Evaluating the species energy relationship with the newest measures of ecosystem energy: NDVI versus MODIS primary production

Ecosystem energy has been shown to be a strong correlate with biological diversity at continental scales. Early efforts to characterize this association used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to represent ecosystem energy. While this spectral vegetation index covaries with measures of ecosystem energy such as net primary production, the covariation is known to degrade in areas of very low vegetation or in areas of dense forest. Two of the new vegetation products from the MODIS sensor, derived by integrating spectral reflectance, climate data, and land cover, are thought to better approximate primary productivity than NDVI. In this study, we determine if the new MODIS derived measures of primary production, gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) better explain variation in bird richness than historically used NDVI. Moreover, we evaluate if the two productivity measures covary more strongly with bird diversity in those vegetation conditions where limitations of NDVI are well recognized.Biodiversity was represented as native landbird species richness derived from the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Analyses included correlation analyses among predictor variables, and univariate regression analyses between each predictor variable and bird species richness. Analyses were done at two levels: for all BBS routes across natural landscapes in North America; and for routes in 10 vegetation classes stratified by vegetated cover along a gradient from bare ground to herbaceous cover to tree cover. We found that NDVI, GPP and NPP were highly correlated and explained similar variation in bird species richness when analyzed for all samples across North America. However, when samples were stratified by vegetated cover, strength of correlation between NDVI and both productivity measures was low for samples with bare ground and for dense forest. The NDVI also explained substantially less variation in bird species richness than the primary production in areas with more bare ground and in areas of dense forest. We conclude that MODIS productivity measures have higher utility in studies of the relationship of species richness and productivity and that MODIS GPP and NPP improve on NDVI, especially for studies with large variation in vegetated cover and density.     

User interfaces for communication bridges across the digital divide

Connecting people across the “digital divide” is as much a social effort as a technological one. We are developing a community-centred approach to learn how interaction techniques can compensate for poor communication across the digital divide. We have incorporated the lessons learned regarding social intelligence design in an abstraction and in a device called the SoftBridge. The SoftBridge allows communication to flow from endpoints through adapters, getting converted if necessary, and out to destination endpoints. Field trials are underway with two communities in South Africa: disadvantaged Deaf users and an isolated rural community. Initial lessons learned show that we have to design user interfaces that allow users to understand and cope with delay. We also learned that social concerns are often more important than the technical issues in designing such systems.     

Detection of control deterioration using decision support systems

Current audit practices limit the visibility of management to the effectiveness of controls between audit engagements. Controls can deteriorate between audits creating potential security vulnerabilities. The corporate environment contains automated data that can be analyzed to detect control deterioration. This paper suggests that audit management utilize decision support systems, management information systems and management science models to identify and project the deterioration of controls that can occur. The feedback to audit management should reduce operational costs, ensure the maintenance of controls and reduce security vulnerabilities.     

Two-dimensional nonsteady viscous flow simulation on the Navier-Stokes Computer miniNode

The needs of large-scale scientific computation are outpacing the growth in performance of mainframe supercomputers. In particular, problems in fluid mechanics involving complex flow simulations require far more speed and capacity than that provided by current and proposed Class VI supercomputers. To address this concern, the Navier-Stokes Computer (NSC) was developed. The NSC is a parallel-processing machine, comprised of individual Nodes, each comparable in performance to current supercomputers. The global architecture is that of a hypercube, and a 128-Node NSC has been designed. New architectural features, such as a reconfigurable many-function ALU pipeline and a multifunction memory-ALU switch, have provided the capability to efficiently implement a wide range of algorithms. Efficient algorithms typically involve numerically intensive tasks, which often include conditional operations. These operations may be efficiently implemented on the NSC without, in general, sacrificing vector-processing speed. To illustrate the architecture, programming, and several of the capabilities of the NSC, the simulation of two-dimensional, nonsteady viscous flows on a prototype Node, called the miniNode, is presented.     

Digital lithographic processing for large‐area electronics

Abstract— A non‐contact jet‐printed mask‐patterning process is described. By combining digital imaging with jet printing, digital lithography was used to pattern a‐Si:H‐based electronics on glass and plastic substrates in place of conventional photolithography. This digital lithographic process is capable of layer‐to‐layer registration of ±5 μm using electronic mask files that are directly jet printed onto a surface. Aminimum feature size of 50 μm was used to create 180 × 180 element backplanes having 75‐dpi resolution for display and image‐sensor applications. By using a secondary mask process, the minimum feature size can be reduced down to ～15 μm for fabrication of short‐channel thin‐film transistors. The same process was also used to pattern black‐matrix wells in fabricating color‐filter top plates in LCD panels.     

Building Control into the Supply Chain Risk Management Process

Due to the international nature of supply chains, organizations interact by proxy with suppliers that they have little or no knowledge of. Limited knowledge of suppliers’ security practices means less control over overall product security, which can increase corporate risk. Formal risk management is critical to the overall procurement process and the risk to the critical components throughout the acquisition lifecycle can be managed by installing proactive supply chain risk management (SCRM) key practices. A properly managed supply chain is a critical requirement in ensuring trust in an organization’s sourced products. We discuss the assurance process requirements as well as a well-defined and recognized set of system engineering practices that apply scientific and engineering principles to ensure systematic direction, control, and trust.     

Sensitivity analysis for biometric systems: A methodology based on orthogonal experiment designs

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an effective and structured methodology for carrying out a biometric system sensitivity analysis. The goal of sensitivity analysis is to provide the researcher/developer with insight and understanding of the key factors—algorithmic, subject-based, procedural, image quality, environmental, among others—that affect the matching performance of the biometric system under study. This proposed methodology consists of two steps: (1) the design and execution of orthogonal fractional factorial experiment designs which allow the scientist to efficiently investigate the effect of a large number of factors—and interactions—simultaneously, and (2) the use of a select set of statistical data analysis graphical procedures which are fine-tuned to unambiguously highlight important factors, important interactions, and locally-optimal settings. We illustrate this methodology by application to a study of VASIR (Video-based Automated System for Iris Recognition)—NIST iris-based biometric system. In particular, we investigated k = 8 algorithmic factors from the VASIR system by constructing a (2^6?1 × 3¹  × 4¹) orthogonal fractional factorial design, generating the corresponding performance data, and applying an appropriate set of analysis graphics to determine the relative importance of the eight factors, the relative importance of the 28 two-term interactions, and the local best settings of the eight algorithms. The results showed that VASIR’s performance was primarily driven by six factors out of the eight, along with four two-term interactions. A virtue of our two-step methodology is that it is systematic and general, and hence may be applied with equal rigor and effectiveness to other biometric systems, such as fingerprints, face, voice, and DNA.     

Transitioning Towards Creativity and Innovation Measurement in SMEs

The aim of this paper is to explore the transition from traditional measures to creativity and innovation measures within a number of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) case studies. The need for increased competitiveness has created an impetus for increased creativity and innovation in SMEs. However, the measures associated with the process of creativity and innovation in organisations sometimes do not follow cause‐and‐effect rationale, reflecting non‐linear behaviour. A multiple SME‐based case research methodology is used to explore the transitioning effects from traditional to more creativity and innovation based measures. The cases were part of a longitudinal creativity and innovation intervention programme, which combined taught modules and Critical Action Learning networks over a two‐year period. These networks involved sub‐groups applying critical theory‐based study to the learning they had received in the modules. The findings reveal that the transition dynamics include a complex mix of cause and effect rationale, phenomenology, incremental change, radical change, quantitative, qualitative and linear and complex contrasts and comparisons. Thus, managers must facilitate an eclectic approach to creativity and innovation measures.     

FraRI: an algorithm to account for the discontinuity at 60° N in MODIS temperature products

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites conducts continuous monitoring of the Earth's land surface and oceans. Recently, a sharp discontinuity (averaging 1.9°C) has been noticed at 60° N in both MODIS daytime and night-time land surface temperature (LST) products. This linear artefact arises because the CO₂ high cloud test in the operational code for the generation of the MODIS cloud mask product is used only in the non-polar region (between 60° N and 60° S). The resulting discontinuity clearly has negative implications for any statistical applications of these temperature data. In this technical note we present a new algorithm, which minimizes this discontinuity. The method uses edge detection and elimination based on a mixture of Sobel and non-linear Laplacian filters (edge detection and quantification), cubic splines (edge modelling), and a controllable power function for image restoration. The implementation of this algorithm is demonstrated on an image of average minimum night-time LST between 2001 and 2008.