Lea Shanley

Ownership, control of and access to tribal spatial data are long-standing issues for American Indian tribes in the United States. Federal and state court decisions resulting in the disclosure of tribal information under freedom of information laws, the sophisticated data integration and analysis capacity of GIS, and advances in satellite remote sensing heighten concerns. Fundamental issues are at stake, including tribes' rights and interests in their knowledge and resources, federal agencies' authority and decision-making that affect those resources, and the public's right to know. Within the context of the federal-tribal relationship, this research investigates tribes' concerns regarding unwanted disclosure of tribal spatial data and the circumstances under which disclosure may occur. This study also evaluated mechanisms to mitigate these risks. Sensitive tribal spatial data include sacred sites and cultural resources, information about land parcel status, water rig...

Ownership, control of and access to tribal spatial data are long-standing issues for American Indian tribes in the United States. Federal and state court decisions resulting in the disclosure of tribal information under freedom of information laws, the sophisticated data integration and analysis capacity of GIS, and advances in satellite remote sensing heighten concerns. Fundamental issues are at stake, including tribes' rights and interests in their knowledge and resources, federal agencies' authority and decision-making that affect those resources, and the public's right to know. Within the context of the federal-tribal relationship, this research investigates tribes' concerns regarding unwanted disclosure of tribal spatial data and the circumstances under which disclosure may occur. This study also evaluated mechanisms to mitigate these risks. Sensitive tribal spatial data include sacred sites and cultural resources, information about land parcel status, water rig...

The Citizen Science Global Partnership is a network-of-networks that seeks to promote and advance citizen science for a sustainable world. Launched in December 2017 at the UN Science-Policy-Business Forum on the Environment, Citizen Science Global brings together existing networks of citizen science researchers and practitioners with advisory boards representing policy, business, and community-based perspectives. This initiative was founded in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and is also supported by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Find out more at http://citizenscienceglobal.org/index.html

The Citizen Science Global Partnership is a network-of-networks that seeks to promote and advance citizen science for a sustainable world. Launched in December 2017 at the UN Science-Policy-Business Forum on the Environment, Citizen Science Global brings together existing networks of citizen science researchers and practitioners with advisory boards representing policy, business, and community-based perspectives. This initiative was founded in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and is also supported by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Find out more at http://citizenscienceglobal.org/index.html

"""The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) within the Department of Defense has the primary mission of providing timely, relevant, and accurate imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information--collectively known as geospatial intelligence (GEOINT)--in support of national security. In support of its mission, NGA sponsors research that builds the scientific foundation for geospatial intelligence and that reinforces the academic base, thus training the next generation of NGA analysts while developing new approaches to analytical problems. Historically, NGA has supported research in five core areas: (1) photogrammetry and geomatics, (2) remote sensing and imagery science, (3) geodesy and geophysics, (4) cartographic science, and (5) geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis. Positioning NGA for the future is the responsibility of the InnoVision Directorate, which analyzes intelligence trends, technological advances, and emerging customer and partner concepts to provide cutting-edge technology and process solutions. At the request of InnoVision, the National Research Council (NRC) held a 3-day workshop to explore the evolution of the five core research areas and to identify emerging disciplines that may improve the quality of geospatial intelligence over the next 15 years. This workshop report offers a potential research agenda that would expand NGA's capabilities and improve its effectiveness in providing geospatial intelligence."""

AUTHORS: Jason Young, David Wald, Paul Earle, and Lea Shanley STUDY DIRECTOR: Lea Shanley EDITORS: Aaron Lovell and Zack Bastian ABSTRACT: he U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other scientific institutions are using social media and crowdsourcing to learn more about earthquakes, according to a new report. These techniques provide inexpensive and rapid data to augment and extend the capabilities provided by traditional monitoring techniques. The new report, Transforming Earthquake Detection and Science Through Citizen Seismology, released by the Commons Lab at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, outlines these groundbreaking citizen science projects. The report describes how the USGS and others are engaging the public and advancing earthquake monitoring and knowledge of seismic events. The ultimate goal, according to the USGS, is to provide more rapid earthquake detection and generate more real-time hazard and impact information. The efforts discussed in the report include the Tweet Earthquake Dispatch (TED), which uses an algorithm to provide seismologists with initial alerts of earthquakes felt around the globe via Twitter in less than two minutes. The report also examines the Quake Catcher Network, which equips the public with low-cost sensors to collect information on seismic activity, and Did You Feel It? (DYFI), which uses the Internet to survey individuals about their experiences in earthquakes, including location and extent of the damage. Throughout much of the world earthquake sensors are sparse or nonexistent, meaning it can take the USGS up to 20 minutes to issue alerts about an earthquake. These crowd-focused systems – which are seen to complement, rather than replace, current systems – provide agencies like the USGS with a fast and inexpensive way to expand their ability to monitor seismic activity. "Starting with science and having robust databases allows for the most informed decisions, and our research wouldn't be as detailed without the public's help and firsthand accounts through DYFI, TED and other citizen science applications," says Paul Earle, a seismologist with the USGS and a co-author of the report. "With the success of these efforts, scientists will continue to look for additional opportunities to involve the public, incorporate innovative and cutting-edge tools and ultimately extend our reach and monitoring across the landscape." The report also looks at how future efforts could be improved. Successful crowdsourcing projects at the federal level must navigate a web of practical, legal and policy considerations. This report identifies some of these hurdles and provides lessons learned so that others may apply them to their unique missions. "Greater dialogue is needed between scientists and policymakers on issues from privacy to democratic participation," the authors conclude. The initiatives are garnering interest, largely because they produce valuable data with a wide range of applications very quickly and in a cost-effective manner.

As the first webinar in our series, "The Socioeconomic Value of Earth Science Data, Information, and Applications", we explore the value and benefits that Earth Science data brings to society, including its contributions to economics and quality of life. The challenges and opportunities for enhancing Earth Science's societal benefits are also broadly addressed. To offer a balanced perspective behind the meaning of "value", our panel represents expertise from economics, earth science, data and informatics, engineering, social sciences, and policy. Panelists provide examples of different techniques and approaches that can be used to enhance socioeconomic value, such as citizen science, and highlight some communities of practice that are currently addressing these issues, such as GEOValue.

Over the last few years, a number of high-resolution commercial remote sensing satellites have been deployed, producing images of objects on the ground as small as two feet (0.6-m) in near real-time. 1 Future satellites will support even higher resolutions. For example, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently granted Space Imaging, Inc. a

: Social media is responsible for much positive change in the world. But these new tools can be used by bad actors to foment strife and undermine stability, as seen during violent incidents in the Assam state of northeast India in July 2012. Cybersecurity efforts must take into account the growing potential for cyber-attack using social media, where hoax messages are incorporated into a stream of otherwise legitimate messages, and understand how quickly mobile apps and text services can disseminate false information. Authorities and volunteers must develop a healthy skepticism about information derived from these systems and new research and tools are needed to facilitate the self-policing of social media.

This document attempts to represent a wide range of opinions in an inclusive way, to allow for different types of projects and programmes, where context-specific criteria can be set.The characteristics outlined below are based on views expressed by researchers, practitioners, public officials and the wider public. Our aim is to identify the characteristics that should be considered when setting such criteria (e.g. a funding scheme), and we call upon readers to determine which subset of these characteristics is relevant to their own specific context and aims. These characteristics build on (and refer to) the ECSA 10 principles of citizen science as a summary of best practie – and projects are expected to engage meaningfully with them. Where it is especially pertinent, we refer to them in the characteristics below. The rest of the document covers the characteristics of citizen science under five sections: (1) core concepts; (2) disciplinary aspects; (3) leadership and participation; (...

Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and deep learning have advanced significantly over the past decade. Nonetheless, humans possess unique abilities such as creativity, intuition, context and abstraction, analytic problem solving, and detecting unusual events. To successfully tackle pressing scientific and societal challenges, we need the complementary capabilities of both humans and machines. The Federal Government could accelerate its priorities on multiple fronts through judicious integration of citizen science and crowdsourcing with artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud strategies.

This guest editorial briefly describes a history of activities related to encouraging the U.S. federal government to use and support citizen science, and presents the recent public comments that we submitted to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in response to its 2020 Federal Register Call for Public Comment on its draft citizen science strategy, which was officially published in January 2021.

Citizen science has expanded rapidly over the past decades. Yet, defining citizen science and its boundaries remained a challenge, and this is reflected in the literature - for example in the proliferation of typologies and definitions. There is a need for identifying areas of agreement and disagreement within the citizen science practitioners community on what should be considered as citizen science activity. This paper describes the development and results of a survey that examined this issue, through the use of vignettes - short case descriptions that describe an activity, while asking the respondents to rate the activity on a scale from ‘not citizen science’ (0%) to ‘citizen science’ (100%). The survey included 50 vignettes, of which 5 were developed as clear cases of not-citizen science activities, 5 as widely accepted citizen science activities, and the others addressing 10 factors and 61 sub-factors that can lead to controversy about an activity. The survey has attracted 333 ...

ABSTRACT Public policy plays an influential role in the work we do as HCI researchers, interaction designers, and practitioners. "Public policy," a broad term, includes both government policy and policy within non-governmental organizations. This forum focuses on topics at the intersection of human-computer interaction and public policy. ---Jonathan Lazar, Editor

Low resolution, time-resolved ultraviolet spectra were obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope for the post--nova GQ Muscae on September 2, 1994. We obtained satisfactory data during 3 HST orbits which together cover about 90% of the GQ Mus 85.5 min binary orbital period. The mean spectrum shows a strong, blue continuum which is only slightly flatter than a Rayleigh-Jeans spectra energy distribution. The UV luminosity is LUV ~10(35) erg s(-1) . Moderately strong emission lines from He II, C IV and possibly other high ionization species are present. No significant variability is found as a function of orbital phase and the random variability is <= 10 % throughout the 1300--2100 Angstroms spectral region. The results from these observations are discussed in terms of a cooling white dwarf model for this post--nova.

The old nova GQ Muscae was detected in 1992 by {sl ROSAT} as a luminous "super-soft" X-ray source nearly a decade after outburst. While conforming to standard models if still burning, GQ Mus has remained "on" nearly five times longer than most other observed nova. We have observed Nova Muscae 1983 with the {sl ROSAT} PSPC in January 1993 and in September 1993 with effective exposure times of 4296 s and 100091 s respectively. In addition, CCD B band photometry was obtained over nearly one orbit on the CTIO 0.9-m contemporaneously with the January {sl ROSAT} observations. The X-ray count rate has declined by a factor of 100 since 1992. Yet, the CCD Photometry does not indicate an appreciable decrease in the optical nor is there a concomittent change in the amplitude of the modulation. GQ Mus has not reached its pre-outburst magnitude. Futhermore, recent spectral observations show that [Fe X] has disappeared and [N II] has returned also indicating a decrease in the ...

Invited presentation for plenary session 1: Leveraging a Never Ending Technological Revolution as part of the 4th GEOSS Science and Technology Stakeholder Workshop: Concepts, Technologies, Systems and Users of the Next GEOSS,  Norfolk, VA, held on March 24-26, 2015.  http://www.gstss.org/2015_Norfolk_4th/program.php  and http://www.gstss.org/2015_Norfolk_4th/presentations/Shanley-GEOSS-2015.pdf