324,107 research outputs found
Weather and Climate Information Services Early Warning for Southern Africa (WISER-EWSA) testbed 1
No full textThis document describes the activities and outcomes of the first Weather and Climate Information Services Early Warning for Southern Africa (WISER-EWSA) testbed (T-1) which took place from 29 January to 9 February 2024. The document follows the structure of the operations plan, examining the different items, reflecting how the plan panned out. The report also captures the reflections of the participants, highlighting what worked well and not so well, lessons learnt, and plans for improvement.
The testbed was multi-sited, with forecasting and community hubs that interacted and exchanged information regularly. In Zambia where the main testbed activities happened, the forecasting hub was located at the Zambia meteorological department [ZMD], while community hub was in Kanyama. The activities in Zambia, whilst at a smaller scale, were mirrored in the other countries, South Africa and Mozambique. These two countries kept in touch with the main testbed in Zambia through daily teleconferencing at 12:00 and 16:30 SAST.
The testbed was generally a success, with routine nowcast information generated at the forecasting hubs sent out to the community daily. The quality and presentation of that information improving over time, informed by feedback from users. Evaluations of the community hub by participants and community observers highlighted that 100% of the participants agreed that their ability to interpret weather information had increased
Philosophicae Burae Philosophiae Physicae
No full textPrӕside P. Mariano Wiser ... Disputationi exposuit RR. Ac Perdoctus F. Benedictus Eder, Ejusdem Ordinis, in celeberrimo Monasterio S. Michaelis Burӕ Professus, AA. LL. & Philosophiӕ Baccalaureus, Physicӕ Studiosus Ad diem 17. Martij M. DC. LXXXVII
Philosophicae Burae Philosophiae Physicae
No full textPrӕside P. Mariano Wiser ... Disputationi exposuit RR. Ac Perdoctus F. Benedictus Eder, Ejusdem Ordinis, in celeberrimo Monasterio S. Michaelis Burӕ Professus, AA. LL. & Philosophiӕ Baccalaureus, Physicӕ Studiosus Ad diem 17. Martij M. DC. LXXXVII
Exploring the teaching nursing home model: literature review to inform the national evaluation of the TRACS program
No full textOverview
This Literature Review forms one component of the national evaluation of the TRACS Program which was commissioned in late 2012 by the then Department of Health and Ageing, now the Department of Social Services. The review builds on earlier work undertaken for the Department by WISeR to provide research and analysis to inform the implementation of what was termed at that time the Teaching Nursing Homes Initiative.
The Scoping Study Project began in early January 2011 and was completed at the end of March 2011 and it involved a focused review of the national and international literature on the \u27teaching nursing home\u27 model
Deliverable D5.2-5: Report on effects of global change on reference conditions and ecological status of lakes
No full textWISER aims to support the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by developing tools for the assessment of the ecological status of European surface waters. With many European lakes unlikely to achieve ‘good’ ecological status without restorative measures, the assessment systems used in the WFD are required to consider recovery in order to judge restoration success. Most previous projects dealing with assessment systems have focused on the effects of deterioration. WISER also deals with recovery. The report summarizes the progress made within the WISER project in the following areas: Reviewing the current understanding of the impacts of climate change on lakes and how this can be utilised to develop and improve our understanding of lake restoration. Investigating the pathways of degradation in lakes where eutrophication has been the primary stressor and examining how these pathways react during lake recovery following remedial action. Two further studies are presented which use lake sediment records and long-term monitoring data sets to assess the relative importance of climate versus eutrophication. The role of cladocerans in tracking long-term changes in shallow lakes is explored; a study which highlights the sensitivity of this biological group and presents it as a strong candidate as the single best indicator for assessing trophic change in lakes. Finally Baysian network models are presented as an effective tool for unravelling the complex interaction between the impacts of lake restoration and climate change on the ecological status of lakes. In addition to providing an assessment of the various tools available for tracking environmental change in lakes, this report highlights the complexities of ecosystem recovery under changing global conditions. A reduction of environmental stressors (e.g. eutrophication) will undoubtedly result in ecosystem improvement, but it is unlikely to simply be the reversal of deterioration and some examples show that recovery may lead to conditions very different from the original undisturbed stage. These studies contribute towards the scientific basis for underpinning the management of freshwaters in order that it is strengthened and targeted appropriately The main achievement of societal relevance is the increased understand of how strategies for the sustainable management of freshwaters, for example, as required by the WFD, may need to be modified to take account of global, especially climate change
Diffusive author(s), cohesive author: Analysis of S/N (1994)
No full textThis study indicates the ways in which various aspects of the author(s) are brought forth in Dumb type’s performance art, the S/N production. Previous research has suggested a non-hierarchical organization of Dumb type and the absence of a “privileged author” in Dumb type’s collaborative work, S/N. However, the results that I have investigated from member’s interviews on the creative process of S/N along with my analysis of the recorded images of S/N, indicate a different aspect of the author(s). First, S/N was created through, so to speak, the collective ideas of the members of Dumb type. Further, S/N has at least nine quotations from previous performances, installations, and printed writings, besides the work-in-progress technique. Explicating one of the “author functions” as given by Michel Foucault, each text has plural subjects of the author. However, it has been revealed from members’ interviews that Teiji Furuhashi had a decision-making role in selecting the members’ ideas within the performance. Since then, S/N has had plural subjects of creation; however, Furuhashi is one of the subjects of creation along with the “privileged author.” S/N has plural authors (diffusive authors) yet at the same time, it has a “privileged author,” Teiji Furuhashi (cohesive author)
WISER Deliverable D3.3-2: The importance of invertebrate spatial and temporal variation for ecological status classification for European lakes
No full textEuropean lakes are affected by many human induced disturbances. In principle, ecological
theories predict that the structure and functioning of benthic invertebrate assemblage (one of
the Biological Quality Elements following the Water Framework Directive, WFD
terminology) change in response to the level of disturbances, making this biological element
suitable for assessing the status and management of lake ecosystems. In practice, to set up
assessment systems based on invertebrates, we need to distiguish community changes that are
related to human pressures from those that are inherent natural variability. This task is
complicated by the fact that invertebrate communities inhabiting the littoral and the profundal
zones of lakes are constrained by different factors and respond unevenly to distinct human
disturbances. For example it is not clear yet how the invertebrates assemblages respond to
watershed and shoreline alterations, nor the relative importance of spatial and temporal
factors on assemblage dynamics and relative bioindicator values of taxa, the habitat
constraints on species traits and other taxonomic and methodological limitations.
The current lack of knowledge of basic features of invertebrate temporal and spatial variations
is limiting the fulfillment of the EU-wide intercalibration of lake ecological quality
assessment systems in Europe, and thus compromising the basis for setting the environmental
objectives as required by the WFD. The aim of this deliverable is to provide a contribution
towards the understanding of basic sources of spatial and temporal variation of lake
invertebrate assemblages. The report is structured around selected case studies, manly
involving the analysis of existing datasets collated within WISER. The case studies come
from different European lake types in the Northern, Central, Alpine and Mediterranean
regions. All chapters have an obvious applied objective and our aim is to provide to those
dealing with WFD implementation at various levels useful information to consider when
designing monitoring programs and / or invertebrate-based classification systems
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
WISER EWSA King-Size Testbed Report
No full textThis report outlines the activities and outcomes of the Weather and Climate Information Services Early Warning for Southern Africa (WISER-EWSA) King-Size testbed. This second WISER EWSA testbed ran from October 1st, 2024 to April 30th, 2025, covering the Southern Africa rainy season in its entirety. It was the world’s first extended forecasting and nowcasting testbed, integrating daily operational activities with deep, sustained community engagement. The King-Size testbed enabled the project team and partner national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHS) -INAM, SAWS and ZMD- to better understand the operational capacity required to sustain long-term nowcasting, generating lessons that will influence future operationalisation. This initiative was also a major undertaking that involved 42 forecasters, 122 community observers and directly benefitted 795 people (381 women and 414 men), across Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa
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