A mobile app for conducting opinion polls

Opiner is an open source tool for opinion polling. Credit: Image courtesy of KTH The Royal Institute of Technology

Soon anyone can conduct public opinion polls to drive issues that are important to them, using a new open source tool being developed at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Researcher Konrad Tollmar and his colleagues intend for the mobile app, Opiner, to be used as a tool for direct democracy. Tollmar says that once Opiner is publicly available, it will enable anyone to conduct surveys, drive public opinion and influence political decisions.

"This will be an alternative to services that can cost millions to use," says Tollmar. "It gives people an opportunity that historically only large organisations have had."

Public opinion polls are an important tool for interest groups, which regularly hire commercial firms to conduct polls for them. The ability to take stock of -- and present -- public opinion enables interest groups to control the narrative around their issues, establish their communications themes and influence how the media and policymakers grasp a given subject.

"Polling can be expensive," he says. "But Opiner enables anyone to drive public opinion or conduct surveys."

Opiner could also have the benefit of energising more people to become politically involved. And it's not just for activists. Media organisations big and small can use the tool for their own purposes.

"We're working on a form of direct democracy. That people can have a voice in society," he says.

"But Opiner can be used for just about anything, large or small," he says, noting that one of the strengths of Opiner is that it can be context-specific.

Targeting mobile devices means that Opiner pollsters can make use of both space and time 

to find out what people think, and ask relevant questions based on these two parameters. For example, what do people think about public transportation when they are riding on the subway? What do students think about the quality of lunch while they're sitting in the school cafeteria?

"There is evidence in behavioral science and what is called "Experience Sampling," that surveys get a more true result when people are asked what they think in the moment, instead of afterward," he says.

Opiner also offers transparency. In addition to implementing polls, users can analyse the performance and freely share it. The system includes a toolkit to easily visualise the results in an understandable way.

"There are a lot of great tools on the web for public polling, but they are closed and commercial. Opiner is fully open and works on all types of newer phones. The system is open source, so anyone can download the software and set up their own Opiner," he says.

But it's not just the political benefit that Tollmar hopes to spread. In beta tests with teachers and students, the research team found that the act of surveying itself serves an educational purpose: as a way of developing students understanding of politics and language.

"First, we talked with their teachers about which questions should be asked. That worked so-so," he says. "The students didn't think the questions were always relevant. It was much better when the students themselves had to formulate their questions."

Opiner is part of the European research project, FlashPoll. Flashpoll has a mature Android app available, but what makes Opiner stand-out, Tollmar says, is its truly open platform -- from the establishment of questions, running the polls and analysis, to the sharing of results. "You should rather see Opiner as a research prototype of the next generation of Flashpoll tools," he says.

Tollmar is among a group of researchers at KTH who have worked with various digital tools over the last several years to help people make their voices heard, including Måns Wrange, Patrik Hernwall, Igor Isaksson och Mats Gustavsson.

Source: KTH The Royal Institute of Technology

Dance choreography improves girls' computational skills

Report lead author Shaundra Daily performs alongside her virtual character. Daily designs innovative new technologies that bring together sensors and machine learning with theories of human learning. Credit: Clemson University

Clemson researchers find that blending movement and computer programming supports girls in building computational thinking skills, according to an ongoing study funded by the National Science Foundation and emerging technology report published in journal Technology, Knowledge and Learning.

Even with increasing demands for computationally savvy workers, there is a lack of representation among women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (STEM), the researchers say.

"We want more diverse faces around the table, helping to come up with technological solutions to societal issues," said Shaundra Daily, lead author on the report and assistant professor of computing at Clemson. "So we're working with girls to create more pathways to support their participation."

Virtual Environment Interactions (VEnvI) is software and curriculum for blending movement and programming, which offers a novel and embodied strategy of engaging fifth- and sixth-grade girls in computational thinking.

"We want to understand how body syntonicity might enable young learners to bootstrap their intuitive knowledge in order to program a three-dimensional character to perform movements," said Alison Leonard, report co-author and assistant professor of education at Clemson.

In the process of developing this emerging technology, the researchers conduct user-centered design research for creating choreography and the social context for a virtual character through which girls can be introduced to alternative applications in computing.

"We adopt the view that computational thinking is a set of concepts, practices and perspectives that draw upon the world of computing and applicable in many STEM fields," Daily said.

Students met with instructors and learned basic curriculum involving the elements of dance, choreography and Alice, an existing educational software that teaches students computer programming in a three-dimensional environment.

The researchers utilize movement choreography as both an engaging and a parallel context for introducing computational thinking. Compositional strategies in the choreographic process of ordering and reordering movement sequences also mirror computational practices of reusing and remixing.

"Executing one bit of code or movement one after the other exists in both programming and choreography. Likewise, loops or repeating a set of steps, also occur in both contexts," Leonard said.

The students moved and created pieces for their virtual characters to perform, bringing about connections between computational thinking and what their bodies are doing.

The findings indicate the active presentation of concepts and future scalability of their virtual environment VEnvI that will add to the rich landscape of emerging technologies geared toward more inclusive strategies to engage girls in computational thinking.

The researchers are designing the first control algorithm that links concepts from computational thinking to animation algorithms, thus creating and evaluating new animation algorithms working to ensure the quality of the resulting choreography.

This emerging technology has the potential to widen the scope of current technologies that seek to cultivate computational thinking for diverse designers, users and audiences, according to the researchers.

Source: Clemson University

Archaeologists reveal layout of medieval city at Old Sarum

Old Sarum -- aerial photo. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Southampton

Archaeologists from the University of Southampton have revealed for the first time the plan of a network of buildings in a once thriving medieval city at the historic site of Old Sarum, near Salisbury.

A research team of students and academics carried out a geophysical survey of the ancient monument, scanning ground at the site with state-of-the-art equipment to map the remains of buried structures. They concentrated their survey around the inner and outer baileys of what was once a fortification, with its origins in the Iron Age and the Roman conquest.1

Their investigations reveal the layout of a settlement including structures from the late 11th century, contemporary with the construction of a cathedral and castle. The city was inhabited for over 300 years, but declined in the 13th century with the rise of New Sarum (Salisbury).

The project findings mainly concentrate on the medieval period and highlight:

* A series of massive structures along the southern edge of the outer bailey defensive wall, perhaps suggesting large buildings of a defensive nature.
* An open area of ground behind these large structures, perhaps for mustering resources or people, or as part of a circular route through the city..
* Residential areas in the south east and south west quadrants of the outer bailey alongside the inner bailey ditch.
* Evidence of deposits indicating industrial features, such as kilns or furnaces.
* Features suggesting quarrying at the site after the 1300s and following the city's decline -- indicating a later period of habitation at the site..

Archaeologist Kristian Strutt, Experimental Officer and Director of Archaeological Prospection Services at the University of Southampton, says: "Archaeologists and historians have known for centuries that there was a medieval city at Old Sarum, but until now there has been no proper plan of the site.

"Our survey shows where individual buildings are located and from this we can piece together a detailed picture of the urban plan within the city walls."

The research was conducted as part of the Old Sarum and Stratford-Sub-Castle Archaeological Survey Project, directed by Kristian Strutt and fellow Southampton archaeologists Timothy Sly and Dominic Barker. Old Sarum is under the custodianship of English Heritage, who kindly granted permission for the investigation to take place.

Heather Sebire, Property Curator at English Heritage, comments: "Having the team of archaeologists on site over the summer gave our visitors a chance to find out more about how important historic landscapes are surveyed. The use of modern, non-invasive surveying is a great start to further research at Old Sarum.

"From this work we can surmise much about the site's past and, whilst we can't conclusively date the findings, it adds a new layer to Old Sarum's story. We welcome the chance to find out more about our sites, and look forward to exploring ideas for further research in the future."

The team used a variety of techniques to examine the outer and inner bailey of the site. These included the use of topographic survey methods and geophysical survey techniques -- comprising of magnetometry, earth resistance, ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electric resistivity tomography (ERT) survey.

Kristian Strutt concludes: "Our research so far has shown how the entire outer bailey of the monument was heavily built up in the Middle Ages, representing a substantial urban centre. Results have given us compelling evidence as to the nature of some of the structures. It is clear, however, that there is more non-intrusive work that could be carried out to further expand our understanding of the site."

The team hopes to return to complete the survey of the inner and outer baileys and survey the Romano-British settlement to the south of Old Sarum in Easter 2015. The project fieldwork in 2014 was used as a training season for undergraduate and postgraduate archaeology students at the University, continuing a long tradition of research-led teaching at some of the most impressive archaeological sites in the south of England. Previous fieldwork has been conducted by students at Portchester Castle, Netley Abbey and Bishop's Waltham Palace in Hampshire, and at Bodiam Castle in East Sussex.

Source: University of Southampton

The business-minded veterinarian

Veterinarians are needed not only to treat our pets and livestock, but in a broader context, to help with zoonotic disease maintenance. Credit: Image courtesy of Kansas State University Research and Extension

Animals can teach us more about the human body than we might realize. Crack open New York Times bestseller "Zoobiquity," and you'll learn about a human cardiologist's experiences at the Los Angeles Zoo that allowed her to more closely connect human and animal medicine. Even in the first chapter -- Dr. House, Meet Doctor Dolittle -- author Barbara Natterson-Horowitz reveals how doctors and veterinarians could learn from each other to effectively diagnose and treat all species.

Indeed, veterinarians are needed not only to treat our pets and livestock, but in a broader context, to help with zoonotic disease maintenance. The interaction between animals and humans secures the continuous demand for the profession, and the fewer veterinarians we have, the larger potential for catastrophic disease, according to Michael Dicks, director of the economics division for the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).

Although the profession is needed, Dicks said financial struggles do exist, especially for those beginning to practice. Many veterinarians who are just starting out find that they need to make enough money to pay off their high educational debt while trying to make a living, which can pose a major challenge.

According to Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, the average debt reported by its 2014 graduates was $170,380, and graduates in 2013 had similar debt at $170,919.

The average practice salary reported by 2014 K-State graduates was $64,678 and for 2013 graduates, $63,294. For those practicing outside of Kansas, the average starting salaries were a bit higher at $66,057 for 2014 graduates and $66,939 for those who graduated in 2013.

"The downturn of the economy impacted veterinary medicine and what graduates could earn in their first year," said Roger Fingland, executive associate dean for K-State's College of Veterinary Medicine and director of the Veterinary Health Center. "It is important to educate people who want to be veterinarians about the financial realities. But, I think the value of being a veterinarian has to always be in the discussion."

Seeking opportunities

Dicks, a veteran agricultural economist, said the objective of the AVMA's economics division is to find ways to enhance the lifelong value of a veterinary degree. Understanding the market for veterinary services and how individual veterinary practices make money are important components that add value.

The biggest area of demand in veterinary medicine is working with companion animals, or pets, which accounts for about six out of 10 practicing veterinarians, he said. Food animal veterinarians, those who work with cattle, sheep and pigs as examples, account for one out of 10. Other veterinarians might choose mixed animal practice or work in zoos, animal hospitals, the education field or other industries.

Scholarship opportunities are available for students in many interest areas, particularly for those who want to work in rural areas and seek mixed animal practice or large animal practice, including food animals and other livestock. Fingland said at K-State, rural scholarship recipients receive $25,000 a year if they intend to practice in a Kansas county that is declared rural. Most counties in Kansas have a rural designation.

If the students take the scholarship and don't practice in a rural area, however, they have to pay that money back, he said. To his knowledge, no students have had to pay the money back, but some graduates will find that some rural areas don't have enough animals to support a full-time veterinarian. Or, perhaps the environment will not allow the veterinarian to charge the going rate for various services.

"I believe there is a need for large animal and mixed animal practitioners in some rural areas," Fingland said. "Need means there are consumers in that area who perceive that they need veterinary services. Needing veterinary services and having an environment that financially supports veterinary services are two different things. Some communities can't financially support the service."

Certain aspects of veterinary medicine are different than others, and veterinarians can choose certain avenues of practice to potentially increase their salaries. Industry veterinarians typically have higher earning potential than mixed animal practitioners, Fingland said.

Like human doctors, veterinarians can specialize as cardiologists, surgeons, internists and radiologists, as examples. Veterinarian specialists tend to make higher salaries, Fingland said, but they also have to go through much more training than general practitioners. Practice ownership also lends itself to higher pay.

Combining business with a calling

Most people go into business, because that's what they want to do. Veterinarians, no matter what area of practice they prefer, are no different, Dicks said. He encourages veterinarians, like any other business-minded professionals, to plan ahead to maximize their opportunities.

"We know just like farmers and ranchers, we all weigh life in some ways with the amount of money we're making," Dicks said. "People must give up a little return to have the style of life they want. For veterinarians, that huge (college) debt can be a restraint. If I have debt when I get out of school, that means I may be driving a 10-year-old car, living with my roommate for another five years, and not going out or buying anything. I may be paying my debt and trying to make a life."

Fingland, who teaches veterinary business courses, said on the first day of orientation at K-State, he presents new students and their parents with numbers showing what the education will cost for the next four years of veterinary school to make them aware.

"There is no question that there is a financial problem at work, and I worry about it like other people in my position worry about it," Fingland said. "But, there is value in doing what is your calling. I understand as a veterinarian that I'm not going to make as much money as someone in another profession. I don't want to be in that other profession, so what difference does it make if that person makes more money than I do?"

"We can't tell young people who aspire to be veterinarians, 'You shouldn't do this, because you won't make as much money as you could doing something else,'" he continued. "Is that what we're going to tell people who want to teach? Imagine if somebody would have turned away the wonderful teachers that we had in grade school, high school and college. That would have been very unfortunate."

Fingland said preparing students to be business-minded veterinarians involves work in and out of the classroom. In addition to one required business and finance course, veterinary students at K-State are allowed to take elective business courses and join organizations such as the Veterinary Business Management Association. They also learn about planning and budgeting through K-State's Powercat Financial Counseling, available as a free resource for all students.

Involving the veterinarian

As a livestock producer, Dicks said he believes it is essential to have a veterinarian as part of your health team if you own animals. Sometimes the veterinarian might be considered a provider of last resort or someone whose job can be handled by salesmen or technicians for artificial insemination, embryo transfer, ultrasounding for carcass characteristics or pregnancy, hoof trimming and nutritional planning, as examples.

But, he said in the last 10 years the cattle industry has experienced diseases such as trichomoniasis and curly calf syndrome, among others, that may have surprised some producers. Having a close relationship with a veterinarian could help protect animals from diseases and producers from major financial losses.

"Maybe because a veterinarian wasn't part of our herd health program, we only found out about these diseases once they happened to us," Dicks said. "Some of those things cause 20 to 30 percent losses."

"What we focus on is teaching veterinary students to thrive in a competitive environment, not in an unrealistic environment where there's no competition," Fingland said. "There are many things veterinarians can do that others can't do who don't have the level of training. No one will ever replace the veterinarians' intellect, when they go to a farm to analyze the nutrition that the rancher or farmer is providing, and the environment and how that environment might lead to disease."

Source: Kansas State University Research and Extension

Mitigating climate change? Guiding responsible research in geoengineering

Geoengineering, the use of human technologies to alter Earth's climate system -- such as injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to scatter incoming sunlight back to space -- has emerged as a potentially promising way to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Geoengineering, the use of human technologies to alter Earth's climate system -- such as injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to scatter incoming sunlight back to space -- has emerged as a potentially promising way to mitigate the impacts of climate change. But such efforts could present unforeseen new risks. That inherent tension, argue two professors from UCLA and Harvard, has thwarted both scientific advances and the development of an international framework for regulating and guiding geoengineering research.

In an article published March 15 in the journalScience, Edward Parson of UCLA and David Keith of Harvard University outline how the current deadlock on governance of geoengineering research poses real threats to the sound management of climate risk. Their article advances concrete and actionable proposals for allowing further research -- but not deployment -- and for creating scientific and legal guidance, as well as addressing public concerns.

"We're trying to avoid a policy train wreck," said Keith, a professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. "Informed policy judgments in the future require research now into geoengineering methods' efficacy and risks. If research remains blocked, in some stark future situation, only untested approaches will be available."

"Our proposals address the lack of international legal coordination that has contributed to the current deadlock," said Parson, a professor of law and faculty co-director of the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. "Coordinated international governance of research will both provide the guidance and confidence to allow needed, low-risk research to proceed and address legitimate public concerns about irresponsible interventions or a thoughtless slide into deployment."

In their paper, the authors state that progress on research governance must advance four aims:

• Allow low-risk, scientifically valuable research to proceed.
• Give scientists guidance on the design of socially acceptable research.
• Address legitimate public concerns.
• End the current legal void that facilitates rogue projects.

Parson and Keith argue that scientific self-regulation is not sufficient to manage risks and that scientists need to accept government authority over geoengineering research. They emphasize that initial steps should not require new laws or treaties but can come from informal consultation and coordination among governments.

The authors also propose defining two thresholds for governance of geoengineering research: a large-scale threshold to be subject to a moratorium and a separate, much smaller threshold below which research would be allowed. Keith, for example, is currently developing an outdoor experiment to test the risks and efficacy of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, which would fall below the proposed allowable threshold.

The authors emphasize that this article proposes only first steps. In the near term, these steps frame a social bargain that would allow research to proceed; in the long term, they begin to build international norms of cooperation and transparency in geoengineering.

Source:  Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

The Rising above the risk: America's first tsunami refuge

Artist rendering: entry view. Credit: TCF Architecture

Washington's coast is so close to the seismically active Cascadia Subduction Zone that if a megathrust earthquake were to occur, a tsunami would hit the Washington shoreline in just 25 minutes.

One coastal community is preparing for such a disaster by starting construction on the nation's first tsunami evacuation refuge, large enough to shelter more than 1,000 people who are within 20-minute walking distance.

The vertical evacuation-refuge will be the roof of the gym of the new school in Grays Harbor County, Washington. The Ocosta Elementary School and Tsunami Safe Haven will be the first of its kind in the nation and will be the culmination of 18 years of effort, said Tim Walsh, who is a Chief Hazard Geologist at the Department of Natural Resources and has been working on this project since The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program was formed in 1995.

Walsh will present the project design for the school and structure, along with the detailed tsunami modeling used to find the best location for the refuge, at the Annual Meeting for the Geological Society of America in Vancouver, Canada, on 21 October.

The Cascadia subduction zone is a 700-mile-long (over 1,000 kilometers) fault along the West Coast, where the Juan de Fuca Plate is being forced under the North American Plate. The subduction zone is capable of producing massive earthquakes; scientists have calculated that magnitude-9 earthquakes along this fault line could generate a massive tsunami that would hit the coastlines of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California within 20 to 30 minutes.

"It used to be thought that Cascadia was not an active fault," said Walsh. Not only has Cascadia been found to be an active fault, it has a 10 percent chance that it will cause an earthquake in the next 50 years, he said.

"It is more than 10 times more likely than the chance you will be killed in a traffic accident," said Walsh. "But you aren't looking at the statistics of a single person, but an earthquake that would have an effect on thousands of miles of shoreline."

The biggest challenge was at the very beginning, trying to come up with a location that could be effective and accessible to people, said Walsh. "It was difficult in the beginning to go to the public meetings in these communities and present the hazards, but have no solution for them," he said.
Project Safe Haven brought together structural engineers, oceanographers, geographers, and scientists from many other disciplines to create a safe and accessible refuge.

Walsh and his colleagues used a model called GeoClaw to research the risk a tsunami, factoring in and any potential landslides caused by the wave or megaquake. Using this model in the community for Grays Harbor County, the scientists determined the best place for the school, and what how much force the structure would have to withstand to protect refugees.

The school will be built on a dune ridge, so the roof of the evacuation shelter will be about 55 feet (almost 17 meters) above sea-level. The structure is designed to withstand earthquakes and the impact of a storm surge, with reinforced concrete cores at each corner of the gym and staircases leading to the room. The school, and refuge, is expected to be finished and operating for the 2015-2016 academic year.

Walsh would like to see other scientists and community groups working together to create novel solutions for tsunami risk, he said. Currently the Washington coast has very few tall buildings, and barely any are taller than three stories, leaving thousands of people at risk in the event of a tsunami, he said.

Source: Geological Society of America