Hydrologic regimes in shallow lakes strongly influence the system’s function and ecology. Changes in water levels can have nonlinear, disproportionate effects in these low gradient systems. High water levels can submerge upper elevation littoral areas, degrade benthic habitats, and redistribute sediments and nutrients throughout the lake. When water levels are low, wetland littoral areas are dried out, prompting shifts in plant communities. Lake Okeechobee, a large shallow lake, is a diverse and complex ecosystem managed for multiple purposes. Currently, water levels within the lake are managed based on the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule of 2008, which is being replaced due to the completion of key restoration projects. The new regulation schedule, Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM), updates water management rules while attempting to balance the needs of downstream systems; salinity and water quality in the Caloosahatchee and Saint Lucie estuaries, and more water for the southern Everglades. This study evaluates LOSOM relative to ecologically significant performance measures for the lake. Overall, the proposed regulation schedule is expected to cause deeper average lake levels, increased occurrence of damaging high-stage events, and reduced frequency of low-stage events. While decreases in the severity and frequency of low stages will be beneficial, increases in high stages may impact the long-term ecology of the system. As lake management shifts to optimize restoration efforts around and downstream of Lake Okeechobee, restoration projects upstream of the lake become critical to building and improving resilience in this central South Florida ecosystem.

Hydrologic regimes in shallow lakes strongly in uence the system's function and ecology. Changes in water levels can have nonlinear, disproportionate effects in these low gradient systems. High water levels can submerge upper elevation littoral areas, degrade benthic habitats, and redistribute sediments and nutrients throughout the lake. When water levels are low, wetland littoral areas are dried out, prompting shifts in plant communities. Lake Okeechobee, a large shallow lake, is a diverse and complex ecosystem managed for multiple purposes. Currently, water levels within the lake are managed based on the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule of 2008, which is being replaced due to the completion of key restoration projects. The new regulation schedule, Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM), updates water management rules while attempting to balance the needs of downstream systems; salinity and water quality in the Caloosahatchee and Saint Lucie estuaries, and more water for the southern Everglades. This study evaluates LOSOM relative to ecologically signi cant performance measures for the lake. Overall, the proposed regulation schedule is expected to cause deeper average lake levels, increased occurrence of damaging high-stage events, and reduced frequency of low-stage events. While decreases in the severity and frequency of low stages will be bene cial, increases in high stages may impact the long-term ecology of the system. As lake management shifts to optimize restoration efforts around and downstream of Lake Okeechobee, restoration projects upstream of the lake become critical to building and improving resilience in this central South Florida ecosystem.

We present PBJ a Gnutella inspired file sharing system developed as an undergraduate project during the Clemson course on distributed computing. The goal of the project was to investigate challenges in distributed system design such as bootstrapping, scalability and complexity of the search process. PBJ is novel in that it marries the positive aspects of centralized and decentralized P2P design paradigms.

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Hydrologic regimes in shallow lakes have a strong influence on the ecology and function of the system, and changes in water levels can have nonlinear disproportionate effects in these low gradient systems. When water levels are high, upper elevation littoral areas are impacted by flooding effects, benthic habitats are degraded, and nutrients are redistributed throughout the lake. When water levels are low, wetland littoral areas are dried out, prompting shifts in plant communities. Lake Okeechobee, a large shallow lake, is a diverse and complex ecosystem managed for multiple purposes. Currently, water levels within the lake are managed based on the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule of 2008, which is being replaced due to the completion of key restoration projects. The new regulation schedule, Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM), updates water management rules while providing the needed balance of water to downstream systems. The objective of this study is to evaluate LOSOM relative to ecologically significant performance measures. Overall, the proposed regulation schedule is expected to have deeper average lake levels, increasing the occurrence of damaging high stage events and reducing the frequency of low stage events. While decreases in the severity and frequency of low stage events will be beneficial, increases in high stage conditions may impact the long-term ecology of the system. As lake management shifts to optimize restoration efforts around and downstream of Lake Okeechobee, restoration projects upstream of the lake become critical to building and improving resilience in this central South Florida ecosystem.