scholarly journals Is Ubiquitous Technology for Needs Data Management a Game Changer in Humanitarian Arena?

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-97
Author(s):  
Punya Prasad Sapkota ◽  
Kashif Siddiqi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Data Entry ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Dynamic Changes ◽  
The World ◽  
Collection And Management ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Game Changer

One in every 70 people around the world is caught up in a crisis (natural disasters, conflict, climate change, etc.) and urgently needs humanitarian assistance and protection according to the OCHA. The humanitarian community assists millions of people every year based on emerging humanitarian needs. Most of the time, the conditions inside the countries, once the humanitarian needs data is collected, are not very conducive and required simple ways to collect data like paper-based data collection with simple questions. This data is later entered into a database or spreadsheet using rigorous and time-consuming data entry efforts. Dynamic changes in needs of people; numbers of partners involved; the complexity of evolving processes; and emerging technologies over time has led to a change in processes for data collection and management. This article is an attempt to capture humanitarian data collection best practices and the use of different technologies in managing data to facilitate humanitarian needs assessment processes for the Syria crisis.

scholarly journals Briefing: task force for climate financial disclosures (TCFD) for the property and construction industry

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renard Siew
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Direct Response ◽  
Main Contributor ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Financial Disclosures

The property and construction industry are known to be a main contributor to climate change contributing more than 40% of the world's emissions. In direct response to this, there has been a call for corporations to be more transparent and align themselves to the requirements of the task force for climate financial disclosures (TCFD). This paper seeks to provide a briefing on the requirements of the TCFD. It highlights common challenges faced by the property and construction industry in implementing TCFD such as the difficulty in integrating climate related risks and translating them into quantitative measures, lack of capability within the industry to understand the complexities of climate risks and data collection issues among others. Recommendations are proposed to address these issues including setting up an industry specific network to share best practices in TCFD, harmonisation of existing frameworks to include TCFD requirements and exploring opportunities for incentivisation and rewards for early movers. This paper will be useful to property and construction industry practitioners who are looking at aligning to the requirements of the TCFD.

scholarly journals The impact and resolution of the GPS week number rollover of April 2019 on autonomous geophysical instrument platforms

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-168
Author(s):  
Shane Coyle ◽  
C. Robert Clauer ◽  
Michael D. Hartinger ◽  
Zhonghua Xu ◽  
Yuxiang Peng
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Satellite Communications ◽  
Fault Recovery ◽  
Satellite Constellations ◽  
Remote Locations ◽  
Software Designers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Instrument platforms the world over often rely on GPS or similar satellite constellations for accurate timekeeping and synchronization. This reliance can create problems when the timekeeping counter aboard a satellite overflows and begins a new epoch. Due to the rarity of these events (19.6 years for GPS), software designers may be unaware of such circumstance or may choose to ignore it for development complexity considerations. Although it is impossible to predict every fault that may occur in a complicated system, there are a few “best practices” that can allow for graceful fault recovery and restorative action. These guiding principles are especially pertinent for instrument platforms operating in space or in remote locations like Antarctica, where restorative maintenance is both difficult and expensive. In this work, we describe how these principles apply to a communications failure on autonomous adaptive low-power instrument platforms (AAL-PIP) deployed in Antarctica. In particular, we describe how code execution patterns were subtly altered after the GPS week number rollover of April 2019, how this led to Iridium satellite communications and data collection failures, and how communications and data collection were ultimately restored. Finally, we offer some core tenets of instrument platform design as guidance for future development.

scholarly journals The Impact and Resolution of the GPS Week Number Rollover of April 2019 on Autonomous Geophysical Instrument Platforms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane Coyle ◽  
C. Robert Clauer ◽  
Michael D. Hartinger ◽  
Zhonghua Xu ◽  
Yuxiang Peng
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Satellite Communications ◽  
Fault Recovery ◽  
Satellite Constellations ◽  
Remote Locations ◽  
Software Designers ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Instrument platforms the world over often rely on GPS or similar satellite constellations for accurate timekeeping and synchronization. This reliance can create problems when the timekeeping counter aboard a satellite overflows and begin a new epoch. Due to the rarity of these events (19.6 years for GPS), software designers may be unaware of such circumstance, or may choose to ignore it for development complexity considerations. Although it is impossible to predict every fault that may occur in a complicated system, there are a few best practices that can allow for graceful fault recovery and restorative action. These guiding principles are especially pertinent for instrument platforms operating in space or in remote locations like Antarctica, where restorative maintenance is both difficult and expensive. In this work, we describe how these principles apply to a communications failure on Autonomous Adaptive Low-Power Instrument Platforms (AAL-PIP) deployed in Antarctica. In particular, we describe how code execution patterns were subtly altered after the GPS week number rollover of April 2019, how this led to Iridium satellite communications and data collection failures, and how communications and data collection were ultimately restored. Finally, we offer some core tenets of instrument platform design as guidance for future development.

The World

2019 ◽  
pp. 132-151
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Rudel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
World War ◽  
Focusing Events ◽  
The World ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Focusing Event ◽  
Over Time

Comparable environmental reforms have never occurred at the global scale of governance. Segments of the dynamic described in the four case studies have taken place at the global scale. A focusing event, World War II, spurred the creation of a global governance institution, the United Nations, which later became the organizational sponsor for the ongoing international effort to counter climate change. Different kinds of focusing events, extreme weather in the form of droughts or storms, have over time contributed to an increase in the number of nations advocating for radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These changes suggest that, over time, an international “climate club” could emerge. These trends, while fragmentary and so far unsuccessful in producing mandatory global-scale reforms, are consistent with the theoretical dynamic that has driven the national-scale reforms analyzed in the case studies.

Planning and Engineering Strategies to Mitigate Effects of Climate Change

2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaufui Vincent Wong
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Heavy Rain ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Real Property ◽  
Modern Engineering ◽  
The World

Extreme weather events seem to have become more frequent with climate change. These anomalies throughout the world may generally be categorized as drought, heavy rain storms, landslides, heavy snow storms, sea level rise, ice melts from the polar regions, tornadoes and hurricanes. The environmental and real property damage caused may be minimized if proper planning and best practices are engineered into place before the catastrophic events occur. The management of vulnerable areas should definitely include such plans and strategies. The purpose of the current work is to point to the best practices already being carried out in some areas, and to draw attention to some of the knowledge embodied in the indigenous populations in particular regions, which have come by this knowledge via generations of survival through adverse climate/environmental changes. The integration of this indigenous knowledge where applicable, with modern engineering tools and techniques will help the world better to face the climatic challenges ahead.

scholarly journals Global to regional overview of floods fatality: the 1951–2020 period

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossein Hamidifar ◽  
Michael Nones
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Precipitation Anomaly ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Geographical Patterns ◽  
The World ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Risk Reduction Strategies ◽  
Flooding Events ◽  
Financial Losses ◽  
Over Time

Abstract. Floods are among the most devastating natural hazards. Human interferences along with climate change cause a lot of human and financial losses every year following the occurrence of floods. In this research, flooding events that have killed more than 10 people in the 1951–2020 period have been studied, analysing the EM-DAT database. The results show that the severity of flood-related deaths is equally distributed worldwide, but present some specific geographical patterns. The flood fatality coefficient, calculated for different countries, identified that Southern, Eastern, and South-Eastern regions of Asia have the deadliest floods in the world. The number of flood events has been increasing since 1951 and peaked in 2007, following a relatively declining trend since then. However, the number of death tolls does not follow a statistically significant trend. An examination of the number of flood events in different decades shows that the highest number of events occurred in the 2001–2010 decade, which corresponds to the largest precipitation anomaly in the world. The most casualties occurred in the decade 1991–2000. However, the lethality of floods has decreased over time, from 412 per flood in 1951–1960 to 67 in the 2011–2020 decade, probably as a consequence of a more resilient environment and better risk reduction strategies. In addition, a direct correlation was found between the number of flood events and the number of casualties with the world’s population.

scholarly journals Novel Approach to Support Rapid Data Collection, Management, and Visualization During the COVID-19 Outbreak Response in the World Health Organization African Region: Development of a Data Summarization and Visualization Tool

10.2196/20355 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. e20355
Author(s):  
Kamran Ahmed ◽  
Muhammad Arish Bukhari ◽  
Tamayi Mlanda ◽  
Jean Paul Kimenyi ◽  
Polly Wallace ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Field Data ◽  
World Health ◽  
African Region ◽  
Data Summarization ◽  
The World ◽  
Field Data Collection ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Collection And Management

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges to the systematic and timely sharing of COVID-19 field data collection and management. The World Health Organization (WHO) is working with health partners on the rollout and implementation of a robust electronic field data collection platform. The delay in the deployment and rollout of this electronic platform in the WHO African Region, as a consequence of the application of large-scale public health and social measures including movement restrictions and geographical area quarantine, left a gap between data collection and management. This lead to the need to develop interim data management solutions to accurately monitor the evolution of the pandemic and support the deployment of appropriate public health interventions. Objective The aim of this study is to review the design, development, and implementation of the COVID-19 Data Summarization and Visualization (DSV) tool as a rapidly deployable solution to fill this critical data collection gap as an interim solution. Methods This paper reviews the processes undertaken to research and develop a tool to bridge the data collection gap between the onset of a COVID-19 outbreak and the start of data collection using a prioritized electronic platform such as Go.Data in the WHO African Region. Results In anticipation of the implementation of a prioritized tool for field data collection, the DSV tool was deployed in 18 member states for COVID-19 outbreak data management. We highlight preliminary findings and lessons learned from the DSV tool deployment in the WHO African Region. Conclusions We developed a rapidly deployable tool for COVID-19 data collection and visualization in the WHO African Region. The lessons drawn on this experience offer an opportunity to learn and apply these to improve future similar public health informatics initiatives in an outbreak or similar humanitarian setting, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

scholarly journals Modelling of Regional Economic Metabolism

Climate ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Afonso Silva ◽  
Bruno Augusto ◽  
Sandra Rafael ◽  
Johnny Reis ◽  
Myriam Lopes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Urban Metabolism ◽  
Regional Economic ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The World ◽  
Over Time

The current linear economic system has led Europe to unsustainable development, aggravating several issues, such as climate change, limitation of resources, and pollution. As a sustainable alternative, circular economy (CE) has been promoted around the world. This economic system allows for the maximization of a product’s life, thus decreasing its environmental impact and increasing its value. The main goal of this work is to scrutinise the concepts of CE over time, from the beginning of the concept, to its implementation in Europe and its application in Portugal. In addition, the requirement for strategies that led to studies on regional urban metabolism are addressed. Another goal is to examine Portugal and see how the country is dealing with the implementation of strategies for CE, moving from concept to practice. This part of the work resulted in the creation of the REMET-UA model, a tool to assess the regional economic metabolism, which also has the potential to evaluate synergies of materials in terms of fluxes between regions, maximizing the amount of information available at this scale for municipalities and enterprises to be used, having taken into account the purpose of circular economy. The results showed that REMET-UA is fully operational and corresponds to the goal for which the model was made. Future developments have been identified and are underway to improve the model and bring it as close to reality as possible.

Surveillance beyond Camp Settings in Humanitarian Emergencies: Findings from the Humanitarian Health Information Management Working Group

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S2) ◽  
pp. s202-s205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Purdin ◽  
Paul Spiegel ◽  
Katelyn P. Mack ◽  
Jennifer Millen
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Management ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Health Information Management ◽  
Hidden Populations ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Humanitarian Emergencies ◽  
Collection And Management

AbstractIntroduction:Surveillance is an essential component of health and nutrition information management during humanitarian situations. Changes in the nature and scope of humanitarian assistance activities have created new challenges in health surveillance, particularly outside of camp-based settings.Objectives:The primary aim of the Humanitarian Health Information Management Working Group was to identify challenges and areas that need further elucidation in a range of non-camp settings, including urban and rural as well as low-and middle-income countries.Results:Three major themes emerged: (1) standardization of measures and methodologies; (2) context in data collection and management; and (3) hidden populations and the purpose of surveillance in urban settings. Innovative examples of data collection and management in community-based surveillance were discussed, including task-shifting, health worker to community member ratio, and literacy needs.Conclusions:Surveillance in non-camp settings can be informed by surveillance activities in camp-based settings, but requires additional consideration of new methods and population needs to achieve its objectives.

scholarly journals Improving nomenclatural consistency: a decade of experience in the World Register of Marine Species

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Horton ◽  
Serge Gofas ◽  
Andreas Kroh ◽  
Gary C.B. Poore ◽  
Geoffrey Read ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Entry ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Early History ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Difficult Situations ◽  
Over Time

The World Register of Marine species (WoRMS) has been established for a decade. The early history of the database involved compilation of existing global and regional species registers. This aggregation, combined with changes to data types and the changing needs of WoRMS users, has resulted in an evolution of data-entry consistency over time. With the task of aggregating the accepted species names for all marine species approaching completion, our focus has shifted to improving the consistency and quality of data held while keeping pace with the addition of > 2000 new marine species described annually. This paper defines priorities and longer-term aims that promote standardisation within and interoperability among biodiversity databases, provides editors with further information on how to input nomenclatural data in a standardised way and clarifies for users of WoRMS how and why names are represented as they are. We 1) explain the categories of names included; 2) list standard reasons used to explain why a name is considered ‘unaccepted’ or ‘uncertain’; 3) present and explain the more difficult situations encountered; 4) describe categories of sources and notes linked to a taxon; and 5) recommend how type material, type locality and environmental information should be entered.

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