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Recent climate change has contributed to shifts in the seasonal interplay between precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, which have in turn increased droughts and reduced freshwater availability in Mediterranean climate regions. To overcome limitations in existing indices for comparing these seasonal hydroclimatic drivers at the global scale, we introduce an information theory‐based, nonparametric asynchronicity index that captures both the temporal alignment and relative magnitudes of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. We use this asynchronicity index to first identify Mediterranean climates around the world. We then apply the asynchronicity index over two Mediterranean climate regions and show that their boundaries have shifted between 1960 and 2018, resulting in a regional expansion in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and a contraction in southwestern Australia. These results highlight the need for globally consistent measures of seasonal climatic water supply and demand for diagnosing potential changes in water resources and ecosystem responses within Mediterranean climate regions. Plain Language Summary: Climate change is likely to change the boundaries of what are typically considered Mediterranean climate regions, which have dry summers and mild, wet winters. To analyze how these regions' water availability may be influenced by climate change, we introduce a metric for quantifying the mismatch in the timing and amount of precipitation relative to atmospheric water demand. This new metric is able to identify the boundaries of Mediterranean climate regions more effectively than other existing indices and can be used to analyze how these boundaries shift over time. Key Points: A new metric is proposed to measure the seasonal mismatch between atmospheric water supply (precipitation) and demand (potential evapotranspiration, PET)Compared to existing metrics, the proposed metric can more accurately distinguish between climates with synchronized versus desynchronized seasonal signals of precipitation and PETMediterranean climates are characterized by high climate asynchronicity, and their geographical extents have expanded in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and contracted in Western Australia since the turn of the century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a trial undertaken in a LIS education program to help prepare students from different cultural backgrounds to work in virtual, multicultural work places. The focus of the trial was developing teamwork, which may now involve global, multicultural and virtual components, for which students need to be prepared, given work place changes of recent years. The trial took place in a school of information studies at a large, multi-campus rural university in Australia. The lecturer grouped students from an off-shore campus, with a different cultural background, with local students to work online on a group assignment. Evaluation involved an anonymous, web-based survey after all group assignments were completed. The survey explored the experiences of students regarding their group work in multicultural teams. The findings highlight the challenges of group work in fully online environments. They include language and cultural diversity, time zone spread and lack of face-to-face communication. Some of these challenges are likely to be replicated in the work place where multicultural team work is involved. Some of these challenges are likely to be replicated in the work place where multicultural team work is involved. Some suggestions to overcome these challenges are included at the end of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The critical weight range (CWR) hypothesis for Australian mammals states that extinctions and declines have been concentrated in species with body mass between 35 g and 5.5 kg. The biological basis for this hypothesis is that species of intermediate size are disproportionately impacted by introduced predators. The CWR hypothesis has received support from several statistical studies over the past decade, although the evidence is weaker or non-existent for certain groups such as mesic-zone mammals and arboreal mammals. In this study, we employ an information-theoretic model selection approach to gain further insights into the relationship between body mass and extinction risk in Australian mammals. We find evidence, consistent with the CWR hypothesis, that extinction risk peaks at intermediate body masses for marsupials, rodents and ground-dwelling species, but not for arboreal species. In contrast to previous studies, we find that the CWR describes extinction patterns in the mesic zone as well as the arid zone. In the mesic zone, there is also a weaker tendency for large species above the CWR to be more vulnerable, consistent with extinction patterns on other continents. We find that a more biological plausible Gaussian distribution consistently fits the data better than the polynomial models that have been used in previous studies. Our results justify conservation programmes targeted at species within the CWR across Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the Information Seeking in Context (ISIC) Conference that was held at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, from 19-21 July 2006. Various interesting papers were presented at the symposium which focused on information theory. One of the sessions focused on rural communities. Theresa Anderson from the University of Technology Systems and Chun Wei Choo from the University of Toronto were two of the speakers among the several who presented their papers.