Mapping traditions:historically tendencies of an urban design method

Mapping has a long tradition as a method within urban design and landscape practice and is generally used in three ways: To analyze spatial conditions, generate design interventions, and communicate design ideas or spatial knowledge. It is a tool for thinking through the activity of reformulating and interpreting the complex and three-dimensional world into often simplistic, two-dimensional visual representations. Looking at mapping in retrospect, historically positions and tendencies that reflect contemporary society and urban landscape is revealed. This paper seeks to trace the mapping positions and tendencies through time. The paper takes its historically starting point in the period of the industrialization and seeks at outlining shifting understandings and perspectives of the spatial and physical world, which has affected plans and design of urban landscapes. From this unfolding of various mapping tendencies and ways of doing thought time, the paper wishes to discuss the contemporary tendencies of urban design mapping. Here the paper discusses the implication of technological improvement in mappings. Technology has and is affecting mappings in two ways. Firstly, technology has and still is advancing the accuracy of measures of urban structure, and it increases geospatial knowledge usable in mappings as GIS (Geographical Information System) is a result of. Secondly, technology enables new ways of sensing and understanding the world, which makes it relevant to reflect on how new technologies extend the human senses and what new spatial knowledge they might enable. Hence, the paper discusses the possibilities and implications of a more technology driven urban design mapping practice

Prediction error variance and expected response to selection, when selection is based on the best predictor – for Gaussian and threshold characters, traits following a Poisson mixed model and survival traits

In this paper, we consider selection based on the best predictor of animal additive genetic values in Gaussian linear mixed models, threshold models, Poisson mixed models, and log normal frailty models for survival data (including models with time-dependent covariates with associated fixed or random effects). In the different models, expressions are given (when these can be found – otherwise unbiased estimates are given) for prediction error variance, accuracy of selection and expected response to selection on the additive genetic scale and on the observed scale. The expressions given for non Gaussian traits are generalisations of the well-known formulas for Gaussian traits – and reflect, for Poisson mixed models and frailty models for survival data, the hierarchal structure of the models. In general the ratio of the additive genetic variance to the total variance in the Gaussian part of the model (heritability on the normally distributed level of the model) or a generalised version of heritability plays a central role in these formulas

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in China

Taking into account a broad range of stakeholders who may affect or be affected by corporate action, the perspective of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) carries the promise of a win-win situation for all. CSR in China is highly topical, as the country is integrating into the supply chains of the major global players, but the ideals of CSR are a far cry from the realities of production in "the workshop of the world". In this paper I will discuss key issues relating to the process of adapting CSR into the Chinese context. I will focus on the position of the PRC political leadership. I argue that the leadership seems to pursue an agenda of submerging CSR under the control of the Party-State and conceptualizing CSR by reference to a blend of an eclectic interpretation of Western European welfare models and CSR conceptions with an eclectic interpretation of Chinese tradition and political culture. As a result, CSR in China lacks the element of multi-stakeholder dialogue, which is commonly recognized as the core element of CSR in Western countries. Keywords: CSR, China, Labour issue, MNCE, NGO, Politic change