The provision of online public goods: Examining social structure in an electronic network of practice

Electronic networks of practice are computer-mediated social spaces where individuals working on similar problems self-organize to help each other and share knowledge, advice, and perspectives about their occupational practice or common interests. These interactions occur through message postings to produce an on-line public good of knowledge, where all participants in the network can then access this knowledge, regardless of their active participation in the network. Using theories and concepts of collective action and public goods, five hypotheses are developed regarding the structural and social characteristics that support the online provision and maintenance of knowledge in an electronic network of practice. Using social network analysis, we examine the structure of message contributions that produce and sustain the public good. We then combine the results from network analysis with survey results to examine the underlying pattern of exchange, the role of the critical mass, the quality of the ties sustaining participation, the heterogeneity of resources and interests of participants, and changes in membership that impact the structural characteristics of the network. Our results suggest that the electronic network of practice chosen for this study is sustained through generalized exchange, is supported by a critical mass of active members, and that members develop strong ties with the community as a whole rather than develop interpersonal relationships. Knowledge contribution is significantly related to an individual's tenure in the occupation, expertise, availability of local resources and a desire to enhance one's reputation, and those in the critical mass are primarily responsible for creating and sustaining the public good of knowledge. Finally, we find that this structure of generalized exchange is stable over time although there is a high proportion of member churn in the network.     

Estimating life-form cover fractions in California sage scrub communities using multispectral remote sensing

The California sage scrub (CSS) community type in California's Mediterranean-type ecosystems is known for its high biodiversity and is home to a large number of rare, threatened, and endangered species. Because of extensive urban development in the past fifty years, this ecologically significant community type is highly degraded and fragmented. To conserve endangered CSS communities, monitoring internal conditions of communities is as crucial as monitoring distributions of the community type in the region. Vegetation type mapping and field sampling of individual plants provide ecologically meaningful information about CSS communities such as spatial distribution and species compositions, respectively. However, both approaches only provide spatially comprehensive information but no information about internal conditions or vice versa. Therefore, there is a need for monitoring variables which fill the information gap between vegetation type maps and field-based data. A number of field-based studies indicate that life-form fractional cover is an effective indicator of CSS community health and habitat quality for CSS-obligated species. This study investigates the effectiveness of remote sensing approaches for estimating fractional cover of true shrub, subshrub, herb, and bare ground in CSS communities of southern California. Combinations of four types of multispectral imagery ranging from 0.15 m resolution scanned color infrared aerial photography to 10 m resolution SPOT 5 multispectral imagery and three image processing models - per-pixel, object-based, and spectral mixture models - were tested.An object-based image analysis (OBIA) routine consistently yielded higher accuracy than other image processing methods for estimating all cover types. Life-form cover was reliably predicted, with error magnitudes as low as 2%. Subshrub and herb cover types required finer spatial resolution imagery for more accurate predictions than true shrub and bare ground types. Positioning of sampling grids had a substantial impact on the reliability of accuracy assessment, particularly for cover estimates predicted using multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) applied to SPOT imagery. Of the approaches tested in this study, OBIA using pansharpened QuickBird imagery is one of the most promising approaches because of its high accuracy and processing efficiency and should be tested for more heterogeneous CSS landscapes. MESMA applied to SPOT imagery should also be examined for effectiveness in estimating factional cover over more extensive habitat areas because of its low data cost and potential for conducting retrospective studies of vegetation community conditions.     

The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades

Despite the widespread use of social media by students and its increased use by instructors, very little empirical evidence is available concerning the impact of social media use on student learning and engagement. This paper describes our semester‐long experimental study to determine if using Twitter – the microblogging and social networking platform most amenable to ongoing, public dialogue – for educationally relevant purposes can impact college student engagement and grades. A total of 125 students taking a first year seminar course for pre‐health professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic and co‐curricular discussions. Engagement was quantified by using a 19‐item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades, we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a significantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study provides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role.     

Prefetching in Content Distribution Networks via Web Communities Identification and Outsourcing

Content distribution networks (CDNs) improve scalability and reliability, by replicating content to the “edge” of the Internet. Apart from the pure networking issues of the CDNs relevant to the establishment of the infrastructure, some very crucial data management issues must be resolved to exploit the full potential of CDNs to reduce the “last mile” latencies. A very important issue is the selection of the content to be prefetched to the CDN servers. All the approaches developed so far, assume the existence of adequate content popularity statistics to drive the prefetch decisions. Such information though, is not always available, or it is extremely volatile, turning such methods problematic. To address this issue, we develop self-adaptive techniques to select the outsourced content in a CDN infrastructure, which requires no apriori knowledge of request statistics. We identify clusters of “correlated” Web pages in a site, called Web site communities, and make these communities the basic outsourcing unit. Through a detailed simulation environment, using both real and synthetic data, we show that the proposed techniques are very robust and effective in reducing the user-perceived latency, performing very close to an unfeasible, off-line policy, which has full knowledge of the content popularity.     

Cynipid gall-wasp communities correlate with oak chemistry

Host-plant association data, gathered from field surveys conducted throughout Florida and from the literature, were used to identify the specificity of cynipid gall inducers to one or more of six Quercus species that occur at Archbold Biological Station, Lake Placid, Florida, USA, including the red oaks Q. laevis, Q. myrtifolia, and Q. inopina, and the white oaks Q. chapmanii, Q. geminata, and Q. minima. Quercus myrtifolia had the highest cynipid richness and diversity (37 cynipid species, Shannon H = 3.61, Simpson's D = 0.97), followed by Q. chapmanii, Q. laevis, Q. inopina, Q. geminata, and finally Q. minima (10 species, H = 2.30, D = 0.90). All cynipid species showed strong fidelity to a particular host plant or a restricted set of host plants. An ordination of gall-wasp host associations indicated that the cynipid communities of each oak species were distinct and specific to a given oak species. Leaf samples taken from each oak species were analyzed for condensed and hydrolyzable tannins, total phenolics, lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose, nitrogen, and carbon. All of these chemical traits, with the exception of carbon, differed by oak species, and the differences were strongly correlated with the axes of the cynipid--species ordination. These results suggest that gall-wasp occurrence is influenced by oak chemistry and imply that experimental studies of cynipid gall inducers that examine host-plant chemistry and female oviposition choice and larval performance will yield useful insights.     

采油微生物发酵液中各组分对原油量测定的影响

原油量的测定是原油及其产品分析的必要环节,根据芳香烃在255nm具有特征吸收峰,可以通过测定芳香烃量间接表征原油量。本研究采用紫外分光光度法测定原油量,分析采油微生物发酵液中各组分、pH和采油微生物细胞内含物对原油量测定的影响。结果表明,上述因素对该方法测定原油量均没有显著影响,采用紫外分光光度法可以快速、准确地测定微生物采油过程中的原油量。     

Characteristics and usage patterns of older people in a 3D online multi-user virtual environment

3D online multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) have a lot of potential in supporting older people in their daily lives, yet little research has been conducted to explore how older people engage with this type of technology. This paper aims to investigate the characteristics, user groups and activity patterns (particularly social networks and gift giving behaviour) of older users within a 3D online multi-user virtual environment. Data from approximately 5000 online user profiles of older and younger users from a 3D MUVE, namely IMVU, was collected for analysis. Overall, we identified several distinct patterns of use (e.g. size of social ties, level of reciprocity, etc.) among older users when compared with younger users. We also found that despite the capabilities of 3D MUVEs to provide the users immersion in alternative realities, a feature well embraced by younger users in this study, older users seemed more interested in activities which serve as an extension to their physical life.     

Collaboration processes,outcomes, challenges and enablers of distributed clinical communities of practice

Modern healthcare's need for knowledge sharing and bridging the research–practice gap requires new forms of collaboration, in which clinicians of varying clinical and research expertise work together over geographical and organisational borders. To support such distributed communities of practice (CoPs), an understanding of their collaboration processes, outcomes, challenges and enablers is needed. The article examines these issues through a case study of a long-running CoP, the Swedish Oral Medicine Network (SOMNet). SOMNet's main form of collaboration is monthly telephone conference meetings centred on case consultations. Cases are submitted by the clinicians via a Web-based system. The methods used were interviews, observations, and a questionnaire. The work adds to previous research by studying a distributed CoP explicitly focused on supporting the transfer of scientific results from researchers to practitioners. We found that the regular meetings give a rhythm to the community. The centrality of cases means an immediate benefit for the submitter while the community is provided an authentic context for learning. SOMNet yields opportunities for help and learning for diverse expertise levels; the type of benefits is affected by the participant's degree of oral medicine knowledge and collaboration involvement. There are challenges in accommodating varying levels of expertise and encouraging those less experienced to participate. Enablers of the collaboration include the participation of experts, meeting facilitators and well-adapted ITs.     

奶牛生物（活菌）饲料的研究

以酒精糟、白酒糟、碎玉米、啤酒糟等为原料,添加尿素、（NH4）2SO4及营养液F,采用“液体种子培养,多菌种混合固态发酵技术”生产奶牛生物（活菌）饲料。饲料粗蛋白平均含量36．55％、提高率1635％;酵母菌、有效细菌总数及活菌率分别为：7．85×10^8个g、7．11×10^9个,g和82．2％;β-淀粉酶1356mg／（g．h）、纤维素酶168um／（g．h）、中性蛋白酶1088ug／（g．min）、碱性蛋白酶372ug/（g·min）、糖化酶110u／（g．h）;VA80IU／（100g）、VB：2．35mg／（100g）、VD2945IU／（100g）、VC1．1mg／（100g）、烟酸10．7mg／（100g）。     

硝酸盐质量浓度对微生物燃料电池产电及反硝化的影响

目的研究在不同的硝酸盐质量浓度下,MFC的产电、阴极反硝化情况及阳极COD和氨氮的处理情况．实现产电与阴极反硝化的同时进行．方法阳极以实验生活污水为处理对象,阴极以自配具有一定质量浓度的硝酸盐溶液为处理对象,改变阴极的硝酸盐质量浓度,阳极为间歇厌氧运行模式,阴极为间歇缺氧运行模式．结果 当硝酸盐质量浓度由20-200mg／L逐渐增加时,随着初始硝酸盐质量浓度的增加,亚硝酸盐的积累逐渐增加,最高可达65mg／L,硝酸盐相对去除率几乎没有变化,而硝酸盐的绝对去除率则逐渐减小．硝酸盐质量浓度从20～120mg／L变化时对微生物燃料电池的产电效果基本没有影响,当硝酸盐质量浓度增加到160mg／L时,平均输出电压和最高功率密度明显增加,而当硝酸盐质量浓度增加到200mg／L时,平均输出电压和最高功率密度又明显减少．结论阴极硝酸盐质量浓度为160mg／L时,MFC阳极COD的去除率最高,产电效果最好．