Observing climate change effects using the Earth’s gravity field
The Earth's gravity field varies from place to place and from one day to the next. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is a revolutionary satellite system that allows scientists to use gravity changes to observe critical rates of ice mass loss in Antarctica and Greenland. It can also show changes in the water storage in river drainage basins such as the Murray-Darling Basin. This talk will provide an overview of these results as well as outline NASA's plans for the next such miss
Author(s): Creator not set

Black Holes and Galaxies
Evidence has been accumulating for several decades that many galaxies harbor central mass concentrations that may be in the form of black holes with masses between a few million to a few billion time the mass of the Sun. Professor Reinhard Genzel discussed measurements over the last two decades, employing high resolution infrared and radio imaging and spectroscopy on large ground-based telescopes that prove the existence of such a massive black hole in the Centre of our Milky Way, beyond any rea
Author(s): Creator not set

Contracting Cultures: Indigenous Intellectual Property and the Creative Commons
In intellectual property, there has been much interest of late in the creative use of contract law - especially with the development of the Creative Commons. By necessity, Indigenous communities have been pioneers in the creative use of contract law. In light of the glacial progress to reform legislative regimes and international treaties to protect traditional knowledge, Indigenous peoples have been forced to make creative use of contract law in order to protect their cultural interests. Rather
Author(s): Creator not set

Understanding social construction and social constructionism
Within the field of social sciences the terms social construction and social constructionism are frequently used, particularly in relation to social policy. This unit will enable you to achieve a greater definition and understanding of these terms.
Author(s): The Open University

Peace and Justice: Lessons from the Field
Elizabeth Evenson's talk for the 2009 Taking Stock of Transitional Justice conference entitled; 'Peace and Justice: Lessons from the Field'
Author(s): Elizabeth Evenson

Some ideas about the next generation of image manipulation tools
The massive uptake of digital cameras and advances in the science of image analysis are delivering new tools for digital content creation into the hands of the average user. This development is fueled by the growth of image and video content on the internet and the ability of the technology to process very large volumes of image-based information. The tools range from intelligent image and video editing programs to modelling packages for 3D virtual environments such as Google Earth, Grand Theft
Author(s): No creator set

Enabling Efficient Real Time User Modeling in On-line Campus
User modelling in on-line distance learning is an important research field focusing on two important aspects: describing and predicting students’ actions and intentions as well as adapting the learning process to students’ features, habits, interests, preferences, and so on. The aim is to greatly stimulate and improve the learning experience. In this context, user modeling implies a constant processing and analysis of user interaction data during long-term learning activities, which produces l
Author(s): Caballé Santi,Xhafa Fatos,Daradoumis Thanasis,Fer

Improvement of JXTA protocols for supporting reliable distributed applications in P2P systems
In any distributed application, the communication between the distributed processes/nodes of the distributed systems is essential for both reliability and efficiency matters. In this work we address this issue for distributed applications based on JXTA protocols. After a careful examination of the current version of JXTA protocols, we observed the need for improving the original JXTA protocols, such as pipe services, to ensure reliable communication between peer nodes and the discovery and prese
Author(s): Xhafa Fatos,Fernandez Raul,Daradoumis Thanasis,Bar

Internet Scout Project
From the USDA Forest Service's St. Paul Field Office, this website offers a collection of instructive, online publications (first mentioned in the January 21, 2005 NSDL Scout Report for Life Sciences) that "are written for homeowners, land managers and others who want to know more about how to care for trees." The publications provide information about dealing with a number of diseases and other threats to a variety of tree types including Jack Pine, Oak, White Pine, Aspen, Basswood, Sugar Maple
Author(s): No creator set