Multidisciplinary Research Project Research Articles

The distribution of roles and functions for upscaling and outscaling innovations in agricultural innovation systems

In this paper we use a network perspective to study the micro level of agricultural innovation systems and investigate the different roles and functions that collaborating actors have to perform to spread their innovation both horizontally and vertically. Based on a literature review, we distinguish between three separate network functions: (1) learning and knowledge co-creation, (2) upscaling and institutional entrepreneurship and (3) outscaling and innovation brokerage.We investigate how these different functions have been performed in the case of the Northern Frisian Woodlands (NFWs) in the Netherlands over a period of 17years. We have constructed the two-mode affiliation networks of the actors involved in various multidisciplinary research projects and lobbying events. We have analysed these networks using Social Network Analysis and measured the participation rates, relative degrees and the main paths through time with the Search Path Node Pairs algorithm.The results show that the three functions are not evenly distributed over all participants in an innovation network. For each of these three functions there is a small group of people that form a core group of knowledge creators, institutional entrepreneurs and innovation brokers. The analysis of the main paths through these projects and events shows the close interaction between the lobbying and knowledge co-creation functions.The ability to perform more than one innovation function over a longer period of time is extremely rare, but those people who can pull this off are very important for the success of an innovation network. This paper therefore concludes that the organisers of innovation networks should take try to organise their collaboration in such a way that it becomes easier for individuals to perform multiple roles within an innovation network.

English

  New product development projects are often collectively executed by multidisciplinary members, and inherently the issue of cross-discipline management will arise. With investigations into the information related to knowledge creation, unified modeling language (UML) and Integrated New Product Development (iNPD), this study proposes the project management tool for integrating knowledge context and multidisciplinary responsibility, using an LCD TV multidisciplinary Research and Development (R&D) project as an example to explain the visual presentation of the said tool in different quadrants. This tool may authentically record the knowledge context and re-arrange the project flow to reduce the execution duration, while offering a visualized knowledge context chart of the responsibility domain as reference for the project team to adapt promptly upon changes of external data.   Key words: Knowledge context, project management tool, multidisciplinary responsibility, new product development.

Phytoliths from the coastal savannas of French Guiana

Phytolith reference collections are a fundamental prerequisite for accurate interpretation of fossil phytolith assemblages used in reconstructing vegetation histories. As part of a multi-disciplinary research project studying Late Holocene landscape transformations associated with pre-Columbian raised field complexes in the coastal savannas of French Guiana, phytolith production in selected plant species with high environmental and economic significance native to the region was examined. A total of 49 families, 92 genera, and 108 species were analysed. Phytolith abundance in each specimen was rated qualitatively and morphotypes described following modern standards of nomenclature. Of the 92 non-Poaceae species tested, 37 contributed phytoliths that are diagnostic to at least the family level. Two of these are newly-discovered phytolith morphotypes isolated from Protium guianense (Burseraceae) and Thelypteris confluens (Thelypteridaceae [Pteridophyta]) which have not been described previously. This work represents the first systematic undertaking to establish a phytolith reference collection of French Guiana flora. Results reinforce the usefulness of phytolith analysis for distinguishing ecologically significant taxa, and therefore major vegetation formations. The creation of a comprehensive reference collection for French Guiana improves taxonomic resolution and has provided the necessary ground work for the interpretation of palaeoevironmental and archaeological records in the region.

A repository based on a dynamically extensible data model supporting multidisciplinary research in neuroscience

BackgroundRobust, extensible and distributed databases integrating clinical, imaging and molecular data represent a substantial challenge for modern neuroscience. It is even more difficult to provide extensible software environments able to effectively target the rapidly changing data requirements and structures of research experiments. There is an increasing request from the neuroscience community for software tools addressing technical challenges about: (i) supporting researchers in the medical field to carry out data analysis using integrated bioinformatics services and tools; (ii) handling multimodal/multiscale data and metadata, enabling the injection of several different data types according to structured schemas; (iii) providing high extensibility, in order to address different requirements deriving from a large variety of applications simply through a user runtime configuration.MethodsA dynamically extensible data structure supporting collaborative multidisciplinary research projects in neuroscience has been defined and implemented. We have considered extensibility issues from two different points of view. First, the improvement of data flexibility has been taken into account. This has been done through the development of a methodology for the dynamic creation and use of data types and related metadata, based on the definition of “meta” data model. This way, users are not constrainted to a set of predefined data and the model can be easily extensible and applicable to different contexts. Second, users have been enabled to easily customize and extend the experimental procedures in order to track each step of acquisition or analysis. This has been achieved through a process-event data structure, a multipurpose taxonomic schema composed by two generic main objects: events and processes. Then, a repository has been built based on such data model and structure, and deployed on distributed resources thanks to a Grid-based approach. Finally, data integration aspects have been addressed by providing the repository application with an efficient dynamic interface designed to enable the user to both easily query the data depending on defined datatypes and view all the data of every patient in an integrated and simple way.ResultsThe results of our work have been twofold. First, a dynamically extensible data model has been implemented and tested based on a “meta” data-model enabling users to define their own data types independently from the application context. This data model has allowed users to dynamically include additional data types without the need of rebuilding the underlying database. Then a complex process-event data structure has been built, based on this data model, describing patient-centered diagnostic processes and merging information from data and metadata. Second, a repository implementing such a data structure has been deployed on a distributed Data Grid in order to provide scalability both in terms of data input and data storage and to exploit distributed data and computational approaches in order to share resources more efficiently. Moreover, data managing has been made possible through a friendly web interface. The driving principle of not being forced to preconfigured data types has been satisfied. It is up to users to dynamically configure the data model for the given experiment or data acquisition program, thus making it potentially suitable for customized applications.ConclusionsBased on such repository, data managing has been made possible through a friendly web interface. The driving principle of not being forced to preconfigured data types has been satisfied. It is up to users to dynamically configure the data model for the given experiment or data acquisition program, thus making it potentially suitable for customized applications.

Working Late: strategies to enhance productive and healthy environments for the older workforce

Aims and objectives: Working Late is a 4 year multidisciplinary research project addressing practice and policy issues associated with later life working. The project is funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) Programme. Methods: The Working Late research adopts a mixed method research approach of focus groups, interviews, surveys, interventions and the development of a design resource to enhance health and quality of working life across the life span. Results: This paper describes findings from the surveys and physical activity interventions along with the development of the design resource which captures the needs of the older workforce. Discussion: This research unites key policy themes: the need to maintain workforce capacity and flexibility; the need to retain older people in the workforce; and the need to support active healthy ageing. Conclusion: This project brings together the policy domains of employment dynamics, work systems design and health and the outputs will inform policies and practices aiming to remove barriers to later life workforce participation, and promote the health and well-being of older workers.

Low carbon construction systems using prefabricated engineered solid wood panels for urban infill to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Abstract Low-carbon prefabricated modular construction systems, using prefabricated engineered solid wood panel construction systems, such as load-bearing cross-laminated timber panels, and ‘design for disassembly’ principles will offer significant opportunities for greenhouse gas emission reduction and waste avoidance, among other benefits. However, introducing such innovative and sustainable construction systems to the Australian construction industries and housing markets has its challenges. This paper explores the opportunities offered by an innovative low carbon construction system using cross-laminated timber (CLT, also known as cross-lam) panels to improve the design and delivery of urban infill housing of the Australian construction market. CLT construction has been developed around 1996 in Europe, mainly in Austria and Germany: thick layers of timber boards are glued crosswise in different directions to increase loadbearing capacity. This article describes a multi-disciplinary research project into engineered timber panels which aims to transform the Australian construction and development industry, involving a range of key partners. This project aims to introduce CLT panels as a way to build with a lightweight prefabricated low-carbon construction system that is advantageous for urban infill and residential buildings in the range of 4–10 stories height. The challenges, research questions and advantages of this new engineered timber system are explained, and a research methodology for further research is presented.

A Study of the Remote Control for the East China Sea Seafloor Observation System

Abstract Seafloor observatories enable long-term, continuous, real-time, weather-independent, and multidisciplinary scientific observation and research that will promise major breakthroughs in ocean sciences. China has started to establish a seafloor observation system in the East China Sea (ECSSOS), and the purpose of this paper is to describe the remote control for ECSSOS. Technological development in system architecture and remote communication was first performed in this paper. Based on this work, an overall framework for the remote control solution for ECSSOS was developed, adopting a client-server architecture containing three components, that is, a control center, a shore station, and observatory facilities, as well as two strands of information flow, that is, flow of observation data and flow of control commands. To implement the present solution, operational data flow and the core module were further designed and the corresponding remote control subsystem for ECSSOS was developed against all design specifications. This backbone system has been put into operation in China’s first seafloor observatory in 2009, and in this paper the practical performance is evaluated addressing both the general descriptions and results from case studies. Given the successful trial in the Xiaoqushan seafloor observatory, the remote control solution proposed in this paper could be a useful reference implementation to the following construction phases of ECSSOS.

DEVELOPMENT OF A METADATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR AN INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROJECT

Abstract. In every interdisciplinary, long-term research project it is essential to manage and archive all heterogeneous research data, produced by the project participants during the project funding. This has to include sustainable storage, description with metadata, easy and secure provision, back up, and visualisation of all data. To ensure the accurate description of all project data with corresponding metadata, the design and implementation of a metadata management system is a significant duty. Thus, the sustainable use and search of all research results during and after the end of the project is particularly dependent on the implementation of a metadata management system. Therefore, this paper will describe the practical experiences gained during the development of a scientific research data management system (called the TR32DB) including the corresponding metadata management system for the multidisciplinary research project Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 32 (CRC/TR32) 'Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Systems'. The entire system was developed according to the requirements of the funding agency, the user and project requirements, as well as according to recent standards and principles. The TR32DB is basically a combination of data storage, database, and web-interface. The metadata management system was designed, realized, and implemented to describe and access all project data via accurate metadata. Since the quantity and sort of descriptive metadata depends on the kind of data, a user-friendly multi-level approach was chosen to cover these requirements. Thus, the self-developed CRC/TR32 metadata framework is designed. It is a combination of general, CRC/TR32 specific, as well as data type specific properties.

The Shuidonggou site complex: new excavations and implications for the earliest Late Paleolithic in North China

The initial Late Paleolithic, said to appear between 40 and 30 kya in eastern Asia, is defined by the appearance of many innovations. These archaeological indicators include the appearance of more refined stone tool making techniques (e.g., include the appearance of blade and microblade technology), complex hearth construction, use of pigments and personal ornamentation, as well as worked faunal implements such as bone and antler tools. We report here new findings from a multidisciplinary research project conducted at the Shuidonggou (Choei-tong-keou) site complex in northern China, a series of localities that date from the initial Late Paleolithic to the Neolithic.Six new localities (SDG7–12) were discovered and five localities [SDG2 (previously identified) and SDG7–9 and 12] were excavated, yielding more than 50,000 stone artifacts, fauna, ostrich eggshell beads, and hearths. Dating results suggest that human occupation of the Shuidonggou area occurred during the Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene (∼32,000–6000 BP). Some sites are characterized by small, irregular flakes, casually retouched tools [modified or informally retouched tools (i.e., non-standardized tools with sporadic retouch which was not well controlled)], and small numbers of blades or no blades. Others lithic assemblages are dominated by blades and microblades. At two sites, higher quality or exotic raw materials were exploited, but at the majority of sites locally-available river cobbles were used. In addition to blades, microblades and hearths, more than 80 finely-perforated and polished ostrich egg-shell beads, mostly colored with red ochre, were recovered from three sites. Several worked bone needles and an awl were also uncovered from the youngest site, SDG12, in deposits dating to c. 13,000 cal BP. The implications for the initial appearance of the Late Paleolithic in China and movement of modern human populations into North China are discussed.

DEVELOPING A PREFABRICATED LOW-CARBON CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM USING CROSS-LAMINATED TIMBER (CLT) PANELS FOR MULTISTOREY INNER-CITY INFILL HOUSING IN AUSTRALIA

Prefabricated engineered solid wood panel construction systems can sequester and store CO2. Modular cross-laminated timber (CLT, also called cross-lam) panels form the basis of low-carbon, engineered construction systems using solid wood panels that can be used to build residential infill developments of 10 storeys or higher. Multi-apartment buildings of 4 to 10 storeys constructed entirely in timber, such as recently in Europe, are innovative, but their social and cultural acceptance in Australia and North America is at this stage still uncertain. Commercial utilisation is only possible if there is a demand and user acceptance.This paper explores the opportunities offered by an innovative low carbon construction system using cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels to improve the design and delivery of urban infill housing. CLT construction has been developed around 1996 in Austria: layers of timber boards are glued crosswise in different directions to increase loadbearing capacity. The paper describes a multi-disciplinary research project into cross-laminated timber panels which aims to transform the Australian construction and development industry, involving a range of key partners. This project will introduce cross-laminated timber panels as a way to build with a lightweight prefabricated low-carbon construction system that is advantageous for urban infill and residential buildings in the range of 4 to 8 stories height. The challenges, research questions and advantages of this new engineered timber system are explained, and a detailed research methodology for further research is presented.

ConnectiCity

This paper presents the approaches, methodologies and results of a multidisciplinary research project which, over the last 4 years, was able to investigate on the possibility to observe the behavior of city dwellers using information harvested from social networks which was then analyzed using Natural Language Processing techniques to gather insights about the emotions and themes expressed in the messages, and Geo-Referencing, Geo-Parsing and Geo-Coding techniques to understand their relevancy to the various parts of the city. Infoaesthetics and multiple forms of information visualization were designed and used to make information accessible from a variety of perspectives, including ones created to suggest novel practices for Urban Planning, and some versions designed to suggest and support citizen-initiated activities. Research results have been presented, over time, under the form of live prototypes which used urban screens, web applications, mobile applications, and digital devices to promote novel practices for city administration and governance, as well as for participatory and peer-to-peer Urban Planning techniques which would benefit from the produced technologies, methodologies and visualization and interaction metaphors.

Looking Through the Crystal Ball: Do Others Know What you Expect from Research Projects?

Do all members of a research team ‘expect’ the same deliverables? Do all members of a research team know exactly what other members of the team need from the project? Over the past decade there has been an increase in the number of projects accessing ‘what works’ in policing practice. Many projects are large collaborations between different police departments, justice agencies, and universities. Whether these interagency projects will be successful is based on two fundamentals: did the research produce quality outputs; and more importantly, did the outputs match what people needed and expected. We discuss the importance of understanding what police and other industry partners expect from projects they invest in. In this article, we use a large multidisciplinary research project involving two police forces, three universities, and a forensic science industry body as illustrative of how to measure and plan for differing research direction and outcome expectations. We suggest that to avoid disappointment, police practitioners voice their expectations and make explicit what they need to achieve. As expectations are rarely static, it makes sense to revisit over the life of the project the expectations industry partners have.

Assessment of the scientific information from the Italian project “APENET” investigating effects on honeybees of coated maize seeds with some neonicotinoids and fipronil

The European Food Safety Authority was asked by the European Commission to assess the scientific information on some neonicotinoids (i.e. thiamethoxam, clothianidin and imidacloprid) and fipronil gathered by the Italian authorities with a funded project named “APENET” and to identify whether this new scientific information might require a change in the assessment of these substances as regards their effects on bees. APENET is a multidisciplinary monitoring and research project, mainly aimed at evaluating the bee health status, the dust dispersal during the sowing of maize coated seeds with thiamethoxam, clothianidin, imidacloprid and fipronil, the lethal effects on bees exposed to this dust, and homing behaviour and orientation effects. Potential synergism between clothianidin and bee pathology was also considered. EFSA evaluated in particular the scientific information as reported in the project report from 2011 (APENET, 2011), which was brought to the attention of the European Commission. Overall, due to some deficiencies in the study designs, weakness in the statistical analysis as documented and incompleteness in the reporting of results, it was not possible to draw a definitive conclusion on all the scientific information. However, within this project some potential concerns such as lethal effects on bees exposed to dust, sub-lethal effects and interactions between clothianidin and pathogens were identified suggesting that a change in the assessment of the substances thiamethoxam, clothianidin, imidacloprid and fipronil as regards their effects on bees might be required.

Rigorous evaluation of a soil heat transfer model for mesoscale climate change impact studies

The influence of Climate Change on plant development as well as on carbon and nitrogen cycling in soils is an important research topic for Global Change impact assessment at the regional scale. These changes affect the availability and quality of ground and surface waters and accordingly the future productivity of agriculturally used landscapes. The integrated assessment of these changes requires a robust prediction of the potential future characteristics of soil temperature and moisture based on scale-appropriate, process-oriented models. Hence, we present the Soil Heat Transfer Module (SHTM) used as a component of the mesoscale decision support system DANUBIA, which is developed by the multi-disciplinary research project GLOWA-Danube (www.glowa-danube.de). DANUBIA is applied on the Upper Danube catchment to assess the future changes in water availability, quality and use based on Global Change scenarios.In order to cover the temporal and spatial resolution (1h, 1×1km) of the main model as well as the desired investigation period of 50 years, SHTM combines a variable time step conductive heat transfer algorithm with an analytical lower boundary condition to react to long-term climate change with minimal model drift. Changes in soil moisture and soil freezing are explicitly taken into account. The ground heat flux at the soil surface is computed by iterative closure of the energy balance including radiative, latent and sensible energy fluxes. Validation of the heat transfer scheme shows that the variable time step solution improves computational efficiency while imposing only minimal RMSE and phase shift errors. Furthermore, the analytical lower boundary stabilizes the long term heat balance and induces a rather small potential model drift in the order of 0.001Wm−2. Then the results of the full land surface model including SHTM are compared to measurements at 25 agrometeorological sites. Without site-specific parameterisation other than land cover type, we show that the model performs well (RMSE about 2K) in reproducing daily and annual top soil temperature dynamics over long simulation periods. The analysis of systematic model errors reveals that about 75% of the RMSE is attributable to uncertainties in meteorological input, canopy parameters and snow processes.

Managing research evidence to inform action: Influencing HIV policy to protect marginalised populations in Pakistan

Our aim was to demonstrate that an understanding of the process of how research may (or may not) influence policy and practice is crucial to leverage research findings and bring about evidence-informed policy and its implementation. We describe a process of research design and execution, based on theories of the relationship between evidence and public policy-making, which sought to improve the uptake of evidence into the HIV policy-making process in Pakistan. We designed and implemented specific strategies in research methods, management and dissemination to increase the policy influence by recommendations from a multi-disciplinary research project. Research to policy is complex, rarely linear and causal attribution is problematic. Nonetheless, we believe that, in part, some of the current changes in HIV policy and practice in Pakistan may be due to the managed process of research influence. We offer four key recommendations for those concerned with improving the chances of seeing their research incorporated into policy and practice – these are (1) involve stakeholders in research management; (2) set realistic expectations of research impact; (3) invest in long-term research–policy-maker relationships; and (4) build capacity of end users to use research to demand policy change.

Reformulating current recordkeeping practices in out-of-home care: recognising the centrality of the archive

Social workers have historically had an ambivalent relationship with recordkeeping. A multi-disciplinary action research project, ‘Who am I?’, has brought together social workers, archivists and historians to investigate the role of records as a resource for identity construction for children currently in out-of-home care, and for adults who were in care as children. Maintaining a focus on children growing up in out-of-home care, their identity needs, and the way in which records can support them, this paper discusses a range of problems arising from current recordkeeping practices within the Victorian out-of-home care sector. These are examined in the light of conceptual frameworks brought by the archival and social work disciplines. While out-of-home care practitioners and their organisations have much to learn from archival methods, recordkeeping professionals also need to recognise the relevance of their role to how records are created in the first place, in order to ensure that personal records remain relevant and accessible across the lifespan of children and young people who grow up in care.

Airborne and ground geophysical investigation of the abandoned salt mine environment along the Stassfurt-Egeln Anticline, Germany

In the area of the 1200-year-old town of Stassfurt, where the world’s first potash mine was opened in 1852, sinkholes emerged during mining and the town’s centre slowly subsided. Mining has increased the subsidence due to collapses and uncontrolled flooding of abandoned salt mineworkings, the dissolution of salt in the mines, and the pump-driven drainage system. In order to investigate possible consequences of salt-mine flooding, this area was selected for the study of the dynamic processes in flooded or abandoned mineworkings and their overburden. As part of a multi-disciplinary research project, the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) conducted an airborne geophysical survey covering the salt anticline in summer 2007 with the aim of acquiring extensive electrical conductivity datasets to show the regional hydrogeological and geological structures down to about 100 m depth. Areas with distinct conductivity anomalies were subsequently selected for more detailed studies using ground geophysical methods such as DC geoelectrics and transient electromagnetics (TEM). The conductivity data revealed several hydrogeologically important features, such as the distribution of salt water, areas of salt-water rise, Quaternary channels, and fresh-water influxes. The airborne data also served as base-line data for ground follow-up studies and 3D hydrogeological and geological modelling.

"Our work is about trying to create democratic learning spaces": An Interview with Angie Hart, Community University Partnership Programme, University of Brighton

"Our work is about trying to create democratic learning spaces":An Interview with Angie Hart, Community University Partnership Programme, University of Brighton Graham Crow (bio) and Angie Hart Angie Hart is the academic director of the award-winning Community University Partnership Programme at the University of Brighton. She is also professor of child, family and community health in the School of Nursing and Midwifery in the Faculty of Health and Social Science. She teaches professional courses for health and social care practitioners and undertakes participatory research into inequalities in health and social care in relation to children and families. She currently has a number of resilience-focused research projects under way. Professor Hart is a child and family therapist, and until August 2008 she worked part-time as a research-practitioner in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), Sussex Partnership NHS Trust, Brighton. She worked both in a specialist team supporting fostered and adopted children and in a CAMHS clinic located in a socially and economically deprived area of Brighton. As the adoptive parent of three children from the care system, she has much experience herself as a user of both statutory and voluntary health and social care services. Hart has published widely on health and social care services to disadvantaged children, their families, and their supporters, especially in relation to fostering and adoption, midwifery and health visiting, and the concept of resilience. She has also published her work on the development of community-university partnership programs. Her current work includes developing a series of communities of practice, in [End Page 125] collaboration with a local charity. This project involves working with groups of parents and practitioners to implement and develop Resilient Therapy. Hart's degrees are in philosophy and social anthropology from the Universities of Sussex, Cambridge, and Oxford, and she has a postgraduate diploma in psychotherapeutic counseling from the University of Sussex. She has worked as a research collaborator and project manager on many multi-disciplinary research projects, some commissioned by major United Kingdom government agencies, such as the Department of Health and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). More information about Angie Hart and her work can be found at http://www.brighton.ac.uk/cupp/contact-cupp/cupp-team/72-angie-hart.html and at http://www.boingboing.org.uk/. See http://www.theasa.org/networks/apply.shtml for more about applied anthropology in Britain. She is interviewed here by Graham Crow, deputy director of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods and professor of sociology at the University of Southampton. Crow: To what extent did the applied aspect of anthropology influence your decision to become an anthropologist? Hart: When I started off doing my anthropology postgraduate training, my first degree was in philosophy and European Studies at Sussex University, and one of the things I was interested in was cultural difference. I didn't really get much opportunity to explore it in that degree, but I loved learning different languages—I'd lived in different countries, so that aspect of anthropology appealed to me to study at masters level. So I applied to do an MPhil at Cambridge in the social anthropology department. The applied anthropology in Britain at that time, the late 1980s—there wasn't any applied aspect in anthropology postgraduate training that I knew of; it was very much conventional academic research. But during the course of that year and the subsequent three years doing a PhD in social anthropology at Oxford I was part of a group of people who were involved in the early days of what we called Anthropology in Action, what is now Apply, the applied anthropology organization. So it came the other way round. There were very few people I knew who were applying anthropology. They were working in NGOs. Tom Selwyn was doing research on tourism that had an applied [End Page 126] aspect to it, but really it was a very minor discourse, a counterdiscourse to what was going on in mainstream anthropology in some contexts, for sure. Funny, because now I see that Apply has become part of the mainstream Association of Social Anthropologists. You couldn't have imagined that back...

Adding the ocean to the study of seabirds: a brief history of at-sea seabird research

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 451:231-243 (2012) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps09524 Adding the ocean to the study of seabirds: a brief history of at-sea seabird research David G. Ainley1, Christine A. Ribic2, Eric J. Woehler3 1H.T. Harvey & Associates, 983 University Avenue, Los Gatos, California 95032, USA 2US Geological Survey Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA 3School of Zoology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7005, Australia *Email: dainley@penguinscience.com ABSTRACT: We review the history of how research directed towards marine ornithology has led to an appreciation of seabirds as highly specialized marine organisms. Beginning with R. C. Murphy (Pacific), V. C. Wynne-Edwards (Atlantic), and associates in the early 1900s, the research approach grew from an emphasis on seabird single-species ecology to an appreciation of interacting species assemblages and finally to seabirds being considered as important components of marine food webs. After a slow, drawn-out beginning, the initial main impetus for developing the field was a need to map seabird abundance and distribution tied to understanding impacts of continental shelf resource exploitation. Coalescing during the 1970s to 1980s to facilitate this line of research were 6 factors: (1) ability to identify birds at sea; (2) standardization of techniques to quantify abundance; (3) resources and techniques for mapping; (4) appreciation of how scale affects seabird relationships to hydrographic features and patchy prey; (5) development of computing power and appropriate statistics; and (6) seabird biologists becoming embedded in, as well as organizing, multidisciplinary marine research projects. Future advances in understanding the role of seabirds in marine food webs will be made by seabird biologists participating in multidisciplinary projects using grid-like surveys relative to oceanographic features in combination with instrumentation that reveals the finer details of seabird foraging behaviors. KEY WORDS: At-sea surveys · Food-web structure · Foraging ecology · Seabird · Seabird habitat Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Ainley DG, Ribic CA, Woehler EJ (2012) Adding the ocean to the study of seabirds: a brief history of at-sea seabird research. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 451:231-243. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps09524 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 451. Online publication date: April 11, 2012 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2012 Inter-Research.

A review of the large-scale production of carbon nanotubes: The practice of nanoscale process engineering

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are nanomaterials that have attracted great research interest because of their unique properties and promising applications. The controllable synthesis of CNTs is a precondition for their broad application. In this review, we consider nanoscale process engineering and assess recent progress in the mass production of ultra-long, inexpensive CNTs with good alignment as well as tunability in wall number and diameter for fundamental and engineering science applications across multiple scales. Cutting-edge nanoscale process engineering research in the areas of physics, chemistry, materials, engineering, ecology, and social science will allow us to obtain high added value and multi-functional advanced CNTs. The synthesis of CNTs with controllable chirality, good-alignment, and predetermined sizes and lengths still presents great challenges. Through multidisciplinary scientific research, advanced CNT-based materials will promote the development of a sustainable society.