E-science has reshaped meteorology due to the rate data is generated, collected, analyzed, and stored and brought data skills to a new prominence. Data information literacy-the skills needed to understand, use, manage, share, work with, and produce data-reflects the confluence of data skills with information literacy competencies. This research assessed perceptions of data information literacy and attitudes on its instruction for graduate students in meteorology. As academic librarians have traditionally provided information literacy instruction, the research determined if they were perceived as having a role in data information literacy instruction. The modified Delphi method was applied to obtain the perspectives of a panel of experts, representing students, librarians, professors, and researchers, for the purpose of forecasting and consensus-making. Through the consideration of the University of Oslo's Department of Geosciences' Meteorology Section, the research found that data information literacy skills were relevant to the work of meteorology students. Stakeholders perceived that academic librarians could play a future role in general instruction but that they would have to overcome obstacles to be involved in data information literacy instruction. For librarians to enter this domain, they would need to improve their technical skills, enhance their discipline-specific knowledge, or rely on collaborations. The significance of these findings was limited by the modest target population under examination; as a consequence, the results were strongly linked to the specific setting. Further studies would be necessary to determine their generalizability.cademic librarians have a history of facing changes in technology that vastly reshape their work. The digital age has brought incredible changes in the way information and data are produced, consumed, adapted, and shared, requiring a transformation of resources and services. At the same time, the meteorological community has undergone significant shifts as a consequence of e-science. E-science represents the unprecedented collection and analysis of data thanks to advances in high performance computational technology and networked environments. The scale of these data has accelerated scientific innovation and discovery but doi:10.5860/crl.77.4.536 crl16-828 Academic Librarians in Data Information Literacy Instruction 537has resulted in a deluge of data, some of which are messy and unstructured, and all of which are beyond the scope of manual control. Modern meteorology requires dealing with vast quantities of atmospheric measurements and running computation-and data-intensive models. For students in the field to engage with e-science data, they must have data skills to a degree not previously required. These skills-data information literacy skills-are the competencies needed to participate in the data-intensive research of e-science.We have explored perceptions of data information literacy skills and attitudes on their instruction for graduate students in meteorolog...

No abstract

Benthic microalgae (BMA) are important primary producers constituting an essential component of nearshore food webs. BMA also release extracellular polymeric secretions that stabilize sediments. Primary objectives of our research were to assess the separate and interactive effects of biotic and abiotic disturbances on structure and spatial patterns of microalgal communities in shallow-water sediments. Using field comparative studies, we characterized the effects of 2 prominent types of disturbance: macroinvertebrate ingestion and tidal resuspension. BMA biomass and composition in fecal materials from the enteropneust Balanoglossus aurantiacus and sediments were followed through time using fluorometry and molecular techniques (PCR-DGGE analysis of 18S rDNA and sequencing). We also examined the effects of disturbance on spatial patterns of BMA biomass, diversity, and composition over the larger sedimentary landscape using correlative studies. Deposit-feeder ingestion was found to significantly reduce BMA biomass and alter BMA composition, although qualitative changes were comparatively less remarkable. A significant difference was also found between average biomass before and after tidal immersion. Spatial autocorrelation revealed heterogeneity in BMA distribution during low tide, and that this spatial patterning correlated with B. aurantiacus fecal coils. Samples taken after tidal immersion showed no patchiness, nor was there a correlation between BMA biomass and pre-immersion fecal cover. In intertidal sediments, the qualitative and quantitative impacts of deposit feeding, and the resulting landscape-scale patchiness, appear to be short-lived due to erasure by frequent tidal resuspension.

Automotive systems are increasingly distributed and complex. Reduced time-to-market, cost and safety concerns require advance validation of the integrated systems and its components, from the functional, timing, and reliability standpoints. In particular, function correctness and performance may depend on communication and computation delays imposed by the selected architecture platform. Hence, the need for methods and tools capable of predicting the system-level timing behaviour (latencies and jitter), resulting from the HW platform selection, the synchronization between tasks and messages, and also from the synchronization and queuing policies of the middleware and RTOS levels. In this paper, we review methods and tools for the evaluation of the function performance and its timing correctness by simulation or by worst case static analysis.

The Fucino Plain (200 km²) was the largest lake in Central Italy prior to the 1800s when it was reclaimed for agricultural use. In the past 15 years the original crops, mostly wheat, maize and sugar beet, have been progressively replaced with much more profitable (but more water demanding) horticultural crops. Increasing demand for water together with the actual irrigation techniques and the changes in the climate (decreasing precipitation and increasing temperatures) has caused a number of environmental and social-economical problems. These are mainly related to groundwater resource depletion, spring exhaustion, a decline in summer and annual surface water discharges, scarcity of irrigation water and conflict between different users. Based on a comprehensive study of water supply and demand, several measures for a sustainable use of water were considered. These were mainly related to the implementation of more efficient irrigation techniques, the increase of storage capacity and, subsequently, a reduction in the use of ground water. An accurate cost-benefit analysis showed a positive environmental impact (decline of 70% of ground water exploitation, reduction of energy consumption) and social benefits (increasing of quantity and quality of agricultural production) for the chosen solution.