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Planning frameworks such as Ecosystem-Based Marine Spatial Planning are based on socio-ecological systems and require effective design of management goals and objectives, a task often overlooked in conservation and resource planning. This paper discusses research undertaken in a coastal council of Australia, to assess the significance of well-defined goals and objectives as drivers of management plans. SMART criteria and Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation approaches were integrated into a framework to examine management scope of existing plans; assess the quality of stated goals and objectives; analyse the use of natural and socio-economic targets; and provide recommendations for the development of future plans. Findings provided no indication of organizational learning through revision of previous plans, revealing an ongoing planning cycle with ad-hoc reviews frequently driven by policy changes. Main weaknesses identified included linguistics ambiguity; unclear planning hierarchy; lack of clear time-frames; and adoption of highly ambitious plans. The absence of measurable and time-bounded goals and objectives was noted. Additionally, poor definition of targets resulted in goals not meeting the impact-oriented criteria, and objectives were not outcome-oriented. Recommendations drawn in support of mainstreaming the Ecosystem Based Approach in future coastal and marine plans include: explicit definition of societal values; developing complementary cross-realm management goals and objectives; increasing commitment to produce ‘on-the-ground’ outcomes progressively within each planning period; a greater use of pro-active management measures; and providing an economic context to the plans, fostering alignment of financial resources and future investments with the vision developed by the council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Struggles over technology standards are typically reported for competing technology providers. Technology users often play not much of a role in standard development. This paper presents findings from the emerging innovation system of smart meter communication, in which large technology users act as standard developers. This phenomenon is relatively rare, as users often lack the resources and competences to actively engage in standard development. Over a period of 14 years (2000–2013), we track how different standards emerged and changed, why and how users became standard sponsors, and what impact this had on the field. Our analysis is based on variety of data sources, including participatory observation and expert interviews. After an initial period, in which only proprietary standards were available, two large users started to develop open standards together with alliance partners and standard development organizations. Consequently, sponsors of proprietary standards change their strategies, also toward open, alliance-based standards. A central condition for this shift in standardization was that the two users controlled large shares of the market. Our research points to the conditions for user involvement in standardization, thereby contrasting three different settings for standard development. We interpret the case as an example for the larger issue of institutional structures in technological innovation systems developing over time in a patchwork-like way, thereby shaping and changing the conditions for strategic action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecological outcomes of civic environmental stewardship are poorly understood, especially at scales larger than individual sites. In this study we characterized civic environmental stewardship programs in the Green-Duwamish watershed in King County, WA, and evaluated the extent to which stewardship outcomes were monitored. We developed a four-step process based on the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation to structure our evaluation and to make recommendations for future monitoring of ecological outcomes of stewardship activities. Environmental stewardship, primarily in the form of restoration projects, was common throughout the lower and middle watershed. The distribution of stewardship sites was influenced by population density, political and program boundaries, and financial and technical resources. Conceptual frameworks that link conservation goals, ecological threats, management strategies, and monitoring were rare and incomplete. Collaboration among programs was an important component of stewardship in the watershed, although communication gaps were identified between geographic regions and different ecosystems. Monitoring efforts were relatively common but unevenly distributed, often unsystematic, and usually dictated by project maintenance, funding purpose, or a program’s standard practices, rather than specific ecological outcomes and goals. As a result, monitoring results were rarely and inconsistently used for management. We recommend improving stewardship monitoring by clearly linking stewardship activities to specific conservation goals and objectives, developing reasonable quantitative outcome metrics that link upland and aquatic environments, and improving coordination and learning of monitoring efforts among multiple stewardship programs and actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Monitoring land-cover changes on sites of conservation importance allows environmental problems to be detected, solutions to be developed and the effectiveness of actions to be assessed. However, the remoteness of many sites or a lack of resources means these data are frequently not available. Remote sensing may provide a solution, but large-scale mapping and change detection may not be appropriate, necessitating site-level assessments. These need to be easy to undertake, rapid and cheap. We present an example of a Web-based solution based on free and open-source software and standards (including PostGIS, OpenLayers, Web Map Services, Web Feature Services and GeoServer) to support assessments of land-cover change (and validation of global land-cover maps). Authorised users are provided with means to assess land-cover visually and may optionally provide uncertainty information at various levels: from a general rating of their confidence in an assessment to a quantification of the proportions of land-cover types within a reference area. Versions of this tool have been developed for the TREES-3 initiative (Simonetti et al., 2011). This monitors tropical land-cover change through ground-truthing at latitude/longitude degree confluence points, and for monitoring of change within and around Important Bird Areas (IBAs) by Birdlife International and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). In this paper we present results from the second of these applications. We also present further details on the potential use of the land-cover change assessment tool on sites of recognised conservation importance, in combination with NDVI and other time series data from the eStation (a system for receiving, processing and disseminating environmental data). We show how the tool can be used to increase the usability of Earth observation data by local stakeholders and experts, and assist in evaluating the impact of protection regimes on land-cover change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The potential for physical flora collections to support scientific research is being enhanced by rapid development of digital databases that represent characteristics of the physical specimens held in those collections and make this information available remotely. One example is the unified database of California flora observations from the Consortium of California Herbaria that was developed to support the exploration of plant diversity patterns, distribution ranges of species, and vegetation associations for specimens held in physical collections. Many of the records in the herbaria database, and in complementary databases elsewhere, are geo-referenced; but, current web tools for accessing the data do not take advantage of that georeferencing. In this paper, we report on development and implementation of a web-based client–server map interface to facilitate open mapping and exploration of the dataset. Three research objectives were addressed: (1) develop a method for efficient web-map client–server interaction involving large volumes of spatiotemporal point data, (2) develop a symbology and symbol scaling method for representing those spatial–temporal data in the client, and (3) develop an interface for client–server interactions and data exploration. With a focus on cartographically-sound visualization and user-friendly interaction, we introduce HerbariaViz, a web mapping application that provides space–time–species data query responses efficiently. Following a discussion of relevant literature, we present open-source methods for aggregating point data spatially and temporally, outline our approach to sound cartographic representations of those data, and detail the design of a client interface for making requests and mapping responses. A focus group session involving domain experts was performed to provide user evaluation of the application. In our discussion, we present potential avenues of future work, including: facilitating query response comparisons, handling incomplete and inaccurate data, and generalizing the method presented here. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The remarkable pace of advancement in communications technologies and the exponential growth of the market have pressured network equipment providers into producing more features in products in a much faster rate at lower costs. We advocate the use of standards based availability management middleware in carrier grade platforms as a building block for network infrastructure products, and buying constituent components as a strategy for achieving the costs and cycle time reduction goals. We examine the required capabilities of the availability management middleware, articulate the needs and show a solution for the platform's support of software upgrade with no or minimum service outage, and propose dependability benchmarking as a means of choosing an off-the-shelf high availability middleware for the platform. The development of the appropriate standards and their supporting technologies, together with the preliminary results indicate that this approach can potentially deliver a good return on investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes as a starting point a recent EU Commission report on scientific publishing in Europe (Dewatripont et al 2006). In Norway, where a new system of documentation of scientific publishing was introduced in 2005, several of the recommendations in this report have already been anticipated. The Norwegian documentation system which has already proven controversial in parts of the research community and lacks parallells in other Nordic countries like Denmark and Sweden, is expected to have considerable consequences on Norwegian publishing patterns, such as increased use of electronic journals and of open standards such as Open Access and Open Source (Vaagan 2005). As e-publishing grows as part of the process of globalization, there is increasing awareness in many countries of ethical concerns in science and in scientific publishing, including the need for public access to publicly-funded research results. In this perspective, the paper links open standards in scientific communication and publishing to the principle of universality of science and to information ethics priorities identified by Capurro (2004). Qualitative methodology is used with critical & typical case sampling (Patton 2002) of key policy documents as well as international articles on e-publishing 2000-2005, especially from DLib magazine. In conclusion, it is suggested that open standards such as Open Access and Open Source are likely to increase in scientific publishing in the future, both in Norway and in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer software has traditionally been regarded as unpatentable and patent offices in the USA and Europe, amongst others, rejected software-related inventions as being unpatentable subject matter. Following key court decisions in these jurisdictions, it was established that such inventions are patentable in terms of current legislation, and recent developments have related to the boundaries of protection and specific requirements for patentability. More recently, it has been accepted in these jurisdictions that business method-related inventions are patentable, provided that they meet a similar test for 'technical character' or a 'useful, concrete and tangible result'. Other countries have adopted similar approaches. In South Africa, where patent legislation is similar to that in Europe and the UK, it can be assumed that a similar approach would be adopted by our courts, although there is not yet any case law in this area. There is consensus that the lack of clarity is undesirable. Contradictory approaches by different South African government agencies to the desirability of 'software patents' are another reason for urgent clarification of South African law. The debate between those who favour patenting of software and proponents of Free and Open Source Software remains unresolved, while established software companies move to establish themselves in this area. Pending clarification of the law, whether by amendment of the Patents Act or a court decision, it is recommended that software developers apply for patents for new software- or business method-related technology, particularly if planning to do business internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]