Automatic Palaeographic Exploration of Genizah Manuscripts

The Cairo Genizah is a collection of hand-written documents containing approximately 350,000 fragments of mainly Jewish texts discovered in the late 19th century. The fragments are today spread out in some 75 libraries and private collections worldwide, but there is an ongoing effort to document and catalogue all extant fragments. Palaeographic information plays a key role in the study of the Genizah collection. Script style, and–more specifically–handwriting, can be used to identify fragments that might originate from the same original work. Such matched fragments, commonly referred to as “joins”, are currently identified manually by experts, and presumably only a small fraction of existing joins have been discovered to date. In this work, we show that automatic handwriting matching functions, obtained from non-specific features using a corpus of writing samples, can perform this task quite reliably. In addition, we explore the problem of grouping various Genizah documents by script style, without being provided any prior information about the relevant styles. The automatically obtained grouping agrees, for the most part, with the palaeographic taxonomy. In cases where the method fails, it is due to apparent similarities between related scripts

Globalisation and Skills for Development in Rwanda and Tanzania

International Development,

Participatory land management planning in biodiversity conservation areas of Lao PDR

The importance of integrating forest conservation and rural development objectives is much better understood today than in the past. Despite an increased understanding such integration in many countries remains poorly supported in terms of co-ordination between government agencies and stakeholders. Environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity conservation areas to competing alternative uses is widespread throughout the world and Lao PDR is no exception. The forest policy in Lao PDR has developed under the framework of international conventions. The protected area system has been established with the aim of conserving healthy and diverse forests. Rehabilitation and reforestation policies are important complements. The former “rules by decree” approach has been replaced by a set of laws and regulations. This thesis presents and discusses a management approach for biodiversity conservation areas in Lao PDR. As part of that, it highlights the significance of appropriate policies and legislation as a base for sustainable management, discusses various interdisciplinary and interactive planning methods tested in case studies, and analyses the utilisation of non-timber forest products as part of a strategy for sustainable management of biodiversity conservation areas. The integration of techniques from social sciences and natural sciences is emphasised to encourage local participation in managing the conservation areas. Participatory Rural Appraisal, simple sampling methods, and remote sensing were used in the studies. A simple simulation model (the Area Production Model) strengthened the inter-action process. The integrated and cross-sectoral approach turned out to be simple, flexible and dynamic. The recognition of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) plays an important role in the conservation and development of protected area management. A literature review was made to gain insight into the research trend in Southeast Asia in terms of tenure rights of NTFPs and the way people utilise them. Quantitative resource assessment is an important part in sustainable management. In a case study, a participatory two-phase sampling approach for cardamom assessment was developed and tested with a promising result

The political economy of education systems in conflict-affected contexts

This report is a rigorous literature review on the political economy of education systems in conflict-affected contexts and is aimed at education advisers and agencies, development practitioners and Ministry of Education policy makers working in conflict-affected contexts. The report seeks to provide theoretically informed and policy relevant insights on the global, national and local governance of education systems in conflict-affected contexts garnered from a rigorous review of the academic and policy literature on the political economy of education in conflict-affected contexts. The review was driven by three main questions: (1) What are the underpinning assumptions of the main bodies of political economy research in education and conflict? (2) What can the political economy of education literature since 1990 inform us about educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts? (3) What are the strengths, weaknesses, blind spots and research gaps in the political economy of education literature exploring the governance of educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts? Chapter 1 outlines the rationale and aims of the review. Chapter 2, describes the theoretical and conceptual framework and presents the framing of the key issues under review, and Chapter 3 outlines the review methodology. Chapter 4 presents the main characteristics and an assessment of the quality of the studies selected for the in-depth review, and Chapter 5, discusses the review’s main findings. Chapter 6 presents the conclusions of the study, outlines a theory of change that emerges from the findings and draws out the policy insights and research gaps for future study

The Political Economy of Education Systems in Conflict-Affected Contexts: A Rigorous Literature Review

This report is a rigorous literature review on the political economy of education systems in conflict-affected contexts and is aimed at education advisers and agencies, development practitioners and Ministry of Education policy makers working in conflict-affected contexts. The report seeks to provide theoretically informed and policy relevant insights on the global, national and local governance of education systems in conflict-affected contexts garnered from a rigorous review of the academic and policy literature on the political economy of education in conflict-affected contexts.<p></p> The review was driven by three main questions: (1) What are the underpinning assumptions of the main bodies of political economy research in education and conflict? (2) What can the political economy of education literature since 1990 inform us about educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts? (3) What are the strengths, weaknesses, blind spots and research gaps in the political economy of education literature exploring the governance of educational change and reform in conflict-affected contexts?<p></p> Chapter 1 outlines the rationale and aims of the review. Chapter 2, describes the theoretical and conceptual framework and presents the framing of the key issues under review, and Chapter 3 outlines the review methodology. Chapter 4 presents the main characteristics and an assessment of the quality of the studies selected for the in-depth review, and Chapter 5, discusses the review’s main findings. Chapter 6 presents the conclusions of the study, outlines a theory of change that emerges from the findings and draws out the policy insights and research gaps for future study

CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges