This is a presentation of 21 slides at the Leadership Development session of the ASIST 2005 Annual Meeting at Charlotte, N.C. on October 30. It discusses the 2002 virtual community building experiment undertaken by the Arizona Chapter of ASIST. The chapter experimented with three different pieces of software, a wiki, a content management system, and slashcode. This presentation was also video-taped and may become available through the ASIST website, http://www.asis.org/.

Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / This paper describes a study to explore the integration of Group Support Systems (GSS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to provide solicitation, analytical, visualization and sense-making support for attitudes from large distributed marketing focus groups. The paper describes two experiments and the concomitant evolutionary design and development of an attitude analysis process and the MindMine Comment Analysis Tool. The analysis process circumvents many of the problems associated with traditional data gathering via closed-ended questionnaires and potentially biased interviews by providing support for online free response evaluative comments. MindMine allows teams of raters to analyze comments from any source, including electronic meetings, discussion groups or surveys, whether they are Web-based or same-place. The analysis results are then displayed as visualizations that enable the team quickly to make sense of attitudes reflected in the comment set, which we believe provide richer information and a more detailed understanding of attitudes.

The implementation of global virtual teams presents modern organizations with significant challenges, such as a multicultural workforce and the use of information and communication technology. Cultural diversity increases teamwork complexity and may weaken a team's effectiveness and jeopardize its viability. Selection and implementation of appropriate information technology may facilitate group processes and overcome potential barriers created by team heterogeneity. This study illustrates how e-mail mitigates intercultural miscommunication. Interviews with 41 global virtual team members in nine countries, who were employed by a multinational corporation, were transcribed and analyzed. The use of e-mail improves language accuracy, mitigates intercultural miscommunication resulting from verbal differences among team members, and eliminates nonverbal differences. Only future studies can determine the extent of this mitigation.

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / The goal of this research is to define self sufficiency for mountain communities, understand the resources that make up a mountain community, and describe how current and future mountain communities can take steps toward self sufficiency. What the report explores and finds is that most mountain communities have all the resources available to become autonomous, sustainable areas able to support human, wildlife, and environmental health. This conclusion came from an extensive literature review on the resources of mountain communities, followed by analysis of the resources held in the mountain community of Summerhaven, Arizona. A list of prescriptive steps based on Summerhaven’s current needs is discussed, giving the community a ranked order of how they can utilize their resources to full potential and become autonomous to any outside resources. While further research into other communities is needed to more effectively understand the different scope of resource issues mountain communities are facing, this report has a general view of what effects all mountain communities. No two mountain communities will be the same in their resource needs, but the analysis on Summerhaven can be repeated in all existing communities. Self sufficiency in mountain communities is entirely possible and should be explored in order to make the mountain a healthy, sustainable, and beautiful landscape to be enjoyed by people for the rest of the time that they will be occupying Earth.

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In order to promote active aging for persons with ID, discussions on new initiatives, for example, designing age-friendly communities have begun at the international and local levels. The overall goal of this qualitative research study was to identify features of an age-friendly community from the perspective of older adults with ID, themselves, their caregivers, and service providers. A total of seven individuals aged 45+ with ID were interviewed. In addition, a total of 15 caregivers/service providers participated in focus group discussions. Many of the current features of the city of Winnipeg do not adequately address the needs of persons aging with ID. A number of recommendations were made to make Winnipeg a more age-friendly community. The study was exploratory in nature, the first step towards development of future research projects to explore issues and intervention strategies more in depth to promote healthy and active aging among persons aging with ID.

This research falls within the scope of the Thusano project to evaluate families concerning a variety of aspects of which this research specifically focuses on crime. Crime therefore is an act that must take place contradictory to the judicial system. The aim of the research is to determine the causes of the perceptions of the community with regard to crime, to identify the crimes that occurs most and to determine how crime in this community can be reduced. Through this research it was found that an increase has occurred with reference to certain crime categories, such as violent crime, women abuse and house theft. The community is of opinion that heavier punishment will lead to prevention of crime and to more job opportunities. Alcohol abuse also plays a large role in the assaults that take place during weekends. Furthermore they believe that, with the assistance of the police and the community, crime can decrease. / Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

The tree species preferences by six arboreal bird species and their role in structuring the bird communities in woodland were investigated in two sites in County Durham. Each bird species showed a preference or avoidance for most of the tree species in both study sites. The patterns of tree preference were different for each bird species, and were the basis for efficient partitioning of the foraging niches in woodland. Bird species showed significantly less overlap in tree species choice than in any of the other four niche dimensions examined, making it the most important dimension of the foraging niche. The tree species preferences of the bird species were reflected in the distribution of the birds within the woods. For each pair of bird species the degree of similarity in tree species choice and birds' distribution in the wood were identical. Bird species richness was predictable from tree species richness. There were significant positive correlations between all pairs of the following factors: bird species diversity, tree species diversity, bird species richness, tree species richness, bird density, and the percentage of broadleaved trees. Bird density was negatively correlated with the size of the wood (or compartment), apparently due to an edge effect. Seasonal and year to year changes in the tree preference by birds were explicable in terms of changes in the relative abundance of arthropod prey and other foods available in the trees.