Flight Calls Reveal Bird Migration Patterns

Flight Calls Reveal Bird Migration Patterns: http://t.co/L3mJtOL4PP

— Elemental (@elementalDIY) December 10, 2013

Soffit Level

Soffit Level

(pipe technology) The top point of the inside open section of a pipe or box conduit.

The soffit is the highest point of the internal surface of a pipe or culvert at any cross-section. The soffit is also referred to as the pipe obvert.

So it is not quite the Crown of the Pipe.  Here is an image I found that hopefully explains it better.

From CHI - International Conference on Stormwater and Urban Water Systems Modeling, Toronto Canada (February 26 and 27) - Call for papers

47th Annual International Conference
Toronto, Canada
February 26-27, 2014

Call for papers Have you implemented a good idea recently? Do you have hard facts and figures? If so, you should consider presenting at this conference. Your audience will be large (>100) and comprise equally active and thoughtful professionals.

The annual International Conference on Stormwater and Urban Water Systems Modeling is a forum for professionals from across North America and overseas to exchange ideas and experience on current practices and emerging technologies. This is the 47th annual SWMM Users Group Meeting, the 23rd in the current series of annual Toronto conferences, and the 34th to be held in Canada. The atmosphere is relaxed, presentations are of a high standard and by accepting papers up to the last few weeks before the event, a spontaneity is achieved which gives this conference special character. Who will be attending? ·         Civil Engineers ·         Environmental Engineers ·         Consultants ·         Instructors and Researchers from universities and research institutions ·         Municipal and Government Engineering professionals ·         Public Works personnel ·         Policy Makers ·         Fluvial Geomorphologists ·         Urban Geographers ·         Aquatic Biologists ·         Ecologists ·         Landscape Engineers and Architects ·         Other scientists and engineers Suggested topics: ·         2D Modeling ·         LIDs, BMPs, TMDLs and Wetlands ·         Urban water system modeling ·         GIS, FM/AM and CAD systems ·         Decision analysis systems ·         Bio-computing (genetic algorithms and neural networks) ·         Using computer models to resolve real pollution problems / eco-restoration ·         Surface water quality modeling ·         Modeling impacts on aquatic systems / habitats ·         Stormwater / pollution management modeling ·         Urban drainage system design and analysis ·         Field data monitoring and instrumentation ·         Climate change and system security ·         Policy, legislation, permitting and enforcement Submitting a Paper: ·         Notices of intent to submit a paper are invited immediately ·         One-page abstracts are due as soon as possible (must include title) and at the latest byFebruary 3rd, 2014 ·         The final paper is due at the conference Notices of intent to submit an abstract should include a title or topic that you wish to cover, a brief outline if possible, and the names and contact information of the authors involved. For more information about submitting papers, please visit the Author information page and Paper formatting instructions. Abstract acceptance will be intimated promptly, and format requirements emailed to the authors. If you have any questions about abstract submittal, please email or phone 519-767-0197. The Conference is endorsed by: ·         ASCE Urban Water Resources Research Council ·         Ontario Ministry of Environment ·         American Water Resources Association ·         US Environmental Protection Agency ·         Conservation Ontario ·         Canadian Society of Civil Engineering For more information about the conference and to register, please visit www.chiwater.com Please take a moment to forward this notice to a colleague and we look forward to seeing you there. Best Regards, Meghan Korman Conference Organizer Computational Hydraulics International (CHI) Tel. (519) 767-0197 meghan@chiwater.com If you have any other questions, please contact CHI. You may unsubscribe if you no longer wish to receive our conference emails.

CHI | 147 Wyndham Street North | Suite 202 | Guelph | Ontario | N1H 4E9 | Canada

Ganesh ji and Modelling

I have always thought that Ganesh ji is an ideal God or Symbol for modellers or even modelers.    Here are a few of his characteristics including a large stomach, which you can combat by exercise - I love walking but find what works best for you.

Knowing How to Change Your Mind: A Three Minute Guide to Bayesian Reasoning       

NEW LESSON

with Julia Galef

Since you cannot really be 100 percent certain of a theory, a better way to put it to yourself is to say "I think this is very likely to be true."     http://bigthink.com/big-think-mentor/knowing-how-to-change-your-mind-a-three-minute-guide-to-bayesian-reasoning

Edward Burtynsky's Water

Edward Burtynsky's Water  

Photographer Edward Burtynsky's latest project is called Water.

While trying to accommodate the growing needs of an expanding, and very thirsty civilization, we are reshaping the Earth in colossal ways. In this new and powerful role over the planet, we are also capable of engineering our own demise. We have to learn to think more long-term about the consequences of what we are doing, while we are doing it. My hope is that these pictures will stimulate a process of thinking about something essential to our survival; something we often take for granted -- until it's gone

via Kottke 

Raining Water

Via http://headlikeanorange.tumblr.com/

Make study more effective, the easy way

Make study more effective, the easy way

October 24, 2011 – 8:59 am from http://mindhacks.com/2011/10/24/make-study-more-effective-the-easy-way/

Decades old research into how memory works should have revolutionised University teaching. It didn’t.

If you’re a student, what I’m about to tell you will let you change how you study so that it is more effective, more enjoyable and easier. If you work at a University, you – like me – should hang your head in shame that we’ve known this for decades but still teach the way we do.

There’s a dangerous idea in education that students are receptacles, and teachers are responsible for providing content that fills them up. This model encourages us to test students by the amount of content they can regurgitate, to focus overly on statements rather than skills in assessment and on syllabuses rather than values in teaching. It also encourages us to believe that we should try and learn things by trying to remember them. Sounds plausible, perhaps, but there’s a problem. Research into the psychology of memory shows that intention to remember is a very minor factor in whether you remember something or not. Far more important than whether you want to remember something is how you think about the material when you encounter it.

A classic experiment by Hyde and Jenkins (1973) illustrates this. These researchers gave participants lists of words, which they later tested recall of, as their memory items. To affect their thinking about the words, half the participants were told to rate the pleasantness of each word, and half were told to check if the word contained the letters ‘e’ or ‘g’. This manipulation was designed to affect ‘depth of processing’. The participants in the rating-pleasantness condition had to think about what the word meant, and relate it to themselves (how they felt about it) – “deep processing”. Participants in the letter-checking condition just had to look at the shape of the letters, they didn’t even have to read the word if they didn’t want to – “shallow processing”. The second, independent, manipulation concerned whether participants knew that they would be tested later on the words. Half of each group were told this – the “intentional learning” condition – and half weren’t told, the test would come as a surprise – the “incidental learning” condition.

I’ve made a graph so you can see the effects of these two manipulations

As you can see, there isn’t much difference between the intentional and incidental learning conditions. Whether or not a participant wanted to remember the words didn’t affect how many words they remembered. Instead, the major effect is due to how participants thought about the words when they encountered them. Participants who thought deeply about the words remembered nearly twice as many as participants who only thought shallowly about the words, regardless of whether they intended to remember them or not.

The implications for how we teach and learn should be clear. Wanting to remember, or telling people to remember, isn’t effective. If you want to remember something you need to think about it deeply. This means you need to think about what you are trying to remember means, both in relationship to other material you are trying to learn, and to yourself. Other research in memory has shown the importance of schema – memory patterns and structures – for recall. As teachers, we try and organise our course material for the convenience of students, to best help them understand it. Unfortunately, this organisation – the schema – for the material then becomes part of the assessment and something which students try to remember. What this research suggests is that, merely in terms of remembering, it would be more effective for students to come up with their own organisation for course material.

If you are a student the implication of this study and those like it is clear : don’t stress yourself with revision where you read and re-read textbooks and course notes. You’ll remember better (and understand much better) if you try and re-organise the material you’ve been given in your own way.

If you are a teacher, like me, then this research raises some disturbing questions. At a University the main form of teaching we do is the lecture, which puts the student in a passive role and, essentially, asks them to “remember this” – an instruction we know to be ineffective. Instead, we should be thinking hard, always, about how to create teaching experiences in which students are more active, and about creating courses in which students are permitted and encouraged to come up with their own organisation of material, rather than just forced to regurgitate ours.

Reference: Hyde, T. S., & Jenkins, J. J. (1973). Recall for words as a function of semantic, graphic, and syntactic orienting tasks. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12(5), 471–480.