Information Sharing in Village Stability Operations: Field Experiences and Policy Considerations

Abstract This paper describes a bottom‐up counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan known as Village Stability Operations, as well as some of the contributions information sharing strategies are making to its success. In a “population‐centric” strategy, it is essential to understand the people and what is important to them in their world, not ours. In this environment, information about the population, also known as “white” data, can be mission critical, although it wasn't treated as such at the beginning of the Afghan campaign. “White” information is not a panacea; it needs to be blended with enemy (“red”) information and government (“green”) information to form an integrated approach. The paper examines several projects that have been undertaken in Afghanistan, their successes and challenges, and how they have helped the Afghan population while supporting coalition objectives.

The Performance of Loghman-Hakim Drug and Poison Information Center from 2006 to 2008

Drug and poison information centers have a critical role in fulfillment of rational drug use programs. The Loghman-Hakim Drug and Poison Information Center (LHDPIC) has been established in 2006. The main mission of this center is to provide accurate, unbiased and up-to-date information on medications and poisons for the health care team and the public. This center has received more than 9000 telephone calls since its establishment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the recorded queries in the LHDPIC in the past 3 years. A descriptive analysis was conducted on all recorded inquiries to the center from March 2006 to March 2008. Data such as patient age and sex, identity of the callers, question categories and information resources were obtained from the recorded calls and were analyzed. During the period of evaluation, a total of 9694 telephone calls were recorded. The patients’ age ranged between 18-40 years old (49.42%) containing 61% female and 39% male. Most of the recorded calls were from patients’ relatives (49%) and then the patients (45.2%) themselves. The most frequent questions were about drug indications (24%), adverse drug reactions (20.14%) and drug evaluation (17.64%). Antidepressants (12.42%), antimicrobials (12%) and analgesics (11.17%) were the most frequent drug classes that were inquired. The LHDPIC has an important role for providing of drug information for the lay public, but more efforts are still needed to encourage health care professionals to utilize services provided by this center.

Construction and first deployment of the JOIDES Resolution’s Secchi discs

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The World’s clearest marine water, Secchi discs, and the JOIDES Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Secchi disc construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Deployment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Preliminary results and recommendations for future deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1Hoppie, B., Bronk, T.R., and the Expedition 329 Scientists, 2011. Construction and first deployment of the JOIDES Resolution’s Secchi discs. In D’Hondt, S., Inagaki, F., Alvarez Zarikian, C.A., and the Expedition 329 Scientists, Proc. IODP, 329: Tokyo (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International, Inc.). doi:10.2204/iodp.proc.329.111.2011 2Expedition 329 Scientists’ addresses. 3Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, Texas A&M University, College Station TX 77843-3146, USA. Abstract The Secchi disc is a tool for measuring water transparency. For over a century, the device has been used in pelagic environments to assess surface productivity and overall water purity. Two new Secchi discs were constructed and tested during Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 329 for use by staff of the R/V JOIDES Resolution during future expeditions. The results of the initial deployments of the discs during the expedition in the center of the South Pacific Gyre, the world’s “clearest” marine water, are presented here. The world’s clearest marine water, Secchi discs, and the JOIDES Resolution The center of the South Pacific Gyre purportedly holds the world’s clearest marine water (Claustre et al., 2008). The elliptical center of the gyre between 20°–30°S and 98°–122°W is largely devoid of the suspended solids (i.e., particulate organic matter, plankton tests/frustules, and clay) that limit the transparency of surface marine water (Jerov, 1968; Gordon and McCluney, 1975). A variety of optical measurements performed by oceanographers during the past 20 y confirm the clarity of the gyre’s center (see Claustre et al., 2008). For example, Claustre et al., (1999) and Morel et al. (2007) show that photosynthetic-available radiation, the range of light between 400 and 700 nm used by autotrophic organisms, penetrates to a minimum depth of 100–150 meters below sea level (mbsl). The extremely low abundances of organic matter and planktonic tests/frustules are also confirmed by in situ and remote-sensing ocean color sensors that report maximum seasonal total chlorophyll concentrations of 0.02 mg/m3 for November– January and 0.045 mg/m3 for June–August (Fougnie et al., 2002; Morel and Maritorena, 2001). The absence of suspended terrigenous solids in the water column is inferred from the exceedingly low accumulation rate of clay particles in seafloor sediment underlying the center of the gyre. Scientific drilling into the seafloor near the center of the gyre recovered 14 m of calcareous nannofossil ooze deposited on 4 Ma basaltic crust (see the “Site U1368” chapter [Expedition 329 Scientists, 2011]). Microfossils showed limited dissolution effects, and thus it is likely that the recovered sediment accurately depicts total sediment flux to the seafloor. Clay content within the ooze doi:10.2204/iodp.proc.329.111.2011 B. Hoppie et al. Construction and first deployment of Secchi disks is between 0% and 10%. Thus, the maximum decompacted accumulation rate of clay on the seafloor, a proxy for the concentration of clay particles in the overlying water column, is ~0.4 μm/y. Given that the clay particles accumulating on the seafloor during any year during the past 4 m.y. are distributed through a column of water >2500 m thick, it is fair to assume that the concentration of clay in any cubic meter of the water column is practically zero. It should be noted that other scientific coring results have been interpreted to indicate that the flux of clay to the seafloor in the center of the gyre could be zero (Rea et al., 2006). The Secchi disc is a tool for measuring water transparency. For over a century, the device has been used in pelagic environments to assess surface productivity and overall water purity (Cialdi, 1866; Boguslawski and Krümmel, 1907; Clarke, 1939; Riley, 1957). The disc is continuously lowered into water, and the depth at which visual contact is lost is recorded. The disc is lowered to an unspecified additional depth and then raised until it becomes visually recognized. The depth at which it becomes recognized is also recorded. The average of the depth at which visual contact is lost during lowering and the depth at which it becomes visible during raising is called the Secchi disc transparency (SDT) (Tyler, 1968). Although the method is highly subjective, its widespread and long-term use makes it a staple of hydrologic investigations (Bukata et al., 1988). The results are very useful for tracking temporal changes in water transparency at designated locations that are revisited by a common set of observers (see www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/plants/management/ joysmanual/4secchi.html). For example, historical records of Secchi disc measurements have been used to determine how phytoplankton in the North Atlantic have responded to increases in anthropogenic CO2 in the past century (Falkowski and Wilson, 1992). However, the subjectivity of the method and variability in factors that impact overall water transparency makes comparisons of SDTs from different water bodies untenable. The R/V JOIDES Resolution is an ideal platform for deploying a Secchi disc. The ship regularly circumnavigates the world oceans and positions itself far from coastlines for periods from 2 to 60 days. As an integral component of its drilling mission, the position of the ship is known precisely and heave-related effects are intentionally minimized. Finally, the ship is equipped with hydraulic cranes and winches for raising and lowering a large-scale Secchi disc and a deployable small watercraft for positioning observers near the water surface. Therefore, the JOIDES ResoluProc. IODP | Volume 329 tion represents a near-ideal marine platform for traveling the world oceans and acquiring SDT data. This paper provides details pertaining to the construction of two new Secchi discs intended for use by staff of the JOIDES Resolution during future expeditions. It also documents the results of the initial deployments of the discs during Expedition 329 in the center of the South Pacific Gyre, the world’s “clearest” marine water. Secchi disc construction We constructed two Secchi discs similar to those used previously by investigators in the North Atlantic Ocean (Fig. F1). As reported by Visser (1967), the Royal Netherlands Navy’s sweeping survey of the North Atlantic in 1964 and 1965 utilized one smalldiameter (1 ft) and one large-diameter (1 m) disc. Our discs mimicked this 1:3 size ratio but used the currently more widely employed 40 cm diameter disc as our small-diameter instrument and a 1.2 m diameter disc as our larger instrument. The smaller Secchi disc was custom built but essentially replicated the design parameters of discs that are commonly available through environmental monitoring equipment retailers. It was cut from inch high-density plastic and painted in the standard black and white quadrant pattern. The black quadrants were covered with matte black spray paint (Nippo) and the white quadrants with glossy white spray paint (Rustoleum). An eyebolt was installed in the center of the disc as the mounting point for weights and line. Two strands of high tensile– strength tarred marlin line were tied to the eyebolt and used for lowering and hoisting the disc. A ~5 kg shackle was threaded through the eyebolt and provided the weight needed to draw the rope taught during deployment. Our second Secchi disc was constructed with the purpose of improving our ability to recognize a small object at a great distance. That is, our 40 cm Secchi disc at an anticipated depth (distance) of over 60 m would represent an object no larger than 8.5 mm in diameter to one of our observers. Given this small target size and anticipated scattering caused by surface disturbances (and that the objective of the exercise is to assess water transparency and not the keenness of the observers’ vision), we selected a diameter of 1.2 m for our second disc. This size is not without precedent: Boguslawski and Krümmel (1907) used a 2 m diameter Secchi disc for his observations of water transparency in the Sargasso Sea. Our disc also required additional rigging to maintain the horizontal 3 8 ⁄

GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITE BASED RAINFALL ESTIMATION AND VALIDATION: A CASE STUDY OF JAVA ISLAND, INDONESIA

Near real time rainfall information is necessary for early warning of rainfall triggered hazard such as floods and landslides. Remote sensing based rainfall estimation has been considered to be used to fulfill that purpose. This research is addressed to use geostationary based rainfall estimation by using Multi Transport Satellite (MTSAT) data which is blended with Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 2A12 datasets in order to provide near real time rainfall information, especially for hazard study purposes over Java Island, Indonesia. Comparison to TRMM Multi Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) datasets is performed. Spatial and temporal validation of those rainfall estimations is conducted by validating them with available rain gauge data during a rainy season in December 2007. Temporal validation result shows that TMPA demonstrated better statistical performance than MTSAT blended. However for the spatial correlation, MTSAT blended shows relatively better performance than TMPA.

From Pharmacogenomic Knowledge Acquisition to Clinical Applications: The PharmGKB as a Clinical Pharmacogenomic Biomarker Resource

The mission of the Pharmacogenomics Knowledge Base (PharmGKB; www.pharmgkb.org ) is to collect, encode and disseminate knowledge about the impact of human genetic variations on drug responses. It is an important worldwide resource of clinical pharmacogenomic biomarkers available to all. The PharmGKB website has evolved to highlight our knowledge curation and aggregation over our previous emphasis on collecting primary data. This review summarizes the methods we use to drive this expanded scope of 'Knowledge Acquisition to Clinical Applications', the new features available on our website and our future goals.

Daniela M. Bailer-Jones, Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science

Daniela M. Bailer-Jones, Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009, x + 235 pp.

Pengungkapan informasi pada website: studi tentang akuntabilitas pendidikan pada perguruan tinggi di Indonesia

This study aims to evaluate the forms of disclosure of the information presented on the college website. Qualitative research was conducted using document analysis at 10 universities ranked highest according to the version webometrics in 2008. The results showed that the general form of the disclosures made mostly still is the promotion to attract new students by provid- ing excellent products universities, namely education, research and dedication to community. In the case of disclosure of information relating to the management of the majority of new college presents information related to strategic planning such as vision and mission, as well as organizational structure. In contrast to the best universities of the world, there is only a college that informs its financial statements. Some still express his policies are even some that did not inform the finances at all. Keywords: accountability, financial disclosure, good university governance, website

Policy in the Way of Practice: How Assessment Legislation Is Affecting Social Studies Curriculum and Instruction in Ohio

In a national context of standards and high-stakes testing, concerns are emerging about challenges to the already tenuous position of the citizenship mission in the social studies curriculum. In this qualitative study, the authors administered a survey to social studies teachers in Ohio and conducted follow-up interviews focusing on the present purposes of social studies and the ways in which standards and testing are affecting instructional practice. The findings reveal a perception of standards as being of high quality, yet ultimately undermined through changes in scope and se-quence, narrowing of the curriculum, and a paucity of time to enact them. In addition, respondents indicated that high-stakes testing has become the primary curricular focus, which impacts instructional strategy decision making and frustrates citizenship education.

Swift-BAT: the hard-X-ray sky after 64 months of survey

The Burst Alert Telescope (BAT: 14-150 keV) on board of Swift is mainly devoted to the monitoring of a large fraction of the sky (50%-80% per day) for the occurrence of Gamma Ray Bursts. This provides the opportunity for a substantial gain of our k nowledge of the Galactic and extragalactic sky in the hard X-ray domain. Here we present the third PalermoSwift-BAT hard X-ray catalogue obtained from the analysis of the data relat iv to the first 66 months of the Swift mission and including 1500 high-energy sources. With a prog ram of soft X-ray follow-up observations and by using archival data we were able to associate a counterpart to most of these high energy emitters: 59% are extragalactic objects, 20% are Gal actic objects and 9% are known soft X-ray emitters whose nature has not been determined yet. We c ompare our catalogue with those obtained from the INTEGRAL-ISGRI data and with the gamma-ra y sky as seen by Fermi.

NHXM: a New Hard X-ray Imaging and Polarimetric Mission