Digital Perception Functionality for Institutional Design: The Forest Policy Issue of "Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park" of Scotland as a Case Study

Motivation for this research was the need to perceive the relations among actors involved in the rural-forest policy networks. The problem of an objective analysis of formal and informal power and information flow structure measurement and visualization in policy-making is tried to be solved. The policy network of "Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park" is used as a case study as it includes a great variety of actors. An answer to the much-discussed problem of digital perception of politico-administrative power are in part the results about: (1) how complexity of policy making can be measured and what this practically means, (2) who controls the communication, (3) where the most important information resources are located, and (4) who is most trustworthy in this network. It is concluded that: "Important" information is not a source of trust, but rather inversely, through trust one can impose information as being important. Between actors of relatively high trust status, the most trusted one does not need to control information in order to strengthen its position. A less trusted actor may supplement the lack of power status with information control. The leading role that forestry sector may play even in cross-sectoral issues is pointed out in this case study

Network Analysis Functionality in Environmental Policy: Combining Abstract Software Engineering with Field Empiricism

An empirical application of abstract network analysis software is presented in this paper. Environmental policy networks are used as a case study. The visualization of the real network hierarchy and activity (formal and informal) is feasible only by using special software. A system of "actors"(e.g. public institutions, interest groups, enterprises) interacting with each other and dealing with a particular environmental issue constitutes a policy network, which influences the environmental policy functionality. The impacts of policy content ambiguity on network characteristics have been analyzed by using network analysis software as an example of combining algorithms with empiricism. Recommendations are made to software engineers about possible combination of algorithms with statistics and enrichment of the network analysis software with more visual analytic functions. Stronger familiarization of software engineers with policy analysis discourse and of policy analysts with positivism becomes more imperative for this purpose. On the basis of the quantitative results, environmental policy-makers are advised to invest more in trust development than in pressure and to instrumentalize more scientific information under conditions of ambiguity

Water Buffaloes grazing behaviour at the Lake Kerkini National Park, Northern Greece

The monthly variation of Greek water buffaloes’ grazing behaviour was investigated at the Lake Kerkini National Park in Greece. Direct observations were carried out on six female buffaloes for two consecutive days every month for a one-year period, and the time spent (in minutes) on their grazing-related activities (feeding, moving, wallowing, standing, ruminating, drinking, and lying) was recorded. Moreover, social and aggressive interactions and selfgrooming were recorded as number of events. Also, the daily distance travelled by buffaloes was recorded with a handheld GPS. Buffaloes travelled on average 6.9 km/day, and they walked their longest distance in June (10.7 km/day) and their shortest in September (2.9 km/day). They spent more time (P<0.05) on feeding (309.2 min/day) compared to moving (121.7 min/day), wallowing (27.9 min/day), standing (20.2 min/day), ruminating (15.4 min/day), drinking (4.7 min/day) and lying (4.2 min/day). Greek water buffaloes seem to be sociable rather than aggressive animals as they devote to these activities on average 18.2 vs 0.5 events/day. We can conclude that the animals adjust their grazing behaviour to climatic conditions and the availability of forage resources

Environmental Policy and Science Management: Using a Scientometric-specific GIS for E-learning Purposes

Who is the "good scientist" in rural-environmental policy? This is not so self-evident as in the case of private high-tech industry. Developing e-learning system in environmental science management is a challenging task in the area of forest and general rural development policy. Who determines the most "important" scientific information and who controls it? There are algorithms for measuring centrality in information networks. The concepts of closeness and betweenness centrality are used as basic metadata for categorizing the communication type in the rural-environmental policy networks. This paper discusses the development of a GIS-based model which includes region-based scientometrics, regarding policy field communication

E-Learning & Environmental Policy: The case of a politico-administrative GIS

Is an effective knowledge exchange and cooperation between academic community and practitioners possible? Implementation of e-learning in specialized policy fields pertains to the most challenging priorities of ICTs and software engineering. In multidisciplinary academic areas which combine environmental policy studies with positivist subjects (like environmental issues, forest policy, rural development, Landscape Architecture etc), the using of e-learning system in analyzing policy issues steadily gains in importance and is a method which connects the academic community and the researchers with the practitioners and field experts. Such initiatives incorporate a number of politometrics- relevant algorithms embedded in a context of political geography (i.e. visualized hierarchies in different regionrelated policy issues). This is the case addressed in this paper. The GIS learning management system introduced in this paper is based on certain criteria concerning organizational models and region-specific politico-administrative hierarchies. Scenarios of politico-administrative metadata achieving optimal power synergy are extracted through a sequencing technique, combining vector-algebra software and statistics and can be used for both teaching and research purposes

Revista de educación

Título, resumen y palabras clave también en inglésResumen basado en el de la publicaciónDisponible versión en inglésAnálisis dinámico de conductas destructivas de agresividad verbal, bullying y maquiavelismo entre estudiantes universitarios en cuanto a su evolución diacrónica y la estabilidad de agresores y víctimas durante un semestre. Se utilizaron cuestionarios de red estandarizados. Se recogieron doce muestras de redes (clases semestrales de estudiantes) de cuatro departamentos griegos de Educación Física (en total 538). Las variables de las redes (in/out-degree, Κatz status, pagerank, authority) se calcularon mediante el software Visone, mientras que para el análisis diacrónico de las redes se aplicó la prueba de Spearman. Los resultados muestran que el fortalecimiento de la práctica de estos comportamientos puede atribuirse al hecho de que los estudiantes se familiarizan más entre sí durante el semestre. La amenaza parece ser estable e inalterable en contraste con la ironía. La conducta más habitual cuando se produce una situación de acoso es la de "rechazar ayuda". Se observó la evolución de la "exclusión" al "rechazo de ayuda". El "engaño" indica una predisposición a la "puñalada por la espalda". Se observó una estabilidad notablemente débil de la victimización en la agresividad verbal con "exclusión" como presagio de la continuación del abuso.ES

Metadata-based heritage sites modeling with e-learning functionality

Nowadays, cultural heritage is under threat and danger (pollution, natural disasters, wars, etc.). In this domain, cultural heritage management (CHM) as the art, vocation and practice of managing cultural heritage resources and as a multi-discipline research area has a vital role. In recent years, the innovations, improvements and rapid advances in traditional and geographic (GIS) databases, design computing, digital architecture and archaeology, imaging sensors and scanners, computer modeling software, haptic equipments and e-learning technology, as well as the affordability and availability of many powerful graphics workstations make metadata and 3D modeling techniques for CHM with e-learning and haptic rendering (virtual reality) functionality feasible. This paper addresses the application research issue of incorporating metadata and modeling in a CHM case study and discusses the related e-learning functionality. So, in this article, a practical project is used to demonstrate the functionality and the performance of the proposed 3D modeling metadata based CHM methodology. In particular, the processing steps from image acquisition to the 3D geometric and semantic description of the Galerius Palace "Octagonon" (Thessaloniki, Greece) in a 3D digital environment are presented. Also, emphasis is put on documenting the new term 3D modeling metadata for CHM and on discussing as an open issue the concept personalized e-learning CHM scenarios. The proposed methodology has 10-2 modeling accuracy (i.e. 1% relative inaccuracy) and it is of interest for archaeology, architecture, virtual reality, e-learning, e-culture and virtual tourism