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As awareness of deep-sea corals increases, global efforts to conserve them are increasing as well. Oceana, a non-governmental conservation organization that merged with the American Oceans Campaign in 2002, is focusing significant attention and resources on the conservation of deep-sea coral communities in United States’ waters. Oceana is carrying out a number of activities as part of its deep-sea coral campaign. These include: • Working to pass legislation that would ban the use of particularly destructive bottom trawls in all U.S. waters in collaboration with the Marine Conservation Biology Institute;• Working to pass legislation that would specifically protect known deep-sea coral and sponge areas and establish a process for future protections;• Working to protect deep-sea coral and sponge habitats in the U.S. through the regional fishery management councils;• Developing educational materials for decision-makers, the media, and the general public;• Developing a petition to achieve threatened or endangered species status for Oculina varicosa. The goal of Oceana’s deep-sea coral protection activities is to ban bottom trawling in all U.S. waters containing significant amounts of deep-sea corals and sponges by the end of 2006. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the activities that Oceana is engaged in to achieve this goal. As Oceana’s capacity develops in other parts of the world, its efforts to protect coral in other regions (especially Europe and South America) will increase as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses GIS and disaster preparedness and management by a public safety agency at the scale of a small metropolitan area or jurisdiction within a larger metropolitan area. After briefly reviewing the local, South Florida, context, the paper focuses first on the agencies experiences with mostly Federal GIS programs — ALOHA, CATS/JACE and HAZUS-MH — geared to managing natural and man-made disasters. The next portion of the paper focuses on an evolving enterprise GIS within the public safety agency that has included projects related to: use of GIS technology for critical incident response; homeland security; and incorporating and anticipating wireless technology in data collection, and distribution. The paper concludes with lessons learned and recommendations in terms of both technology and organizational imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Office of Science of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is focused using the vantage point of space to improve our knowledge of the Earth system, space systems, and exploration. NASA spaceborne satellites provide measurements that are used in science research associated with the water and energy cycle, the carbon cycle, weather and climate, atmospheric chemistry, and the solid Earth and natural hazards. The NASA science mission has a focus on improving the prediction capacity in the areas of weather, climate, and natural and technological hazards. The data and knowledge resulting from the Sun-Earth observing systems and science models of the Sun and the Earth are available for assimilation into decision support systems to serve society. Through partnerships with national and international agencies and organizations, NASA contributes to benchmarking practical uses of observations from remote sensing systems and predictions from Sun-Earth science research. This objective is to establish innovative solutions using Sun-Earth science information to provide decision support that can be adapted in applications of national and international priority. A common modeling framework is followed as well as utilization of an enterprise architecture. Space-based data acquired by NASA contribute to Sun-Earth science models that enable understanding and forecasting of weather, climate, and to disaster management to serve in primary applications including the related applications in wildfire management, food security, aviation safety, homeland security, tropical weather, human health, invasive species management, and water and air quality management. Common systems engineering approaches are employed, including dependence on geospatial standards and interoperability, verification and validation, benchmarking, visualization, and workforce development. This paper describes the Sun-Earth observing missions, the science models, and the decision support systems in the context of a systems engineering approach to enhancing decision support systems for disaster management relevant to decision makers. The architecture for systematically delivering results from research to operations is described. Recent results and solutions are highlighted specific to disaster management as related to U. S. National and International efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical Information Systems applications are used daily within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-NET) to provide relevant meteorological and climatic information to support weather-related natural disaster management efforts (Love, 2004). It is through the use of GIS technologies that a more user friendly, value-enhanced, and distinctly directed set of information may be created and disseminated to the end user. However; the data flow cycle does not end there. Users will ingest this information and modify it for their own purposes, resulting in a new product possibly benefiting the original institution. It is the purpose of this paper to inform the disaster management community of our experience with weather and climate related GIS technology in order to gain critical feedback in the direction of improving the data and services we provide and to add to the common pool of GIS knowledge. Within this document, examples of manual and automated Climate Prediction Center’s FEWS-NET products will form the base of the discussion. History of GIS use within FEWS-NET will provide background information, while a discussion of our experience determining user requirements will give a view into the task at hand. A summary of possible future directions will culminate the report. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communities of practice (CoPs) are an emerging, unstructured organizational form that many believe will help companies to truly leverage what they know. CoPs appear to have the potential to galvanize knowledge sharing, learning, and change thereby improving a company's performance and making it more competitive. However, a major problem with them is that their organic and informal nature makes them highly resistant to management supervision and interference in their activities. CoPs are therefore controversial because there is no clear role for management in them. In fact, if management does get involved, the community often dissipates. Yet paradoxically, CoPs require specific managerial efforts to develop and support them so that their full power can be leveraged. To discuss CoPs and their role in organizations, the authors convened a focus group of knowledge managers from a variety of industries. To help them prepare for the session, participants were given a series of questions to consider in advance on how management can and should develop and facilitate CoPs. This paper discusses the challenges and successes they have had in implementing CoPs and makes recommendations for practising knowledge managers who wish to encourage and support the development of CoPs in their organizations. It concludes that communities of practice have the potential to dramatically change how enterprises operate and compete because they are the mechanism through which knowledge gets both created and turned into action. While they are made possible by technologies that enable people to share insights and ideas around the world, they are first and foremost a social mechanism. Over the next few years, we can expect to see CoPs evolve and new management techniques develop as we learn new ways to leverage knowledge to create value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a review of the past 30 years of research on the relationships between migration or residential mobility and the quality of life broadly construed, mainly in Canada and the United States. In the final section a check-list of critical issues in quality-of-life research is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental litigation almost always involves scientific issues and expert opinions, often with multiple experts in different disciplines. In 1993, the United States Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), which made significant changes in the standards for admissibility of expert opinions in federal courts. The Supreme Court established a gatekeeping requirement under which courts must screen expert opinions for reliability and exclude 'junk science." The Court also established a new, more flexible test to be used in this process. These standards have now become better defined through their application by courts over the ten years since Daubert, including a number of environmental cases. A recent example of the application of these standards to an environmental case is Freeport-McMoran Resource Partners, L.P. v. B-B Paint Corp., et al., 56 F.Supp. 2d 823 (E.D. Mich. 1999), a private party CERCLA case in which one of the authors successfully argued a motion to exclude expert testimony for a group of 12 defendants, resulting in exclusion of the opinions and a judgment for the defendants. The expert in the case was a PhD. chemist and had served as an expert witness in over 180 cases. While admissibility of expert opinions is primarily the responsibility of attorneys, it is important for environmental professionals to understand the issues, both to assist attorneys and to take them into consideration in projects which may later result in litigation. This paper explores current standards for expert opinions in environmental litigation in both federal and state courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will outline how 15 government agencies in California worked together using GIS to plan for, develop mitigation plans and respond to the catastrophic fires in Southern California in the fall of 2003. The focus of the presentation will detail how several different agencies and the private sector created a shared GIS data base to collaborate on how to provide protection, prevention and response to a pending wildfire catastrophe. Examples of how innovative uses of GIS and mobile GIS were used to assist first responders will be highlighted. This project resulted in creating a common vision of the problem, identification of priority problems that required shared resources and cooperative efforts. GIS was used throughout the incident to planning, support public information and provide the framework for high level briefings including the President Bush. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of contributors and their affiliations to volume 1 publication of the periodical in the U.S. They include Suzie Allard, who is chair of the American Society of Information Science and Technology's Special Interest Group on Digital Libraries, Debra M. Amidon, chairman and CEO of ENTOVATION International Ltd and Alex Bennet, U.S. Department of the Navy chief information officer for Enterprise Integration.

This section presents information on the publication Ethics in Real Estate. The Summa Corp. and the American Real Estate Society (ARES) believe in the importance of ethics in real estate, for their cosponsorship has made possible the creation of a monograph on the subject of ethics in real estate. In addition to reaching the thought leaders of the real estate discipline who comprise the membership of the ARES, the publication is being distributed to deans of professional schools, libraries and public officials worldwide.