The Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity in a Digital Networked Environment : Mapping Possible Advances to Coherence

The present paper is the result of a four-year-long project examining the concept and the policies of cultural diversity and the impact of digital media upon the regulatory environment where the goal of cultural diversity is to be achieved. The focus of the project was primarily on the international level and in particular on the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which also epitomise the often framed as opposing pair of trade and culture. In the broad context of the project, we sought to pinpoint the essential elements of an international trade-and-culture conducive framework that can also overcome the existing fragmentation in the field of international law and move towards more coherent solutions. In a narrower context, we sketched some possible improvements to the WTO law that can make it more suitable to the digital networked environment and to the objective of diverse media that some states aspire. . Our key messages are: (1) Neither the WTO nor UNESCO currently offers appropriate solutions to the trade and culture predicament and allows for efficient protection and promotion of cultural diversity; (2) The trade and culture discourse is overly politicised and due to the related path dependencies, a number of feasible solutions appears presently blocked; (3) The digital networked environment has profoundly changed the ways cultural content is created, distributed, accessed and consumed, and may thus offer good reasons to reassess and readjust the present models of governance; (4) Access to information appears to be the most appropriate focus of the discussions with view to protecting and promoting cultural diversity in the new digital media setting, both in local and global contexts; (5) This new focal point demands also broadening and interconnecting the policy discussions, which should go beyond the narrow scope of audiovisual media services, but cautiously account for the developments at the network and applications levels, as well as in other domains, such as most notably intellectual property rights protection; (6) There are various ways in which the WTO can be made more conducive to cultural policy considerations and these include, among others, improved and updated services classifications; enhanced legal certainty with regard to digitally transferred goods and services; incorporation of rules on subsidies for services and on competition.

Coastal Survey Maps: From Historical Documents to Digital Databases

This paper describes the spatial data handling procedures used to create a vector database of the Connecticut shoreline from Coastal Survey Maps. The appendix contains detailed information on how the procedures were implemented using Geographic Transformer Software 5 and ArcGIS 8.3. The project was a joint project of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and the University of Connecticut Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.

Digital image processing techniques as a tool for evaluating and mapping patinas on granite monuments

Monument conservation is related to the interaction between the original petrological parameters of the rock and external factors in the area where the building is sited, such as weather conditions, pollution, and so on. Depending on the environmental conditions and the characteristics of the materials used, different types of weathering predominate. In all, the appearance of surface crusts constitutes a first stage, whose origin can often be traced to the properties of the material itself. In the present study, different colours of “patinas” were distinguished by defining the threshold levels of greys associated with “pathology” in the histogram. These data were compared to background information and other parameters, such as mineralogical composition, porosity, and so on, as well as other visual signs of deterioration. The result is a map of the pathologies associated with “cover films” on monuments, which generate images by relating colour characteristics to desired properties or zones of interest.

Digital business reporting standards:mapping the battle in France

Government agencies use information technology extensively to collect business data for regulatory purposes. Data communication standards form part of the infrastructure with which businesses must conform to survive. We examine the development of, and emerging competition between, two open business reporting data standards adopted by government bodies in France; EDIFACT (incumbent) and XBRL (challenger). The research explores whether an incumbent may be displaced in a setting in which the contention is unresolved. We apply Latour’s (1992) translation map to trace the enrolments and detours in the battle. We find that regulators play an important role as allies in the development of the standards. The antecedent networks in which the standards are located embed strong beliefs that become barriers to collaboration and fuel the battle. One of the key differentiating attitudes is whether speed is more important than legitimacy. The failure of collaboration encourages competition. The newness of XBRL’s technology just as regulators need to respond to an economic crisis and its adoption by French regulators not using EDIFACT create an opportunity for the challenger to make significant network gains over the longer term. ANT also highlights the importance of the preservation of key components of EDIFACT in ebXML.

Exploring mapping-based visualisations of large remote image databases

Image database visualisations, in particular mapping-based visualisations, provide an interesting approach to accessing image repositories as they are able to overcome some of the drawbacks associated with retrieval based approaches. However, making a mapping-based approach work efficiently on large remote image databases, has yet to be explored. In this paper, we present Web-Based Images Browser (WBIB), a novel system that efficiently employs image pyramids to reduce bandwidth requirements so that users can interactively explore large remote image databases. © 2013 Authors.

Digital soil mapping using reference area and artificial neural networks.

Digital soil mapping is an alternative for the recognition of soil classes in areas where pedological surveys are not available. The main aim of this study was to obtain a digital soil map using artificial neural networks (ANN) and environmental variables that express soillandscape relationships. This study was carried out in an area of 11,072 ha located in the Barra Bonita municipality, state of São Paulo, Brazil. A soil survey was obtained from a reference area of approximately 500 ha located in the center of the area studied. With the mapping units identified together with the environmental variables elevation, slope, slope plan, slope profile, convergence index, geology and geomorphic surfaces, a supervised classification by ANN was implemented. The neural network simulator used was the Java NNS with the learning algorithm "back propagation." Reference points were collected for evaluating the performance of the digital map produced. The occurrence of soils in the landscape obtained in the reference area was observed in the following digital classification: medium-textured soils at the highest positions of the landscape, originating from sandstone, and clayey loam soils in the end thirds of the hillsides due to the greater presence of basalt. The variables elevation and slope were the most important factors for discriminating soil class through the ANN. An accuracy level of 82% between the reference points and the digital classification was observed. The methodology proposed allowed for a preliminary soil classification of an area not previously mapped using mapping units obtained in a reference area

Avaliação de técnicas de classificação digital de imagens landsat em diferentes padrões de cobertura da terra em Rondônia

Remotely sensed imagery has been widely used for land use/cover classification thanks to the periodic data acquisition and the widespread use of digital image processing systems offering a wide range of classification algorithms. The aim of this work was to evaluate some of the most commonly used supervised and unsupervised classification algorithms under different landscape patterns found in Rondônia, including (1) areas of mid-size farms, (2) fish-bone settlements and (3) a gradient of forest and Cerrado (Brazilian savannah). Comparison with a reference map based on the kappa statistics resulted in good to superior indicators (best results - K-means: k=0.68; k=0.77; k=0.64 and MaxVer: k=0.71; k=0.89; k=0.70 respectively for three areas mentioned). Results show that choosing a specific algorithm requires to take into account both its capacity to discriminate among various spectral signatures under different landscape patterns as well as a cost/benefit analysis considering the different steps performed by the operator performing a land cover/use map. it is suggested that a more systematic assessment of several options of implementation of a specific project is needed prior to beginning a land use/cover mapping job.

Evaluation of follicular lymphoid depletion in the Bursa of Fabricius: an alternative methodology using digital image analysis and artificial neural networks

Fifty Bursa of Fabricius (BF) were examined by conventional optical microscopy and digital images were acquired and processed using Matlab® 6.5 software. The Artificial Neuronal Network (ANN) was generated using Neuroshell® Classifier software and the optical and digital data were compared. The ANN was able to make a comparable classification of digital and optical scores. The use of ANN was able to classify correctly the majority of the follicles, reaching sensibility and specificity of 89% and 96%, respectively. When the follicles were scored and grouped in a binary fashion the sensibility increased to 90% and obtained the maximum value for the specificity of 92%. These results demonstrate that the use of digital image analysis and ANN is a useful tool for the pathological classification of the BF lymphoid depletion. In addition it provides objective results that allow measuring the dimension of the error in the diagnosis and classification therefore making comparison between databases feasible.

Impact of Commercial Search Engines and International Databases on Engineering Teaching and Research

For the last three decades, the engineering higher education and professional environments have been completely transformed by the "electronic/digital information revolution" that has included the introduction of personal computer, the development of email and world wide web, and broadband Internet connections at home. Herein the writer compares the performances of several digital tools with traditional library resources. While new specialised search engines and open access digital repositories may fill a gap between conventional search engines and traditional references, these should be not be confused with real libraries and international scientific databases that encompass textbooks and peer-reviewed scholarly works. An absence of listing in some Internet search listings, databases and repositories is not an indication of standing. Researchers, engineers and academics should remember these key differences in assessing the quality of bibliographic "research" based solely upon Internet searches.

Mapping glider habitat in dry eucalypt forests for Montreal Process indicator 1.1: Fragmentation of forest types

Accurate habitat mapping is critical to landscape ecological studies such as required for developing and testing Montreal Process indicator 1.1e, fragmentation of forest types. This task poses a major challenge to remote sensing, especially in mixedspecies, variable-age forests such as dry eucalypt forests of subtropical eastern Australia. In this paper, we apply an innovative approach that uses a small section of one-metre resolution airborne data to calibrate a moderate spatial resolution model (30 m resolution; scale 1:50 000) based on Landsat Thematic Mapper data to estimate canopy structural properties in St Marys State Forest, near Maryborough, south-eastern Queensland. The approach applies an image-processing model that assumes each image pixel is significantly larger than individual tree crowns and gaps to estimate crown-cover percentage, stem density and mean crown diameter. These parameters were classified into three discrete habitat classes to match the ecology of four exudivorous arboreal species (yellowbellied glider Petaurus australis, sugar glider P. breviceps, squirrel glider P. norfolcensis , and feathertail glider Acrobates pygmaeus), and one folivorous arboreal marsupial, the greater glider Petauroides volans. These species were targeted due to the known ecological preference for old trees with hollows, and differences in their home range requirements. The overall mapping accuracy, visually assessed against transects (n = 93) interpreted from a digital orthophoto and validated in the field, was 79% (KHAT statistic = 0.72). The KHAT statistic serves as an indicator of the extent that the percentage correct values of the error matrix are due to ‘true’ agreement verses ‘chance’ agreement. This means that we are able to reliably report on the effect of habitat loss on target species, especially those with a large home range size (e.g. yellow-bellied glider). However, the classified habitat map failed to accurately capture the spatial patterning (e.g. patch size and shape) of stands with a trace or sub-dominance of senescent trees. This outcome makes the reporting of the effects of habitat fragmentation more problematic, especially for species with a small home range size (e.g. feathertail glider). With further model refinement and validation, however, this moderateresolution approach offers an important, cost eff e c t i v e advancement in mapping the age of dry eucalypt forests in the region.

Mapping Culture and Compromised Art in the Era of Globalization

This work presents an analysis of the cultural and artistic field, positively compromised with social and political questions. The authors start with the categorization of the idea of culture and move to vindication art movements. These movements, which followed the first vanguards and worked from the compromise with “otherness”, are at the origin of the contemporary denomination of political art. In this context, the authors approach the origins of activist art, referring to issues of gender, multiculturalism, globalization, and poverty. The different forms of presenting content are also an object of analysis: from art tradition to the contamination of daily life, from local to global, from street contact to digital.

INbreast: Toward a Full-field Digital Mammographic Database

Rationale and Objectives Computer-aided detection and diagnosis (CAD) systems have been developed in the past two decades to assist radiologists in the detection and diagnosis of lesions seen on breast imaging exams, thus providing a second opinion. Mammographic databases play an important role in the development of algorithms aiming at the detection and diagnosis of mammary lesions. However, available databases often do not take into consideration all the requirements needed for research and study purposes. This article aims to present and detail a new mammographic database. Materials and Methods Images were acquired at a breast center located in a university hospital (Centro Hospitalar de S. João [CHSJ], Breast Centre, Porto) with the permission of the Portuguese National Committee of Data Protection and Hospital's Ethics Committee. MammoNovation Siemens full-field digital mammography, with a solid-state detector of amorphous selenium was used. Results The new database—INbreast—has a total of 115 cases (410 images) from which 90 cases are from women with both breasts affected (four images per case) and 25 cases are from mastectomy patients (two images per case). Several types of lesions (masses, calcifications, asymmetries, and distortions) were included. Accurate contours made by specialists are also provided in XML format. Conclusion The strengths of the actually presented database—INbreast—relies on the fact that it was built with full-field digital mammograms (in opposition to digitized mammograms), it presents a wide variability of cases, and is made publicly available together with precise annotations. We believe that this database can be a reference for future works centered or related to breast cancer imaging.

Geospatial database generation from digital newspapers: use case for risk and disaster domains.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

A first attempt of geographically-distributed Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM): mapping human time and energy throughput in metropolitan Barcelona

This study presents a first attempt to extend the “Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM)” approach to a spatial dimension using GIS techniques in the Metropolitan area of Barcelona. We use a combination of census and commercial databases along with a detailed land cover map to create a layer of Common Geographic Units that we populate with the local values of human time spent in different activities according to MuSIASEM hierarchical typology. In this way, we mapped the hours of available human time, in regards to the working hours spent in different locations, putting in evidence the gradients in spatial density between the residential location of workers (generating the work supply) and the places where the working hours are actually taking place. We found a strong three-modal pattern of clumps of areas with different combinations of values of time spent on household activities and on paid work. We also measured and mapped spatial segregation between these two activities and put forward the conjecture that this segregation increases with higher energy throughput, as the size of the functional units must be able to cope with the flow of exosomatic energy. Finally, we discuss the effectiveness of the approach by comparing our geographic representation of exosomatic throughput to the one issued from conventional methods.

Debris flow susceptibility mapping at a regional scale

Debris flow susceptibility mapping at a regional scale has been the subject of various studies. The complexity of the phenomenon and the variability of local controlling factors limit the use of process-based models for a first assessment. GISbased approaches associating an automatic detection of the source areas and a simple assessment of the debris flow spreading may provide a substantial basis for a preliminary susceptibility assessment at the regional scale. The use of a digital elevation model, with a 10 m resolution, for the Canton de Vaud territory (Switzerland), a lithological map and a land use map, has allowed automatic identification of the potential source areas. The spreading estimates are based on basic probabilistic and energy calculations that allow to define the maximal runout distance of a debris flow.