Inter-institutional Framework towards Improvising SDGs in Somaliland: The Transformative Paradigm

The United Nations (UN) Rio+20 summit obligated nations to develop set of universal development goals as indicated in the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). These goals were designated to enhance and further improve strategies cope with failures of the expired millennium development goals (MDGs) (United Nations, 2013). Researchers and other official reports at present indicate that SDGs are the extension or the continuation of the expired MDGs. The MDGs were mostly relief projects toward improving human life through aid based approach. The MDGs projects did not thus so far remarkably improve the target sectors but alleviated hunger and reduced extreme poverty in some countries while in countries like Somaliland, hunger, and poverty are on the increase. This doesn't mean that MDGs were totally failed projects, but to indicate that the set targets were not improved as supposed to be due to lack of context-based national strategic framework. Additional monitoring and evaluation of MDGs were haphazard since there had not been specific indicators adapted to report the progress. The SDGs signed up by the Somaliland government this year (2017) would inherit challenges hindered MDGs to produce the anticipated outcomes if they are not strategically avoided. Socioeconomic development and national sustainability are often posed as being in conflict because of tradeoffs between the growing demands of least developed counties like Somaliland as well as lower standards of living and poor capacity of the national institutions. This review paper suggests a need to adopt an indigenous integrated framework, which ensures that synergy is exploited and collaborative strategies are put in place towards achieving SDG targets. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework and key recommendations focusing on filling the gaps left in the MDGs and accelerate in achieving the new goals and targets of SDGs

GPS for Amateur Astronomer: How Wrong Can You Be?

For the purpose of positioning and continuous tracking to celestrial objects using computerised telescope, the geographic position of the telescope to be known to I arcminute accuracy. Quite recently, GPS has been use for telescope positioning. Although GPS derived coordinate is not the geographical coordinate as needed for telescope positioning, further analyses has found that the total error in its derived position amounted to be less than the I arcminute accuracy requirement. Hence, it is O.K. to use GPS for telescope positioning

Mixing Low-Cost GPS Receiver With Standard Surveying Receiver

A GPS survey generally uses two or more GPS receivers. The normal trend is to use the same brand of receivers (or vendor) for data collections which will then processed through software supplied by the same vendor. Mixing different receivers, although theoretically possible through RINEX data formatting, are still not without problems. Even if it is to be done, normally the same 'standard' of receivers will be used. Mixing low-cost GPS receivers with standard surveying one will posed a more delicate challenge. Nevertheless, the economic potential of doing this exercise is great, for one, the use of low-cost receivers will enable cheaper expansion of receiver fleet within an organisation. At the moment, this exercise is only intended for the medium or intermediate accuracy type of applications. This paper discusses the technicality involved in this exercise, and results from an ASHTECH-ASHTECH and a NovAtel-ASHTECH 4 km baseline is analysed and presented

Benchmarking GPS real time kinematic

RTK technique is widely becoming a popular method in many land surveying works. The advantage of having real time position at sufficient level of accuracy and precision has encourage surveyors to utilise the technique in engineering, topographical and cadastral surveying. This paper present early result from the tests designed to examine GPS RTK capability, accuracy and precision, in relation to factors such as percentages of canopy blocking, daily satellite configuration and base-rover distances. In the 1st test, investigation was done on the precision of the RTK systems by the effect of variation of distances between base and rover. At the 2nd test; a 24-hour observation was conducted to examine the coordinate variation during that period. Lastly during the 3rd test; observation under palm oil trees were done to obtain the relationship between .accuracy and or precision with the percentage of canopy coverages deduced by digital imagin

GPS For GIS : Getting the Appropriate Combination

The concept of using GPS as a 'real-world' digitiser for GIS applications has attracted the attention of many GIS users. The apparent ease-of-use of GPS, however, has meant that many users are unaware of the limitations of the system. Depending on the type of system (hardware and software) and data collection procedure employed, GPS technique can give positioning accuracies ranging from few millimetres to a hundred metres or so. On the other hand, different GIS applications require different levels of data accuracy, mainly a function of the "scale" of the database. The question then is: which GPS system should one use for their GIS need? This paper describes a variety of GPS systems which give different accuracies. An emphasis is given to systems based on low-cost GPS instrumentation ("sensors" and "engines" - C/A-code single frequency receivers) which may be more economically appropriate to use for most GIS applications. More importantly, issues regarding system accuracy, which GPS users need to be aware of, are addressed. Among the important ones are; (1) What level of reliability is the accuracy associated with? (2) What observation conditions or constraints need to exist for this accuracy to be guaranteed? In this paper, C/A-code-based systems are tested and their performance characteristics are discussed. In addition, limitations of the systems with regards to observation conditions are discussed

Study on global navigation satellite system (GNSS) ground infrastructures in Malaysia

There are currently two Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) core systems namely Global Positioning System (GPS) and GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS). The GALILEO is expected to be up by 2008. The dependency on these space-based technology for navigation, positioning and timing is on the increase globally, and it is expected to be ‘the’ vital system worldwide in future. The present service of GPS has encouraged the acceptance and integration of the technology into peaceful civil, commercial, and scientific applications worldwide. Presently, users in most developing countries are accessing to the system on their own through services provided by the core system service provider, or augmentation systems provided by commercial companies. Issues such as integrity, accuracy, availability, and continuity are not adequately addressed. Lacking of these requirements may lead to occurrence of catastrophes such as ship collisions, landing failures, and etc. To ensure GNSS services to be more reliable and efficient, many developed nations such even the United States of America (USA), Europe and Japan are working on in establishing appropriate augmentation infrastructures for their local users. This paper reviews the current GNSS infrastructures that are available in marine, land and aviation sectors locally with global development in mind

Enhancement of local area DGPS accuracy: a composite approach

In a conventional Local Area DGPS (LADGPS) operation, the user’s receiver (rover) is set to receive signals from a nearest beacon (base) that provides signals meeting the appropriate standard, with the second-nearest acting as alternate. The reason for choosing the nearest beacon is that the accuracy of fixes (i.e. the position of user) is dominated by spatial dilution of precision (DOP) of the corrections. The degree of dilution increases with the distance of the rover from the base. In other words, the accuracy of the single base LADGPS service degrades as the users move away from the beacon. This is the major drawback of a single base LADGPS system. This paper attempts to highlight an approach that is being studied to minimize the spatial errors in the LADGPS system, hence enhancing the positioning accuracy provided by the service

Rekabentuk Dan Pembangunan Almanak Berdasarkan Epok J2000.0

Penggunaan almanak astronomi adalah penting dalam kerja Ukur Tanah, Astronomi dan Falak Syarie. Alfnanak terbitan negara Malaysia yang sedia ada seperti Almanak Ukur Malaysia dan Almanak Falak Syarie, masih berdasarkan kepada epok piawai J1950 untuk perhitungan efemeris matahari. Data-data untuk efemeris matahari dan R telah dihitung menggunakan Jadual Matahari Newcomb (1895), Teori Egahan Woolard (1953) dan Sistem Tetapan Astronomi IAU (1964). Efemeris bulan pula dihitung menggunakan Persamaan E. W. Brown yang diringkaskan. Sejak 1984 almanak keluaran luar negara seperti The Star Almanac for Land Surveyors, Astronomical Almanac dan sebagainya telah menggunakan epok piawai J2000 sebagai epok rujukan. Dengan ini almanak yang sedia ada perlu dipertingkatkan kepada epok J2000. Satu perisian dibangunkan bagi menghitung almanak berdasarkan epok J2000. Efemeris matahari almanak ini dihitung mengunakan modifikasi Teori Newcomb iaitu Jadual Matahari Newcomb (1898), Teori Egahan IAU 1980 dan Sistem Tetapan Astronomi IAU (1976). Efemeris bulan pula telah dihitung menggunakan persamaan penuh E. W. Brown. Perisian bagi menghitung efemeris matahari dan • bulan dHaksanakan dengan aturcara komputer FORTRAN Visual Workbench Ver 1.0. Keputusan hasH hitungan dibandingkan dengan beberapa almanak sedia ada. Analisa hasH hitungan menunjukkan almanak yang baru ini dapat menghasilkan data efemeris dalam toleransi kejituan yang dijangkakan