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International Project (international + project)
Selected AbstractsData management and quality assurance for an International project: the Indo,US Cross-National Dementia Epidemiology StudyINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY, Issue 6 2002Rajesh Pandav Abstract Background Data management and quality assurance play a vital but often neglected role in ensuring high quality research, particularly in collaborative and international studies. Objective A data management and quality assurance program was set up for a cross-national epidemiological study of Alzheimer's disease, with centers in India and the United States. Methods The study involved (a) the development of instruments for the assessment of elderly illiterate Hindi-speaking individuals; and (b) the use of those instruments to carry out an epidemiological study in a population-based cohort of over 5000 persons. Responsibility for data management and quality assurance was shared between the two sites. A cooperative system was instituted for forms and edit development, data entry, checking, transmission, and further checking to ensure that quality data were available for timely analysis. A quality control software program (CHECKS) was written expressly for this project to ensure the highest possible level of data integrity. Conclusions This report addresses issues particularly relevant to data management and quality assurance at developing country sites, and to collaborations between sites in developed and developing countries. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Mid-Holocene and glacial-maximum vegetation geography of the northern continents and AfricaJOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2000I. Colin Prentice Abstract BIOME 6000 is an international project to map vegetation globally at mid-Holocene (6000 14C yr bp) and last glacial maximum (LGM, 18,000 14C yr bp), with a view to evaluating coupled climate-biosphere model results. Primary palaeoecological data are assigned to biomes using an explicit algorithm based on plant functional types. This paper introduces the second Special Feature on BIOME 6000. Site-based global biome maps are shown with data from North America, Eurasia (except South and Southeast Asia) and Africa at both time periods. A map based on surface samples shows the method's skill in reconstructing present-day biomes. Cold and dry conditions at LGM favoured extensive tundra and steppe. These biomes intergraded in northern Eurasia. Northern hemisphere forest biomes were displaced southward. Boreal evergreen forests (taiga) and temperate deciduous forests were fragmented, while European and East Asian steppes were greatly extended. Tropical moist forests (i.e. tropical rain forest and tropical seasonal forest) in Africa were reduced. In south-western North America, desert and steppe were replaced by open conifer woodland, opposite to the general arid trend but consistent with modelled southward displacement of the jet stream. The Arctic forest limit was shifted slighly north at 6000 14C yr bp in some sectors, but not in all. Northern temperate forest zones were generally shifted greater distances north. Warmer winters as well as summers in several regions are required to explain these shifts. Temperate deciduous forests in Europe were greatly extended, into the Mediterranean region as well as to the north. Steppe encroached on forest biomes in interior North America, but not in central Asia. Enhanced monsoons extended forest biomes in China inland and Sahelian vegetation into the Sahara while the African tropical rain forest was also reduced, consistent with a modelled northward shift of the ITCZ and a more seasonal climate in the equatorial zone. Palaeobiome maps show the outcome of separate, independent migrations of plant taxa in response to climate change. The average composition of biomes at LGM was often markedly different from today. Refugia for the temperate deciduous and tropical rain forest biomes may have existed offshore at LGM, but their characteristic taxa also persisted as components of other biomes. Examples include temperate deciduous trees that survived in cool mixed forest in eastern Europe, and tropical evergreen trees that survived in tropical seasonal forest in Africa. The sequence of biome shifts during a glacial-interglacial cycle may help account for some disjunct distributions of plant taxa. For example, the now-arid Saharan mountains may have linked Mediterranean and African tropical montane floras during enhanced monsoon regimes. Major changes in physical land-surface conditions, shown by the palaeobiome data, have implications for the global climate. The data can be used directly to evaluate the output of coupled atmosphere-biosphere models. The data could also be objectively generalized to yield realistic gridded land-surface maps, for use in sensitivity experiments with atmospheric models. Recent analyses of vegetation-climate feedbacks have focused on the hypothesized positive feedback effects of climate-induced vegetation changes in the Sahara/Sahel region and the Arctic during the mid-Holocene. However, a far wider spectrum of interactions potentially exists and could be investigated, using these data, both for 6000 14C yr bp and for the LGM. [source] Writing: the state of the state vs. the state of the art in English and American schoolsLITERACY, Issue 1 2002Trinka Messenheimer Based on work undertaken in a joint international project focusing on the process and teaching of writing in English/US classrooms, this article looks at the impact government initiatives on assessment and accountability have on classroom practices and the process of writing. These initiatives are encoded in the Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) in England and the Proficiency Tests in the US. The first year of the project has gathered and analyzed data from a longitudinal study of writing in the US, focused on the state of Ohio, and a series of contrasting case studies in England. [source] D/developments after the MeltdownANTIPODE, Issue 2010Gillian Hart Abstract:, Part of what makes the current conjuncture so extraordinary is the coincidence of the massive economic meltdown with the implosion of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century, and the reappearance of US liberal internationalism in the guise of "smart power" defined in terms of Diplomacy, Development, and Defence. This essay engages these challenges through a framework that distinguishes between "Development" as a post-war international project that emerged in the context of decolonization and the Cold War, and capitalist development as a dynamic and highly uneven process of creation and destruction. Closely attentive to what Gramsci calls "the relations of force at various levels", my task in this essay is to suggest how the instabilities and constant redefinitions of official discourses and practices of Development since the 1940s shed light on the conditions in which we now find ourselves. [source] PROVENANCE OF THE LIMESTONE USED IN TEOTIHUACAN (MEXICO): A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH,ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 4 2009L. BARBA This work shows the preliminary results of an international project for the interdisciplinary study of the limestone used in the plasters of the ancient city of Teotihuacan. The limestone provenance was studied using a new approach based on the chemical analysis of the lime lumps that were selected because they represent the composition of the original limestone rock. The results show that the applied methodology was successful and that the limestone used to produce the lime employed to make the floor of the main courtyard at Teopancazco (Teotihuacan), comes from the region near Tula (Hidalgo). [source] Negotiating local livelihoods: Scales of conflict in the Se San River BasinASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 1 2004Philip Hirsch In 1993, Vietnam began building the Yali Falls Dam 80 kilometres upstream of the point at which this westward flowing river enters Cambodia. Ninety indigenous communities along the Se San River in two provinces of north-eastern Cambodia have been impacted severely by flooding, and a dramatically altered hydrological regime that affects fisheries and all other aspects of livelihood, such as river bank agriculture. Since 2000, when the first turbines were commissioned, the affected communities have been increasingly vocal regarding the impacts of Yali and the plans for several more dams on upper reaches of the river. A complex set of actors including non-governmental organisations, village, district and provincial authorities, national committees in Cambodia and Vietnam, the Mekong River Commission and a range of international players have become involved in a two-track process, which has nevertheless allowed little space for negotiation over the Se San River on the part of those most directly affected. This case has fundamental implications for governance and conflict management in the Mekong and more widely. The Australian Mekong Resource Centre has been working with local actors to document the Se San case as part of an international project on River Basin Management: a negotiated approach, in support of six cases that involve up-scaling of grassroots river basin initiatives in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In this article, we illustrate the significance of and problematise negotiation as a socially and politically embedded conflict management principle, with reference to the Se San case. [source] Aims, challenges and progress of the Hydrological Ensemble Prediction Experiment (HEPEX) following the third HEPEX workshop held in Stresa 27 to 29 June 2007ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE LETTERS, Issue 2 2008Jutta Thielen Abstract Since several years, users of weather forecasts have begun to realize the benefit of quantifying the uncertainty associated with forecasts rather than relying on single value forecasts. At the same time, hydrologists and water managers have begun to explore the potential benefit of ensemble prediction systems (EPS) for hydrological applications. The Hydrologic Ensemble Prediction Experiment (HEPEX) is an international project that aims to foster the development of probabilistic hydrological forecasting and corresponding decision making tools. Since 2004, HEPEX has provided discussion opportunities for hydrological and meteorological scientists involved in the development, testing, and operational management of forecasting systems, and end users. Copyright © 2008 Royal Meteorological Society [source] The dynamics of an online knowledge building community: A 5-year longitudinal studyBRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Issue 3 2010Jarkko Mylläri This paper reports a 5-year design experiment on cumulative knowledge building as part of an international project. Through a longitudinal study and analysis of cumulative research data, we sought to answer the question, ,what happened and why in knowledge building?' Research data constitute messages which participants have written into a shared knowledge building database. A multi-method approach combing quantitative and qualitative data was adopted which integrated analysis of message generation, content analysis, network analysis, structure of message threads, discourse analysis and interviews. Conclusions are based on analysis of almost 2000 messages. Qualitative content analysis reveals 14 main categories of data. When the content of the messages are analysed, quantitatively cumulative trends emerge. When the frequencies of messages are plotted against time, peaks and troughs of message writing are revealed. The explanations for these patterns and variations are sought through interviews. Social network analysis shows that the network is centralised. The research literature suggests that decentralised networks are ideal, but in this particular case, the expert centralisation was beneficial for knowledge building in the collaborative and associated professional networks. The reasons for this are discussed. [source] Addiction research centres and the nurturing of creativity: The Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems.ADDICTION, Issue 5 2009future, present ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to offer an account of the history, the current status and the future of substance use research at the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems (SIPA). Although founded originally by the temperance movement in 1901, its policy has shifted over time towards one which accepts an alcohol-consuming culture made up of self-determined but well-informed consumers, while still supporting those who choose to live an abstinent life. In the beginning, SIPA was involved primarily in collecting alcohol-related information and making it available to professionals and the general public. From the late 1960s SIPA began conducting its own research projects; by the mid-1970s it had set up its own in-house research department. In 2001, SIPA was appointed a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Substance Abuse, Research, Prevention and Documentation. As a private non-governmental organization, most of its funding comes from external research commissions. SIPA participates in a variety of international projects [e.g. Gender Alcohol and Culture: An International Study (GenACIS), European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Drugs (ESPAD) and Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC)] and contributes to numerous national research projects dealing with substance use. It has also forged close links with more than 50 other research institutions in Switzerland and world-wide. Thanks to its work over the last 30 years, SIPA has become a chief port of call for alcohol use research in Switzerland. In the future, SIPA will continue to monitor substance use, while stepping up its prevention research activities and ensuring that it is able to react more promptly to emerging phenomena. [source] Self-Regulated Learning in a TELE at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne: an analysis from multiple perspectivesEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, Issue 3-4 2006PHILIPPE TRIGANO Self-regulation has become a very important topic in the field of learning and instruction. At the same time, the introduction of new technologies in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has made it possible to create rich Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments (TELEs) with multiple affordances for supporting self-regulated learning (SRL). This study was conducted within the framework of the TELEPEERS project where we wanted to identify TELEs that seemed to have a potential for supporting SRL. For the last ten years, our University has been deeply involved in research, innovation, and exploration of digital technologies for training (initial and continuous). Local, regional, national, European and international projects were conceived and developed, so that a very significant knowledge base exists today. Our study focuses on a course called ,Introduction to Algorithms and Programming' (NF01) which our University is offering and on the perception of different stakeholders (experts and students) of its affordances for supporting SRL. [source] New roadmap for EU researchASTRONOMY & GEOPHYSICS, Issue 1 2009Article first published online: 16 JAN 200 The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures has published its updated roadmap for the next 10,20 years, highlighting major international projects. [source] | ||||||||||||||||