Quantification of spatial and thematic uncertainty in the application of underwater video for benthic habitat mapping

This study presents an analysis of the application of underwater video data collected for training and validating benthic habitat distribution models. Specifically, we quantify the two major sources of error pertaining to collection of this type of reference data. A theoretical spatial error budget is developed for a positioning system used to co-register video frames to their corresponding locations at the seafloor. Second, we compare interpretation variability among trained operators assessing the same video frames between times over three hierarchical levels of a benthic classification scheme. Propagated error in the positioning system described was found to be highly correlated with depth of operation and varies from 1.5m near the surface to 5.7m in 100m of water. In order of decreasing classification hierarchy, mean overall observer agreement was found to be 98% (range 6%), 82% (range 12%) and 75% (range 17%) for the 2, 4, and 6 class levels of the scheme, respectively. Patterns in between-observer variation are related to the level of detail imposed by each hierarchical level of the classification scheme, the feature of interest, and to the amount of observer experience. © 2014 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Dealing with alcohol-related problems in the night-time economy: a study protocol for mapping trends in harm and stakeholder views surrounding local community level interventions

This project will provide a comprehensive investigation into the prevalence of alcohol-related harms and community attitudes in the context of community-based interventions being implemented to reduce harm in two regional centres of Australia. While considerable experimentation and innovation to address these harms has occurred in both Geelong and Newcastle, only limited ad-hoc documentation and analysis has been conducted on changes in the prevalence of harm as a consequence, leaving a considerable gap in terms of a systematic, evidence-based analysis of changes in harm over time and the need for further intervention. Similarly, little evidence has been reported regarding the views of key stakeholder groups, industry, government agencies, patrons or community regarding the need for, and the acceptability of, interventions to reduce harms. This project will aim to provide evidence regarding the impact and acceptability of local initiatives aimed at reducing alcohol-related harms.

Yaringa and French Island Marine National Park habitat mapping

Deakin University and the Department of Primary Industries were commissioned by ParksVictoria (PV) to create two updated habitat maps for Yaringa and French Island MarineNational Parks. The team obtained a ground-truth data set using in situ video and still photographs. This dataset was used to develop and assess predictive models of benthic marine habitat distributions incorporating data from World-View-2 imagery atmospherically corrected by CSIRO and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) bathymetry. In addition, the team applied an unsupervised classification approach to an aerial photograph to assess the differences between the two remote sensors. This report describes the results of the mapping as well as the methodology used to produce these habitat maps.This study has provided mapping of intertidal and subtidal habitats of Yaringa and FrenchIsland MNPs at a 2 m resolution with fair to good accuracies (Kappa 0.40-0.75). These were combined with mangrove and saltmarsh habitats recently mapped by Boon et al. (2011) to provide compete-coverage habitat maps of Yaringa and French Island MNPs.The mapping showed that Yaringa MNP was dominated by mangroves, wet saltmarsh and dense Zostereaceae, covering 33%, 29% and 19%, respectively. Similarly, intertidalvegetation and subtidal vegetation (dominated by Zosteraceae) covered 26% and 25% ofFrench Island MNP. However, as a result of turbidity and missing satellite imagery 27% ofFrench Island MNP remains unmapped.The coupling of WV-2 and LiDAR reduced potential artefacts (e.g. sun glint causing whiteand black pixels known as the “salt and pepper effect”). The satellite classification appeared to provide better results than the aerial photography classification. However, since there is a two-year difference between the capture of the aerial photography and the collection of the ground-truth data this comparison is potentially temporally confounded. It must also be noted that there are differences in costs of the data,the spatial resolution between the two datasets (i.e. WV-2 = 2 m and the Aerial = 0.5 m) and the amount spectral information contained in the data (i.e. WV-2 = 8 bands and the aerial = 4 bands), which may ultimately determine its utility for a particular project.The spatial assessment using FRAGSTATs of habitat patches within Yaringa MNP provides a viable and cost effect way to assess habitat condition (i.e. shape, size and arrangement).This spatial assessment determined that dense Zosteraceae and NVSG habitat classeswere generally larger in patch size and continuity than the medium/sparse Zosteraceaehabitat. The application spatial techniques to time-series mapping may provide a way toremotely monitor the change in the spatial characteristics of marine habitats.This work was successful in providing new baseline habitat maps using a repeatable method meaning that any future changes in intertidal and shallow water marine habitats may be assessed in a consistent way with quantitative error assessments. In wider use, these maps should also allow improved conservation planning, fisheries and catchment management, and contribute toward infrastructure planning to limit impacts on Western Port.

Mono-cultural approach in multicultural education: mapping the contours of multicultural early childhood education in New Zealand

There has been an increase in research activities in multicultural early childhood education in New Zealand. This article provides a critical review of these activities. This is an attempt to unravel the aspirations and complexities associated with the educational policies and practices with children of culturally diverse backgrounds. The conclusion from this literature review is that despite the multicultural principles that support democracy and equitability in education in New Zealand, a monocultural approach is still pervasive in multicultural early childhood classrooms.

Mapping 100 years of Thornthwaite moisture index: Impact of climate change in Victoria, Australia

Geographer C. W. Thornthwaite proposed in 1948 a moisture index called Thornthwaite Moisture Index (TMI) as part of a water balance model for a new classification system for climate. The importance of TMI climatic classification has been recognised in many areas of knowledge and practice worldwide over the last 60 years. However, although past climate research was focused on developing adequate methods for climate classification, current research is more concerned with understanding the patterns of climate change. The use of TMI as an indicator for climate change is still an incipient area of research. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, it is to fully document a methodology based on geostatistics adopted to produce a time series of TMI maps that are accurate and have high spatial resolution. The state of Victoria, in Australia, over the last century, is used as the case study. Second, by analysing these maps, the paper presents a general evaluation of the spatial patterns found in Victoria related to moisture variability across space and over time. Some potential implications of the verified moisture changes are discussed, and a number of ideas for further development are suggested. © 2014 Institute of Australian Geographers.

Mapping potential risk for housing damage from ground movement due to climate change

The performance of footings in residential construction is influenced by the degree of ground movement, particularly in reactive soils, which is driven by the magnitude of change in soil moisture. New patterns of climate are affecting residential foundations and causing serious and expensive damage. This paper produces a map of potential risk for housing damage from ground movement due to climate change. Using a geographic information system, it combines information on (1) soil moisture change related to climate, using TMI as the indicator, and (2) population growth. Preliminary results, having Victoria, Australia, in the last decade as the case study, suggest that effects of climate change on soil, and resulting impacts on house foundations, are not being taken into consideration in current planning strategies for urban development. Most of the urban growth priority zones in the study area are susceptible to medium and high risk for damage. Producing new and renovated buildings that are durable in the long term is essential for the economy, environment and social welfare. The map presented here can assist policies and strategies towards urban resilience in the context of climate change.

Petal diagrams: a new technique for mapping historical change in the film industry

As the study of cinema has increasingly turned to the examination of economic ebbs and industrial flows, rather than focussing its attention solely on the critical evaluation of the films themselves, new analytic techniques and tools have been adopted (and adapted) by film scholars. Key amongst these is the use of innovative visualization techniques that can assist in the understanding of the spatial and temporal features of film industry practices. However, like the cinema itself, visualization carries its own spatial and temporal dimension. This article explores some of the benefits and limitations that derive from the use of spatial visualization technologies in the field of cinema studies. In particular, this research presents a new holistic multivariate approach to spatio-temporal visualization for point based historical data. This method has been developed through extending the spatial presence in timeline graphics and through meaningful spatial classification and representation.

Mutational interference mapping experiment (MIME) for studying RNA structure and function

RNA regulates many biological processes; however, identifying functional RNA sequences and structures is complex and time-consuming. We introduce a method, mutational interference mapping experiment (MIME), to identify, at single-nucleotide resolution, the primary sequence and secondary structures of an RNA molecule that are crucial for its function. MIME is based on random mutagenesis of the RNA target followed by functional selection and next-generation sequencing. Our analytical approach allows the recovery of quantitative binding parameters and permits the identification of base-pairing partners directly from the sequencing data. We used this method to map the binding site of the human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) Pr55(Gag) protein on the viral genomic RNA in vitro, and showed that, by analyzing permitted base-pairing patterns, we could model RNA structure motifs that are crucial for protein binding.

Predictive mapping of abalone fishing grounds using remotely-sensed LiDAR and commercial catch data

Defining the geographic extent of suitable fishing grounds at a scale relevant to resource exploitation for commercial benthic species can be problematic. Bathymetric light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems provide an opportunity to enhance ecosystem-based fisheries management strategies for coastally distributed benthic fisheries. In this study we define the spatial extent of suitable fishing grounds for the blacklip abalone (Haliotis rubra) along 200 linear kilometers of coastal waters for the first time, demonstrating the potential for integration of remotely-sensed data with commercial catch information. Variables representing seafloor structure, generated from airborne bathymetric LiDAR were combined with spatially-explicit fishing event data, to characterize the geographic footprint of the western Victorian abalone fishery, in south-east Australia. A MaxEnt modeling approach determined that bathymetry, rugosity and complexity were the three most important predictors in defining suitable fishing grounds (AUC = 0.89). Suitable fishing grounds predicted by the model showed a good relationship with catch statistics within each sub-zone of the fishery, suggesting that model outputs may be a useful surrogate for potential catch.

Performance analysis for object-oriented software: a systematic mapping

Performance is a crucial attribute for most software, making performance analysis an important software engineering task. The difficulty is that modern applications are challenging to analyse for performance. Many profiling techniques used in real-world software development struggle to provide useful results when applied to large-scale object-oriented applications. There is a substantial body of research into software performance generally but currently there exists no survey of this research that would help identify approaches useful for object-oriented software. To provide such a review we performed a systematic mapping study of empirical performance analysis approaches that are applicable to object-oriented software. Using keyword searches against leading software engineering research databases and manual searches of relevant venues we identified over 5,000 related articles published since January 2000. From these we systematically selected 253 applicable articles and categorised them according to ten facets that capture the intent, implementation and evaluation of the approaches. Our mapping study results allow us to highlight the main contributions of the existing literature and identify areas where there are interesting opportunities. We also find that, despite the research including approaches specifically aimed at object-oriented software, there are significant challenges in providing actionable feedback on the performance of large-scale object-oriented applications.

A taxonomy and mapping of computer-based critiquing tools

Critics have emerged in recent times as a specific tool feature to support users in computer-mediated tasks. These computer-supported critics provide proactive guidelines or suggestions for improvement to designs, code, and other digital artifacts. The concept of a critic has been adopted in various domains, including medical, programming, software engineering, design sketching, and others. Critics have been shown to be an effective mechanism for providing feedback to users. We propose a new critic taxonomy based on extensive review of the critic literature. The groups and elements of our critic taxonomy are presented and explained collectively with examples, including the mapping of 13 existing critic tools, predominantly for software engineering and programming education tasks to the taxonomy. We believe this critic taxonomy will assist others in identifying, categorizing, developing, and deploying computer-supported critics in a range of domains.

Women’s reproductive choices in Australia: mapping federal and state/territory policy instruments governing choice

The reproductive choices available to women, and the consequences of those choices, exist within the broader policy context whereby policy is influenced by pervasive ideologies of women’s roles in society and the family. Women’s reproductive rights and their resulting consequences are governed by policy at the federal and state/territory levels within Australia yet little is known about the number or scope of these policies. This study aimed to systematically search and map Australian policy to identify the number and scope of policies governing women’s reproductive choices and their consequences, including how policy interprets the role of women in society through their reproductive choices. The systematic search identified 147 Australian policies in 2013. The mapping of the policies identified common themes that drive policy agenda impacting women’s reproductive choices, including those where the focus is promoting motherhood and/or children, providing economic incentives, regulating reproduction, or a broader health focus. These policy agendas simultaneously construct and are shaped by the context in which women’s reproductive choices and impacts occur. Women’s reproductive choices are highly politicised and regulated, impacting women’s position within society.

Mapping digital media: Brazil

FGV Direito Rio

Mapping digital media: Brazil

The impact of digitization was felt before it could be described and explained. The Mapping Digital Media project is a way of catching up, an ambitious attempt at depicting and understanding the progress and effects of digitization on media and communications systems across the world. The publication of over 50 country reports provides the most comprehensive picture to date on the changes undergone by journalism, news production, and the media as a result of the transition of broadcasting from analog to digital and the advent of the internet. These extensive reports, all sharing the same structure, cover issues such as media consumption, public media, changes in journalism, digital activism, new regulation, and business models. Reports have been published from nine Latin American countries: Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. Given the recent evolution of Brazil’s media landscape and regulation, and its position as a regional reference, few reports have generated as much expectation as the Brazilian one. This excellent text is key to understanding digitization in Brazil, in Latin America, and in the world at large.