracy and speed. In addition, the ModFOLDclustQ scores are combined with those from our older ModFOLDclust method to form a new method, ModFOLDclust2, that aims to provide increased prediction accuracy with negligible computational overhead. RESULTS: The ModFOLDclustQ method is competitive with leading clustering based MQAPs for the prediction of global model quality, yet it is up to 150 times faster than the previous version of the ModFOLDclust method at comparing models of small proteins (<60 residues) and over 5 times faster at comparing models of large proteins (>800 residues). Furthermore, a significant improvement in accuracy can be gained over the previous clustering based MQAPs by combining the scores from ModFOLDclustQ and ModFOLDclust to form the new ModFOLDclust2 method, with little impact on the overall time taken for each prediction. AVAILABILITY: The ModFOLDclustQ and ModFOLDclust2 methods are available to download from: http://www.reading.ac.uk/bioinf/downloads/ CONTACT: l.j.mcguffin@reading.ac.uk.

Reading comprehension in nacional and internacional programs of educational assessment

El principal objetivo de este artículo es identificar distintos programas de evaluación educativa, tanto nacionales como internacionales, y describir sus características generales. Asimismo, analiza el modo en que se conceptualiza y evalúa la competencia lectora. Finalmente, este trabajo presenta los resultados que ha obtenido Argentina en esta área. Los programas analizados son: el Programa para la Evaluación Internacional de Alumnos (PISA, Programme for International Student Assessment) , el Segundo Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo (SERCE) y, específicamente en nuestro país, el Operativo Nacional de Evaluación (ONE) y el Programa de Evaluación de la Calidad Educativa de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Estos diferentes estudios sitúan la importancia de la lectura comprensiva en tanto "competencia para la vida" necesaria para la realización de otros aprendizajes, para el logro de una participación activa en la sociedad y ligada a la posibilidad de proyectar un futuro mejor. Los informes muestran la existencia de diferencias entre los resultados de distintos países y al interior de los mismos. El desarrollo de competencias desiguales aparece como un desafío a nivel nacional e internacional, ya que constituye un importante indicador de la situación crítica en la que se encuentran un número significativo de niños y adolescentes.

Reading comprehension in nacional and internacional programs of educational assessment

El principal objetivo de este artículo es identificar distintos programas de evaluación educativa, tanto nacionales como internacionales, y describir sus características generales. Asimismo, analiza el modo en que se conceptualiza y evalúa la competencia lectora. Finalmente, este trabajo presenta los resultados que ha obtenido Argentina en esta área. Los programas analizados son: el Programa para la Evaluación Internacional de Alumnos (PISA, Programme for International Student Assessment) , el Segundo Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo (SERCE) y, específicamente en nuestro país, el Operativo Nacional de Evaluación (ONE) y el Programa de Evaluación de la Calidad Educativa de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Estos diferentes estudios sitúan la importancia de la lectura comprensiva en tanto "competencia para la vida" necesaria para la realización de otros aprendizajes, para el logro de una participación activa en la sociedad y ligada a la posibilidad de proyectar un futuro mejor. Los informes muestran la existencia de diferencias entre los resultados de distintos países y al interior de los mismos. El desarrollo de competencias desiguales aparece como un desafío a nivel nacional e internacional, ya que constituye un importante indicador de la situación crítica en la que se encuentran un número significativo de niños y adolescentes.

Reading comprehension in nacional and internacional programs of educational assessment

El principal objetivo de este artículo es identificar distintos programas de evaluación educativa, tanto nacionales como internacionales, y describir sus características generales. Asimismo, analiza el modo en que se conceptualiza y evalúa la competencia lectora. Finalmente, este trabajo presenta los resultados que ha obtenido Argentina en esta área. Los programas analizados son: el Programa para la Evaluación Internacional de Alumnos (PISA, Programme for International Student Assessment) , el Segundo Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo (SERCE) y, específicamente en nuestro país, el Operativo Nacional de Evaluación (ONE) y el Programa de Evaluación de la Calidad Educativa de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Estos diferentes estudios sitúan la importancia de la lectura comprensiva en tanto "competencia para la vida" necesaria para la realización de otros aprendizajes, para el logro de una participación activa en la sociedad y ligada a la posibilidad de proyectar un futuro mejor. Los informes muestran la existencia de diferencias entre los resultados de distintos países y al interior de los mismos. El desarrollo de competencias desiguales aparece como un desafío a nivel nacional e internacional, ya que constituye un importante indicador de la situación crítica en la que se encuentran un número significativo de niños y adolescentes.