Search

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.

A database of deep-water alcyonacean records has been assembled using information that reaches back to the work of A.E. Verrill from the 1800s. These database records fall into two time periods, those from 1874 to 1920, and from 1950 to 2001. A total of 25 species in 10 families are so far known from the northeastern U.S. Most of these species are common in deeper waters of the continental shelf, with a few being restricted to the canyons and other slope environments. A comparison of western and eastern North Atlantic records indicates there is little similarity between the regions. In the cold-temperate to boreal part of the region there is about 41 % similarity of the “stoloniferous” and “massive body” soft coral species, but only about 28 % similarity amongst all the “gorgonian” species. In the warm temperate part of the region the similarity for all groups is less than 10 %. Deep-water alcyonaceans are strongly impacted by bottom fishing gear so it is likely that modern distributional records will not be exactly similar to those from deep in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In general, fossils of corals are rare within Eocene and Oligocene marine strata that accumulated in a deep-water, convergent-margin setting and are now exposed in western Oregon and Washington, northwestern USA. At some localities, however, specimens of a few coral taxa are relatively abundant and associated with authigenic limestone deposits. Recently, these highly-localized limestone deposits were recognized as having precipitated due to the microbial oxidation of methane at seeps, areas where hydrocarbon-rich fluids were vented to the sea floor because of the tectonic compression and faulting of underlying sediments. As at modern methane-seeps, the ancient seeps supported dense invertebrate communities, in most cases dominated by tube-dwelling worms and bivalve mollusks, but they can also include gastropods, polyplacophorans, sponges, and corals. A few methaneseep assemblages in Eocene and Oligocene rocks of the Lincoln Creek Formation include the corals Caryophyllia wynoocheensis Durham, and an undescribed Flabellum (Ulocyathus) species. A new species of Deltocyathus appears to be restricted to a single methane-seep site. The corals Stephanocyathus holcombensis Durham, and Flabellum hertleini Durham have been reported from what may be methane-seeps sites in the Lincoln Creek Formation near Holcomb, Washington, and associated with an unusual crinoid-rich bioherm in the Keasey Formation near Mist, Oregon. Other corals, Flabellum (Ulocyathus) n. sp., Archohelia? sp., Caryophyllia wynoocheensis, and Dendrophyllia hannibali Nomland, are reported from a Lincoln Creek Formation locality that includes methane-seep related assemblages near Knappton, Washington. Although widespread in the deep sea today, none of the genera found in the ancient seeps in Washington and Oregon have yet been reported from modern seeps, and corals have rarely been reported from pre-Tertiary methane-seep deposits. It is unlikely that any of these corals, like the bivalves and tubeworms found at methane-seeps, hosted and derived nutrients from endosymbiotic chemotrophic bacteria that were capable of metabolizing some of the reduced compounds in the seeping fluids. More likely, the corals probably were attracted to the greater amount of food at seeps relative to the surrounding deep sea, or to the attachment sites provided by hardgrounds of methane-derived carbonate deposits on the muddy seafloor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the chapter 15 of the book "Handbook of Religion & Social Institutions." Relationship between religion and mediated communication in the U.S. context; Components to be considered by sociologists in analyzing mass media; Factor that led to the decision of sociologists in the television era to study the connection between religion and mass media; Impact of digital technologies on the development of the field of media and religion studies.

Presents the chapter 20 of the book "Handbook of Religion & Social Institutions." Overview of the findings of a study on immigrant religion in the U.S.; Conceptual and methodological imperatives for studying the religious lives of immigrants; Issues raised over transnational migration in addressing poverty.

Presents the chapter 17 of the book "Handbook of Religion & Social Institutions." Trends in church membership in the U.S.; Factors that affect the rise and decline of religious organization; Rate of church adherence throughout the history of the U.S.; Role of religious institutions in the lives of immigrants and freed slaves of the 19th century.

Presents the chapter 9 of the book "Handbook of Religion & Social Institutions." Relationship between religion and social class of persons and families in terms of their access to resources such as wealth, political power and prestige; Advantages of using the fair shares theory in the study of religion and stratification; Highlights of how the fair shares theory illuminates understanding of religious stratification in the U.S.

Presents the chapter 6 of the book "Handbook of Religion & Social Institutions." Significant changes in the religious landscape in the U.S. brought by the interest in adolescence and religion; Demography of religious engagement during adolescence; Role of religion in adolescence development; Consequences of religious or spiritual engagement among adolescents.

The article discusses the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of the U.S. which was enacted in 1972. An overview of the pesticide registration process policy under FIFRA is presented. It explains the resulting classification scheme of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for carcinogens. A comprehensive review of the FIFRA registration process is presented.

On 26 December 2004 a strong earthquake with an epicenter west of the coast of Sumatra generated a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The earthquake had a magnitude of 9, which makes it a rare event since earthquakes greater than magnitude 8.5 have occurred about once every 10 years since 1900 according to [5]. The last time a tsunami was generated by a magnitude 9 earthquake was on Good Friday 1964 off the coast of Alaska. The Sumatra earthquake and the tsunami that followed caused many victims in the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. At the time of writing the death toll stands at 225000, which is an incredible number that is changing by the day. This article discusses two unique scientific aspects related to the earthquake and the tsunami. Four satellite altimeters picked up the traveling wave in the Indian Ocean, evidenced by the fact that a tsunami model matches the satellite observations. Early GPS observed displacements at a few sites in the Sumatra, Thailand, Malaysia region confirm the predictions of a geophysical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter focuses on the regulation of religion, particularly religious groups sometimes refer or more neutrally as New Religious Movements. Recent efforts at social control of controversial new religions in the U.S. began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, often involving issues of consumer protection. A consumer protection approach, while not particularly useful in the U.S., has been more successful in countries without formal constitutional protections for religious freedom or which have more paternalistic and protective approaches toward unconventional individual religious experiences.