The Obligations of Transnational Corporations in the Global Context

Dans cet article nous défendrons l'idée que la notion courante d'obligation s'avère inadéquate pour régler des problèmes globaux. Nous ferions mieux de reconnaitre des acteurs collectifs, spécialement des multinationales, comme des agents importants dans le domaine des droits de l'homme puisqu'ils sont beaucoup mieux préparés pour traiter des problèmes complexes que les individus. Deuxièmement, cet article défends l'idée que ceci n'est pas particulièrement idealiste, car elle prend sa source dans des phénomènes politiques actuels. Le droit international et les arrangements extra-juridiques peuvent être interprétés comme un cadre institutionnel suscitant une contrainte de justification. Néanmoins, toutes les initiatives d'auto-régulation privée ne sont pas souhaitables ou légitimes.This article argues that our prevailing notion of obligations is inadequate for regulating large-scale problems. Collective actors, especially corporations, should be recognized as having obligations in human rights issues as they are much better prepared to deal with complex problems than individuals. Secondly, it is argued that ascribing such obligations is not loftily idealistic, but has its roots in current political phenomena. Contemporary international law and non-legal arrangements create an institutional framework that pressures collectives to justify their actions. Nevertheless, some of these new modes of governance lack legitimacy because they neglect the participation of the individual

Grounding for a computational model of place

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2006.Text printed 2 columns per page.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-70).Places are spatial locations that have been given meaning by human experience. The sense of a place is it's support for experiences and the emotional responses associated with them. This sense provides direction and focus for our daily lives. Physical maps and their electronic decedents deconstruct places into discrete data and require user interpretation to reconstruct the original sense of place. Is it possible to create maps that preserve this sense of place and successfully communicate it to the user? This thesis presents a model, and an application upon that model, that captures sense of place for translation, rather then requires the user to recreate it from disparate data. By grounding a human place-sense for machine interpretation, new presentations of space can be presented that more accurately mirror human cognitive conceptions. By using measures of semantic distance a user can observe the proximity of place not only in distance but also by context or association. Applications built upon this model can then construct representations that show places that are similar in feeling or reasonable destinations given the user's current location.(cont.) To accomplish this, the model attempts to understand place in the context a human might by using commonsense reasoning to analyze textual descriptions of place, and implicit statements of support for the role of these places in natural activity. It produces a semantic description of a place in terms of human action and emotion. Representations built upon these descriptions can offer powerful changes in the cognitive processing of space.Matthew Curtis Hockenberry.S.M

Collaborative Research: Matching Levels of Detail in Descriptions and Depictions of Geographic Space

This collaborative research project focuses on issues related to wayfinding, and is at the interface of geographic information science and human cognition. The research addresses the questions of the relationship between verbal and pictorial representations of geographic information, and how both representation modes can be successfully integrated in systems relating geographic information to users. To address this question, a theory of content and level of geographic detail is constructed that is independent of specific mode. The research is founded upon computational and cognitive theories of geographic information. The main idea is that theories of information granularity can be imposed on a \u27canonical model\u27 of dual mode information, enabling inter-modal comparisons and transformations to be made between levels of detail and information content. The level of detail that should be presented in each of the verbal and pictorial modes, and relationships between levels of detail in each mode, are important areas of investigation. The theory of information granularity should accord with human cognition, and a major part of the work will be the testing of the theory by a graded set of experiments with human subjects. The research will be evaluated through the construction of a demonstrator mobile \u27wayfinding assistant\u27 that will operate using both verbal and pictorial modes. This project is motivated by the task of wayfinding in an unknown city, using a portable, mobile, digital wayfinding assistant, with two interaction modes, verbal and pictorial, and some locational and directional capabilities. With increasing use of multimedia, this research will help to formulate guidelines for effective presentation of pictoral and verbal spatial information. The research addresses fundamental questions such as: What should be the balance between modes of information supplied to the user? Should the information to be represented in each mode be complementary or supplementary? If it is necessary to \u27switch off\u27 a mode, how can this be done seamlessly, with the same level of detail presented? The ability to change flexibly between modalities may be especially appropriate for individuals with sensory impairments, as well as those whose tasks require both modes operating simultaneously, or those who need to switch seamlessly between modes (e.g. a driver of a vehicle who must switch from a visual display to audio cues because of the need to concentrate full visual attention on a traffic situation)

05491 Abstracts Collection -- Spatial Cognition: Specialization and Integration

From 04.12.05 to 09.12.05, the Dagstuhl Seminar 05491 ``Spatial Cognition: Specialization and Integration\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Childhood and the politics of scale: Descaling children's geographies?

This is the post-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 SAGE Publications.The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of interest in the geographies of children's lives, and particularly in engaging the voices and activities of young people in geographical research. Much of this growing body of scholarship is characterized by a very parochial locus of interest — the neighbourhood, playground, shopping mall or journey to school. In this paper I explore some of the roots of children's geographies' preoccupation with the micro-scale and argue that it limits the relevance of research, both politically and to other areas of geography. In order to widen the scope of children's geographies, some scholars have engaged with developments in the theorization of scale. I present these arguments but also point to their limitations. As an alternative, I propose that the notion of a flat ontology might help overcome some difficulties around scalar thinking, and provide a useful means of conceptualizing sociospatiality in material and non-hierarchical terms. Bringing together flat ontology and work in children's geographies on embodied subjectivity, I argue that it is important to examine the nature and limits of children's spaces of perception and action. While these spaces are not simply `local', they seldom afford children opportunities to comment on, or intervene in, the events, processes and decisions that shape their own lives. The implications for the substance and method of children's geographies and for geographical work on scale are considered

NASA space station automation: AI-based technology review

Research and Development projects in automation for the Space Station are discussed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based automation technologies are planned to enhance crew safety through reduced need for EVA, increase crew productivity through the reduction of routine operations, increase space station autonomy, and augment space station capability through the use of teleoperation and robotics. AI technology will also be developed for the servicing of satellites at the Space Station, system monitoring and diagnosis, space manufacturing, and the assembly of large space structures