PGIS

The coastal strip of the western peri-urban area of Barranquilla in the Atlántico Department (Colombia) is experiencing changes in human-environment interactions through infrastructure, residential, and tourism projects in a vulnerable landscape. In the hilly area, fragments of biodiverse tropical dry forest still exist in various states of conservation and degradation. To understand the interrelated social, economic, and ecological transformations in the area, we analyzed land use change on the local scale including the local community’s perception, because the local community is a key actor for sustainable land use. For the analysis of the interrelated social, economic, and ecological processes, we combined visual interpretation of high-resolution satellite imagery, on-site field land use mapping, and a spatial statistical analysis of the distribution of land use classes with in-depth interviews and a participatory GIS workshop, thus benefitting from the complementary methodologic...

In Kenya, environmental degradation has occurred at an alarming rate in areas such as the Mau Forest, the home of the majority of the Ogiek people. Traditionally, the Ogiek are hunter-gatherers and have distinctive histories of interaction with the natural environment. But, they have been increasingly rendered homeless through appropriation of parts of the Mau Forest for other uses since the colonial periods. Mau Forest is located in the Rift Valley Province and straddles Kericho, Nakuru, Narok and Bomet districts. Over the years, the Ogiek have inhabited the Mau Forest with little impact on the environment. This paper critically examines the integration of Ogiek’s Indigenous Knowledge in Adult Environmental Education through ODL Strategies for Sustainable Conservation of Mau Forest in Kenya. An ethno-historical approach was employed in the design, instrumentation, data collection, analysis and interpretation. To achieve systematic collection of data, purposive sampling techniques w...

SUMMARY It has been noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract the required number of Geomatics students in various university department s around the world. Consequently, several universities have either closed their Geomatics dep artments or merged them with others in the built environment such as Civil Engineering or Architectu ral departments. The solution to this problem has formed the focus of a number of studies and wor kshops. However, quite often it is seen as a problem demanding novel marketing strategies that have nothing to do with the different branches of Geomatics such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing etc. In fact, in spite of the increase in participatory studies in GIS, no assessment has been done on the impact of those studies in marketing Geomatics. Various authors on social learning theory purport t hat knowledge, and implicitly interest, can be created by an individual based on observations of t he behaviour of another ind...

Although branded as ‘obstructionists’ and major agents of ‘disease and filth’ by city authorities, food vendors remain the pivotal node in the local food system in most informal settlements; therefore, their interaction with the environment and infrastructure services, and challenges they face to keep the food safe to eat, requires further grounded exploration. Food vendors from informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, who are acting as mappers and change agents, are building multi-layered views of places through the deliberative process of knowledge coproduction by participatory sensing, which lead to opportunities and challenges to improve those places.

A compreensão geográfica que elaboramos da realidade considera que cada momento histórico dos processos de usos do território tem a marca de suas técnicas. O fenômeno técnico é apresentado frente às diferentes transformações vivenciadas em todos os lugares. Damos ênfase à compreensão do fenômeno técnico expresso nas dinâmicas funcionais do mundo do presente. Para a compreensão dos processos, identificamos o território usado como categoria analítica e encaramos a realidade como uma totalidade em movimento. Refletimos ainda sobre a difusão das ações e dos objetos técnicos, a qual não se dá de maneira uniforme ou homogênea, na constituição do meio técnico-científico-informacional.

There is an increasing interest in the use of information technology as a participatory planning tool, particularly the use of geographical information technologies to support collaborative activities such as community mapping. However, despite their promise, the introduction of such technologies does not necessarily promote better participation nor improve collaboration. In part this can be attributed to a tendency for planners to focus on the technical considerations associated with these technologies at the expense of broader participation considerations.In this paper we draw on the experiences of a community mapping project with disadvantaged communities in suburban Australia to highlight the importance of selecting tools and techniques which support and enhance participatory planning. This community mapping project, designed to identify and document community‐generated transport issues and solutions, had originally intended to use cadastral maps extracted from the government&#3...

Recentemente, mapeamentos colaborativos se tornaram uma peça fundamental na produção e democratização do acesso a dados geográficos. Mapas com dados abertos, editáveis e acessíveis por qualquer pessoa podem ser uma importante ferramenta para apoiar ações relacionadas ao território. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar as potencialidades e os desafios dos mapeamentos colaborativos feitos presencialmente e compará-los com mapeamentos colaborativos realizados inteiramente de forma virtual, devido ao isolamento social provocado pela pandemia de Covid-19. Relatou-se uma experiência de ensino e extensão composta por capacitação e mutirões de mapeamento colaborativo com o OpenStreetMap para mapear o município de Rio Branco – Acre. Como resultado dos mutirões virtuais de mapeamentos colaborativos, os voluntários adicionaram novos objetos geográficos ao mapa digital, oferecendo um mapa base para ações como decisões logísticas ou socorristas antes, durante ou depois a pandemia.  Por outro lad...

The article pertains to the tax issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in respect of cross-border workers. The main issue is the impact of the restriction in cross-border movements during the pandemic on the determination of the place of work. The authors refer to two situations. The first is when a Polish worker employed by a Polish employer and working abroad cannot return to Poland. The second is when he or she performs work at home in Poland instead of at the normal place of work abroad. The authors consider the legal fiction of carrying out work in the place where it would have been done before the pandemic as a rational solution. However, they are strongly critical of the introduction of such solution via the Mutual Agreement.

Entering the European Union, the Republic of Croatia took over the INSPIRE directive called the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. A large amount of spatial data can be found through the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Geoportal. Data are available for viewing or downloading via different services, such as a web mapping service or web feature service. Although different spatial data are available, it is hard to access useful information through Geoportal. The aim of this paper is to prepare a spatial database which will gather different spatial data related to environmental engineering and present different queries and the visualization of the results. The main data used are related to protected areas in the Republic of Croatia, which register the environmental pollutants, air quality, exploitation and research fields of mineral resources, waste management, water management, and so forth. Alongside the national spatial data, the Copernicus Land monitoring service EU-DEM, the...

This dissertation is a historico-ethnography of a musical category called “salidummay,” a cohort of folk songs that have been performed widely, although not evenly, in the northern Luzon highlands as well as outside the region. This study asks how the musical category “salidummay” has been shaped, and how the villagers of northern Luzon highlands have been engaged with the notion of salidummay’s traditionality. In so doing, it examines: “Who performs salidummay?;” “Under what conditions?;” “For what purposes?;” and “With what results?”
Some forms of indigenous practices of sung-debates and story-telling are the possible precursors of the salidummay. Soldiers during World War II from northern Luzon sang and spread new types of tunes in playing the sung-debates or in singing ballads with their fellow soldiers. In the post-World War II decades, these tunes gained popularity in northern Luzon at large. “Salidummays” have been performed in various musical texts and contexts, with various lyrics, by various actors. “Salidummay” used to be named and spelled variously, too, from “salidomay,” “salidumay,” etc. to “dongdong-ay” and “elalay.” Generally speaking, duple meter, focused pitches (often in anhemitonic pentatonic), simple rhythm structure, and refrain phrases characterize some dozens of tunes identified as those of salidummay in the locality. Owing to such musical features, which facilitate group singing, performances of the salidummay in the post-war era gradually shifted from sung-debates and story-telling to homophonic singing of more specific messages. This shift diminished improvisation in salidummay performances. Instead, prepared and fixed performances have become common.
Since the 1970s, salidummay tunes have been adapted in churches in promoting the indigenization of the liturgy. In the 1980s, the salidummay as the New People Army’s ballads shifted to protest songs, through the advocacy of an autonomous Cordillera. Consequently, “salidummay” became a signifier of the “Cordillera,” and the essentialization of salidummay began. Thus, finally and only recently that the “salidummay” became established as a musical category. Since the 1990s, “salidummay” has been traditionalized in the official and popular discourses of national culture building at large. Such appropriation led to the commodification of salidummay.
My informants from different communities of the northern Luzon highlands have shown inconsistent and ambivalent attitudes toward salidummay, while producing enormous variations of the salidummay. By modifying the notion of duality of agency by Sherry Ortner, which consists of “agency of power” and “agency of cultural project,” I propose that the northern Luzon highlanders possess multiple “agencies of power” and multiple “agencies of cultural projects,” as they constantly engage with layered and multi-directional web of powers formally and informally, at the periphery of a post-colonial nation. Prevailing critiques tend to accuse cultural appropriation as an exploitation of the disempowered. However, I argue that northern Luzon highlanders’ doing and undoing, embracing and negating, or remaining indifferent to the indigenization, traditionalization and commodification of salidummay is their strategy.
While aspects of exploitation by cultural appropriation must not be overlooked, it must not be underestimated that northern Luzon highlanders tactically engage with it. They obtain an extra agency through re-appropriation. The additional agency serves as an extra card in their fight of “serious games.”

Recentemente, mapeamentos colaborativos se tornaram uma peça fundamental na produção e democratização do acesso a dados geográficos. Mapas com dados abertos, editáveis e acessíveis por qualquer pessoa podem ser uma importante ferramenta para apoiar ações relacionadas ao território. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar as potencialidades e os desafios dos mapeamentos colaborativos feitos presencialmente e compará-los com mapeamentos colaborativos realizados inteiramente de forma virtual, devido ao isolamento social provocado pela pandemia de Covid-19. Relatou-se uma experiência de ensino e extensão composta por capacitação e mutirões de mapeamento colaborativo com o OpenStreetMap para mapear o município de Rio Branco – Acre. Como resultado dos mutirões virtuais de mapeamentos colaborativos, os voluntários adicionaram novos objetos geográficos ao mapa digital, oferecendo um mapa base para ações como decisões logísticas ou socorristas antes, durante ou depois a pandemia.  Por outro lad...

Although branded as ‘obstructionists’ and major agents of ‘disease and filth’ by city authorities, food vendors remain the pivotal node in the local food system in most informal settlements; therefore, their interaction with the environment and infrastructure services, and challenges they face to keep the food safe to eat, requires further grounded exploration. Food vendors from informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, who are acting as mappers and change agents, are building multi-layered views of places through the deliberative process of knowledge coproduction by participatory sensing, which lead to opportunities and challenges to improve those places.

Vulnerability index mapping seeks to understand the multidimensional (economic, social, political) and multi-level (individual, household, community or group) issues over a given area under impacts of climate change. In combination with GIS, we created a technical framework, based on Open-source technology, for participation of grassroots groups in calculating area index that are ex-ante prediction of the vulnerable magnitude under impacts of climate change induced water disasters. The Information System provides three main functions: (i) storage of various data viewer; (ii) Web-based analyst tool; and (iii) Information communication. The result is a Web-based GIS, through which stakeholders interactively mapping vulnerability, exchange dialogue and contribute to managers and decision makers. We found that although there is still limitation in having access to internet, the local communities become more active and are willing to involve in the decision making processes.

Even though it is sometimes argued that synonymy is undesirable in legal language, legal language is not devoid of it. In fact, legal language involves cases of syntactical synonymy and lexical synonymy as well as cases of absolute and partial synonymy. Therefore synonymy must be addressed in a legal translation classroom to make trainees aware of all the issues that it may involve, as well as of the fact that terms that may be perceived as synonymous by laypeople are not actually synonymous to lawyers (e.g. murder, homicide, manslaughter). What also needs to be addressed in a legal translation classroom are situations of near-synonyms, whose usage is governed by collocational or contextual restrictions (e.g. breach, violate, infringe) and sometimes involves slight nuances in meaning (e.g. liability v. responsibility, or unlawful, illegal, illicit, etc.). This article introduces a step-by-step approach designed to introduce legal translation trainees to a variety of issues related t...

Causa is a subjective motive that determines the content of the obligation or material interest, which encourages the party to the trade to enter into an obligation taking on the associated burdens. In the countries of continental (mainland) Europe that belong to the Romano-Germanic law system, such as Germany, France, and Italy, the goal (objective) of the parties to the trade, causa, is legally significant. In the theory of the Civil law of the Romano-Germanic system, there is a general principle – any obligation arises for some purpose, which is called the basis of obligation. Causa is an individual interest that meets the requirements of the legal system. France was one of the last European countries that did not recognise the contingency theory as a basis for regulating the binding force of a contract. In practice, the courts have faced criticism of the concept of causation from both doctrine and law enforcement practice. In 2016, there was a significant reform of the French la...

The value of grassroots involvement in climate-related decision-making has received attention in several official climate policy documents starting from Art. 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (UN, 1992, p. 17). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes the importance of traditional knowledge and the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) is a recognised constituency in the UNFCCC COP. The IPCC Third Assessment Report refers to ‘active participation by concerned parties’ (IPCC, 2001, p. 899) and draws attention to local problems and solutions. Moreover UNDP guidelines for adaptation strategies foster grassroots stakeholders’ participation.

Waqaf is a part of philanthropy which contributes directly to the economic development as well as the prosperity of ummah. Waqaf is also a unique property redistribution mechanism because there are no elements of obligations, laws and coercion such as found in the obligation of giving out zakat. In contemporary Waqaf management, the encouragement to practice Waqaf is done through both conventional and online promotions. The existence of these various promotional approaches should be based on ihsan and trust as Waqaf is contributed by members of society to benefits those in needs in the community. Using Critical Discourse Analysis approach, research on promotional materials issued by Waqaf's management institutions / agencies found that ihsan and trust in promoting Waqaf can be materialized through three elements such as Waqaf management approval by the State Islamic Council (MAIN), the trust holders in Waqaf management and Waqaf's purposes. ABSTRAK Waqaf merupakan filantropi...

This article explores the importance of geographical indications within the new trade policy of the European Union, using the example of the CETA and the dispute over Cypriot halloumi cheese. The authors point out that geographical indications occupy an important place within the European Commission’s negotiating strategy primarily because of their significance for the EU economy. In negotiations with third countries, such as Canada, a crucial problem is the different approaches to the protection of typical regional products. Therefore, the Union is trying to transfer its internal solutions to the international level. The detail of regulations, combined with the mixed nature of new trade agreements, makes trade policy vulnerable to blackmail by individual EU Member States. According to the authors, a reasonable solution to this problem – which was highlighted by Cyprus’s veto of the CETA – is to rely on the treaty provisions and the judgements of the Court of Justice of the EU. Thes...

Evento realizado pela Associação Nacional de Pesquisa em Ciência da Informação (ANCIB) e organizado pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação da Universidade Federal da Bahia (PPGCI/UFBA).A geoinformação, informação dotada de localização geográfica na era da sociedade em rede, nasceu da necessidade por conexões em contextos, sejam eles culturais, sociais, econômicos ou físicos e da representação dos mesmos. No caso da geoinformação, a representação ocorre por meio de mapas cartográficos, hoje oriunda de modelos de dados geoespaciais criados para ambientes computacionais. Métodos de representação da geoinformação ainda não foram suficientemente estabelecidos e a ciência da informação, na linha da organização, traz importante arcabouço teórico, especialmente em relação ao conceito de incerteza, como contribuição nesta questão de pesquisa. O objetivo deste artigo foi apresentar um experimento que usou o conceito de incerteza da Ciência da Organização e a abordagem metodol...

We have been developing web-based GIS/database (WebGD) applications that allow users to insert, query, update, and delete geographical features and the data associated with them from standard Web browsers. The code shared by these applications is organized as the WebGD framework. The behavior of the map interface of a WebGD application is defined by configuration files. We have built also the WebGD application generator (WebGD-Gen) that automatically produces those configuration files from the database metadata, including those in tables geometry_columns and spatial_ref_sys. WebGDGen can generate also Web scripts that interact with the map interface and the database. Thus the WebGD framework and WebGD-Gen can significantly reduce the development time and the maintenance cost of a complex Web-based GIS/database application.

As with many other sciences, the field of cartography has developed based on the exclusion of other forms of knowledge of the people from the South. The purpose of this article is to discuss Participatory Mapping (Social cartography) both as a possibility for adult education for social change and for giving voice to social groups, who were historically denied the right to speech, the possibility of sharing their knowledge about space. Based on recent examples, especially in Latin America, it argues that during the mapping activity there is a process of learning exchange between the scholar’s knowledge and the local communities’ knowledge of the mapped spaces where they live.peer-reviewe

Although branded as ‘obstructionists’ and major agents of ‘disease and filth’ by city authorities, food vendors remain the pivotal node in the local food system in most informal settlements; therefore, their interaction with the environment and infrastructure services, and challenges they face to keep the food safe to eat, requires further grounded exploration. Food vendors from informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, who are acting as mappers and change agents, are building multi-layered views of places through the deliberative process of knowledge coproduction by participatory sensing, which lead to opportunities and challenges to improve those places.