146,202 research outputs found
Development of an Adaptive Environmental Management System for Lejweleputswa District: A Participatory Approach through Fuzzy Cognitive Maps
Published ThesisEnvironmental pollution caused by mines within the district of Lejweleputswa in Free
State is a major contributor to health issues and the inability to grow crops within the
mining communities. Mining industries continue to develop environmental
management systems/plans to mitigate the impact their operations has on the society.
Even with these plans, there are still issues of environmental pollution affecting the
society. Though there are Information Communication and Technology (ICT) based
pollution monitoring solutions, their use is dismal due to lack of appreciation or
understanding of how they disseminate information. Furthermore, non-adopting
community members are being regarded as inherently conservative or irrational, but
these community members argue that the recommendations and technologies brought
to them are not always appropriate to their circumstances. There was concern that
local peopleâs knowledge of their environment, farming systems, and their social as
well as economic situation had been ignored and underestimated when ICTs solutions
are being implemented (Warburton & Martin, 1999). Another challenge is that there is
no station to monitor pollution for small communities such as Nyakallong in the district.
This result in mining communities depending on their own local knowledge to observe and monitor mining related environmental pollution. However, this local knowledge
has never been tested scientifically or analysed to recognize its usability or
effectiveness. Mining companies tend to ignore this knowledge from the communities
as it is treated like common information with no much scientific value. As a step
towards verifying or validating this local knowledge, fuzzy cognitive maps were used
to model, analyse and represent this linguistic local knowledge.
Although this local knowledge assists in mitigating environmental pollution,
incorporating it with scientific knowledge will improve its relevance, trustworthiness
and acceptability by majority of community members and policy-makers. Information
and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can accelerate this integration; this is the
focus of this research. The increased usages of Information Technology being witnessed today makes it the
most important factor for the world to depend on for solutions to many of todayâs and
tomorrowâs problems. These solutions make use of various forms for dissemination
purposes, one of the most versatile dissemination device is a mobile phone since majority of the worldâs population do own a mobile phone. In this way information is
easily accessible by almost everyone that needs it.
A novel environmental management solution was designed to work within the mining
communities of Lejweleputswa. The research started off by designing a unique
integration framework that creates the much-needed link between local knowledge
and scientific knowledge. The framework was then converted into an adaptable
environmental pollution management system prototype made up of three components;
(1) gathering environmental pollution knowledge; (2) environmental monitoring and;
(3) environmental dissemination and communication. To achieve sustainability,
relevance and acceptability, local knowledge was integrated in each of the three
components while mobile phones were used as both input and output devices for the
system. In order to facilitate collection and conservation of local knowledge on
environmental monitoring, an elaborate android-based mobile application was
developed. Wireless sensor-based gas sensor boards were acquired, and deployed
as a compliment to conventional monitoring stations, they were used to gather
scientific knowledge. To allow for public access to the systemâs data, a web portal and an SMS-based component were also implemented. In order to collect local knowledge
from community, a case study of Nyakallong community in Lejweleputswa was carried
out. On completion of the system prototype, it was evaluated by participants from the
community; 90% of respondents gave a score of âexcellent â
Recommended from our members
Managing knowledge in the context of sustainable construction
The 21st century has been a growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability agenda. Moreover for construction, it has become increasingly important as clients are pushing for a more sustainable product to complement their organisationsâ own strategic plans. Sustainable development can be defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Sustainable construction is therefore seen as the application of sustainable practices to the activities of the construction sector. One of the key factors in making construction projects more sustainable is overcoming the obstacles of capturing and managing the knowledge required by project teams to effect such change. Managing this knowledge is key to the construction industry because of the unique characteristics of its projects, i.e. multi-disciplinary teams, dynamic participation of team members, heavy reliance on previous experiences/heuristics, the one-off nature of the projects, tight schedules, limited budget, etc. Initiatives within the industry and academic research are developing mechanisms and tools for managing knowledge in construction firms and projects. Such work has so far addressed the issues of capturing, storing, and transferring knowledge
Kenya: Data Strategy and Capacity Building
Kenya has undertaken much work to date on data and knowledge issues, and has advanced this through the Kenya Data Forumâa national initiative managed by the Deputy President's office that aims to develop and implement a long term sustainable local data strategy. Kenya, however, lacks an organized framework for collecting reliable and comparable data on philanthropy in the country; to help meet this need, the Philanthropy Sector in Kenya has come together over the decades through the creation of the East Africa Association of Grantmakers (EAAG) and more recently the Kenya Philanthropy Forum (KPF) and its Data Sub-group. In June 2015 the KPF organized a Philanthropy Data Management convening that brought together over 30 foundations and trusts to explore opportunities for strengthening data collection, management, and sharing data in the philanthropy forum for greater impact and influence on national development efforts in Kenya. As a result, certain outcomes and aspirations were agreed upon. They included:Establishing the principles for data management for philanthropy.Expanding the forum so that participation reflects the size and diversity of existing forms of philanthropy.Developing a standardized tool for data collection.Actively engaging in the existing philanthropy data initiative.Partnering with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) to establish data sets that effectively capture the contribution of philanthropy in Kenya's development.The June 2015 meeting highlighted the urgent need for philanthropic data and that "Kenya lacks an organized framework for collecting reliable and comparable data on philanthropy in the country." To begin systematically addressing these recommendations, Foundation Center (a philanthropic support organisation based in New York) designed a multi-stage Data Strategy and Capacity Building Program, working in partnership with KPF, EAAG, Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF), and the Sustainable Development Goals Philanthropy Platform (SDGPP). This initiative was kicked off at a special "Data Scoping Meeting" of the KPF on 28 April 2016, attended by a total of 51 participants representing across section of Kenyan foundations, trusts, and support organisations. As reflected in the meeting agenda (see Appendix A), the objectives of the Data Scoping Meeting were as follows:1. Establish principles for collaborative data and knowledge management2. Understand the core data needs of philanthropy in Kenya3. Leverage available technologies for collecting and sharing data and knowledge4. Leverage global knowledge for local purposes5. Identify data challenges and set local goalsThis report summarizes the outcomes of the Data Scoping Meeting and outlines next steps in preparation for a follow-up meeting on Data Capacity Building in the coming months
Agricultural information dissemination using ICTs: a review and analysis of information dissemination models in China
Open Access funded by China Agricultural UniversityOver the last three decades, Chinaâs agriculture sector has been transformed from the traditional to modern practice through the effective deployment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Information processing and dissemination have played a critical role in this transformation process. Many studies in relation to agriculture information services have been conducted in China, but few of them have attempted to provide a comprehensive review and analysis of different information dissemination models and their applications. This paper aims to review and identify the ICT based information dissemination models in China and to share the knowledge and experience in applying emerging ICTs in disseminating agriculture information to farmers and farm communities to improve productivity and economic, social and environmental sustainability. The paper reviews and analyzes the development stages of Chinaâs agricultural information dissemination systems and different mechanisms for agricultural information service development and operations. Seven ICT-based information dissemination models are identified and discussed. Success cases are presented. The findings provide a useful direction for researchers and practitioners in developing future ICT based information dissemination systems. It is hoped that this paper will also help other developing countries to learn from Chinaâs experience and best practice in their endeavor of applying emerging ICTs in agriculture information dissemination and knowledge transfer
Water for People, Water for Life
This report documents the serious water crisis we are facing at the beginning of the 21st century. This crisis is one of water governance, essentially caused by the ways in which we mismanage water. But the real tragedy is the effect it has on the everyday lives of poor people, who are blighted by the burden of water-related disease, living in degraded and often dangerous environments, struggling to get an education for their children and to earn a living, and to get enough to eat. The executive summary offers an analysis of the problem as well as pilot case studies for water management and recommendations for future action
A semantic web service-based architecture for the interoperability of e-government services
We propose a semantically-enhanced architecture to address the issues of interoperability and service integration in e-government web information systems. An architecture for a life event portal based on Semantic Web Services (SWS) is described. The architecture includes loosely-coupled modules organized in three distinct layers: User Interaction, Middleware and Web Services. The Middleware provides the semantic infrastructure for ontologies and SWS. In particular a conceptual model for integrating domain knowledge (Life Event Ontology), application knowledge (E-government Ontology) and service description (Service Ontology) is defined. The model has been applied to a use case scenario in e-government and the results of a system prototype have been reported to demonstrate some relevant features of the proposed approach
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