scholarly journals The Role of Education in the International Map Year 2015/16

Author(s):  
D. Fairbairn

This paper considers the nature of the ICA-organised International Map Year (IMY), an initiative supported through United Nations structures, including the United Nations initiative on Global Geographic Information Management (UN-GGIM). Preparatory work for this project has been undertaken by a Working Group of the International Cartographic Association, and details are presented of the way in which IMY will be organised and promoted. Particular activities mentioned in depth include "national map days", children’s activities, and a new book. The educational aspects of IMY are addressed, and the roles of the events and resources Are considered. It is concluded that IMY gives a significant opportunity to the world-wide cartographic community to promote its discipline through the medium of a series of activities which can be co-ordinated by ICA, but delivered at a national level.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayako Kagawa ◽  
Guillaume Le Sourd

United Nations Secretariat activities, mapping began in 1946, and by 1951, the need for maps increased and an office with a team of cartographers was established. Since then, with the development of technologies including internet, remote sensing, unmanned aerial systems, relationship database management and information systems, geospatial information provides an ever-increasing variation of support to the work of the Organization for planning of operations, decision-making and monitoring of crises. However, the need for maps has remained intact. This presentation aims to highlight some of the cartographic representation styles over the decades by reviewing the evolution of selected maps by the office, and noting the changing cognitive and semiotic aspects of cartographic and geographic visualization required by the United Nations. Through presentation and analysis of these maps, the changing dynamics of the Organization in information management can be reflected, with a reminder of the continuing and expanding deconstructionist role of a cartographer, now geospatial information management experts.


2021 ◽  
pp. 008124632199445
Author(s):  
Tammy-lee Pretorius

COVID-19 spread rapidly across the world, and by March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was identified in South Africa. Lockdown-related measures such as restricted movement and isolation were implemented to contain the virus. Combined with these measures, factors such as economic decline, job losses, and food shortages can cause numerous mental health sequelae such as depression. Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness as well as cases of suicide have been reported around the world due to the pandemic and the associated feelings of anxiety and depression. The aims of this study were to investigate levels of hopelessness and depression in a sample of health care students. A random sample of students ( N = 174) enrolled in a health sciences programme at the University of the Western Cape completed the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and a three-item Resilience Scale. The results revealed high levels of hopelessness and depression compared to previously reported normative data for these scales. In addition, the indirect effects of hopelessness on depression were significant, demonstrating the mediating role of resilience in the hopelessness–depression relationship. These results highlight a call for universities to take proactive measures in providing students with free and easily accessible resources to help them cope and manage stress during a traumatic event. More importantly, at a national level, preventive measures should be implemented to strengthen resilience in young adults.


1964 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 440-442
Author(s):  
Ronald Robinson

At the fourth Cambridge conference on development problems, the role of industry was discussed by ministers, senior officials, economic advisers, and business executives, from 22 African, Asian, and Caribbean countries, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Have some, if not all, of Africa's new nations now reached the stage when it would pay them to put their biggest bets on quick industrialisation? Or must they go on putting most of their money and brains into bringing about an agricultural revolution first, before striving for industrial take-off? These questions started the conference off on one of its big themes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 889-895
Author(s):  
Frăguța Zaharia

The present European context challenges us to approach the issues of Romanian dignity, humanity and humanism. The purpose of this essay is to emphasize the interpretative and explanatory dimensions of Constantin Micu Stavila’s philosophical thinking focused on the meaning of life and the human destiny, no less on the significance of the Christian personalism that the Romanian-French philosopher has cultivated it. Some questions arise: What is the role of philosophy and religion in understanding the meaning of life? How do we have to consider the human being and by especially the characteristics defining the Human within the Romanian culture? Trying to provide an honest, coherent and enlightening response, the paper is organized into two parts: 1. The mission of Romanian philosophy – attempting to demonstrate that the Romanian culture is integrating itself in the world-wide one seeing that there is an intimate complementarity of philosophy and religion; and 2. Romanian cultural messianism – developing an interpretation of the Romanian folklore according to the topic of the paper.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 405-424
Author(s):  
Pia Acconci

The World Health Organization (who) was established in 1946 as a specialized agency of the United Nations (un). Since its establishment, the who has managed outbreaks of infectious diseases from a regulatory, as well as an operational perspective. The adoption of the International Health Regulations (ihrs) has been an important achievement from the former perspective. When the Ebola epidemic intensified in 2014, the who Director General issued temporary recommendations under the ihrs in order to reduce the spread of the disease and minimize cross-border barriers to international trade. The un Secretary General and then the Security Council and the General Assembly have also taken action against the Ebola epidemic. In particular, the Security Council adopted a resolution under Chapter vii of the un Charter, and thus connected the maintenance of the international peace and security to the health and social emergency. After dealing with the role of the who as a guide and coordinator of the reaction to epidemics, this article shows how the action by the Security Council against the Ebola epidemic impacts on the who ‘authority’ for the protection of health.


2011 ◽  
pp. 89-100
Author(s):  
Ali Jafari

Today’s portals bring together existing technologies in useful, innovative ways, but they don’t scratch the surface of what is possible. The constant build-up of information and resources on the World Wide Web demands a smarter more advanced portal technology that offers dynamic, personalized, customized, and intelligent services. This chapter discusses next-generation portals and the requirement that they come to know their users and understand their individual interests and preferences. It describes a new generation of portals that have a level of autonomy, making informed, logical decisions and performing useful tasks on behalf of their members. The chapter highlights the role of artificial intelligence in framing the next generation of portal technology and in developing their capabilities for learning about their users.


Author(s):  
Sunny Rai ◽  
Shampa Chakraverty ◽  
Devendra Kumar Tayal

Commercial advertisements, social campaigns, and ubiquitous online reviews are a few non-literary domains where creative text is profusely embedded to capture a viewer's imagination. Recent AI business applications such as chatbots and interactive digital campaigns emphasise the need to process creative text for a seamless and fulfilling user experience. Figurative text in human communication conveys implicit perceptions and unspoken emotions. Metaphor is one such figure of speech that maps a latent idea in a target domain to an evocative concept from a source domain. This chapter explores the problem of computational metaphor interpretation through the glass of subjectivity. The world wide web is mined to learn about the source domain concept. Ekman emotion categories and pretrained word embeddings are used to model the subjectivity. The performance evaluation is performed to determine the reader's preference for emotive vs non emotive meanings. This chapter establishes the role of subjectivity and user inclination towards the meaning that fits in their existing cognitive schema.


Author(s):  
Alison Harcourt ◽  
George Christou ◽  
Seamus Simpson

This chapter explains one of the most important components of the web: the development and standardization of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and DOM (Document Object Model) which are used for creating web pages and applications. In 1994, Tim Berners-Lee established the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) to work on HTML development. In 1995, the W3C decided to introduce a new standard, WHTML 2.0. However, it was incompatible with the older HTML/WHTML versions. This led to the establishment of Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) which worked externally to the W3C. WHATWG developed HTML5 which was adopted by the major browser developers Google, Opera, Mozilla, IBM, Microsoft, and Apple. For this reason, the W3C decided to work on HTML5, leading to a joint WHATWG/W3C working group. This chapter explains the development of HTML and WHATWG’s Living Standard with explanation of ongoing splits and agreements between the two fora. It explains how this division of labour led to W3C focus on the main areas of web architecture, the semantic web, the web of devices, payments applications, and web and television (TV) standards. This has led to the spillover of work to the W3C from the national sphere, notably in the development of copyright protection for TV streaming.


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