MSUO Information Technology and Geographical Information Systems: Common Protocols & Procedures. Report to the Marine Safety Umbrella Operation

The Marine Safety Umbrella Operation (MSUO) facilitates the cooperation between Interreg funded Marine Safety Projects and maritime stakeholders. The main aim of MSUO is to permit efficient operation of new projects through Project Cooperation Initiatives, these include the review of the common protocols and procedures for Information Technology (IT) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This study carried out by CSA Group and the National Centre for Geocomputation (NCG) reviews current spatial information standards in Europe and the data management methodologies associated with different marine safety projects. International best practice was reviewed based on the combined experience of spatial data research at NCG and initiatives in the US, Canada and the UK relating to marine security service information and acquisition and integration of large marine datasets for ocean management purposes. This report identifies the most appropriate international data management practices that could be adopted for future MSUO projects

An Approach to Publish Spatial Data on the Web: The GeoLinked Data Case

In this paper we report on an ongoing process aimed at publishing hydrographical data on the Web with a Spanish GeoLinked Data Use Case. Moreover, we discuss the process we followed, and propose methodological guidelines for all the activities involved within the process

Exploring the potential offered by legacy soil databases for ecosystem services mapping of Central African soils

C

Innovation as a Nonlinear Process, the Scientometric Perspective, and the Specification of an "Innovation Opportunities Explorer"

The process of innovation follows non-linear patterns across the domains of science, technology, and the economy. Novel bibliometric mapping techniques can be used to investigate and represent distinctive, but complementary perspectives on the innovation process (e.g., "demand" and "supply") as well as the interactions among these perspectives. The perspectives can be represented as "continents" of data related to varying extents over time. For example, the different branches of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in the Medline database provide sources of such perspectives (e.g., "Diseases" versus "Drugs and Chemicals"). The multiple-perspective approach enables us to reconstruct facets of the dynamics of innovation, in terms of selection mechanisms shaping localizable trajectories and/or resulting in more globalized regimes. By expanding the data with patents and scholarly publications, we demonstrate the use of this multi-perspective approach in the case of RNA Interference (RNAi). The possibility to develop an "Innovation Opportunities Explorer" is specified.Comment: Technology Analysis and Strategic Management (forthcoming in 2013

Stan i perspektywy kształcenia w zakresie GIS i geoinformacji w Polsce na uniwersyteckich kierunkach geograficznych

Norway Grants FSS/2014/HEI/W/0114/U/001

A vision for global monitoring of biological invasions

Managing biological invasions relies on good global coverage of species distributions. Accurate information on alien species distributions, obtained from international policy and cross-border co-operation, is required to evaluate trans-boundary and trading partnership risks. However, a standardized approach for systematically monitoring alien species and tracking biological invasions is still lacking. This Perspective presents a vision for global observation and monitoring of biological invasions. We show how the architecture for tracking biological invasions is provided by a minimum information set of Essential Variables, global collaboration on data sharing and infrastructure, and strategic contributions by countries. We show how this novel, synthetic approach to an observation system for alien species provides a tangible and attainable solution to delivering the information needed to slow the rate of new incursions and reduce the impacts of invaders. We identify three Essential Variables for Invasion Monitoring; alien species occurrence, species alien status and alien species impact. We outline how delivery of this minimum information set by joint, complementary contributions from countries and global community initiatives is possible. Country contributions are made feasible using a modular approach where all countries are able to participate and strategically build their contributions to a global information set over time. The vision we outline will deliver wide-ranging benefits to countries and international efforts to slow the rate of biological invasions and minimize their environmental impacts. These benefits will accrue over time as global coverage and information on alien species increases

Critical Connections: Linking States' Unit Record Systems to Track Student Progress

Presents results from a national inventory of student unit record systems and examines how states use this data to track student progress. Offers recommendations on developing a national database, and linking K-12 and higher education records

The spatial component of R&D networks

We study the role of geography in R&D networks by means of a quantitative, micro-geographic approach. Using a large database that covers international R&D collaborations from 1984 to 2009, we localize each actor precisely in space through its latitude and longitude. This allows us to analyze the R&D network at all geographic scales simultaneously. Our empirical results show that despite the high importance of the city level, transnational R&D collaborations at large distances are much more frequent than expected from similar networks. This provides evidence for the ambiguity of distance in economic cooperation which is also suggested by the existing literature. In addition we test whether the hypothesis of local buzz and global pipelines applies to the observed R&D network by calculating well-defined metrics from network theory.Comment: Working paper, 22 pages, 7 figure