text:
EI EXCLUSIVE: Joseph Massad's response to the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report
Joseph Massad The Electronic Intifada 5 April 2005
In late 2004, claims of intimidation in the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) of Columbia University hit newspapers around the world after an unreleased documentary, "Columbia Unbecoming", which purported to reveal incidences of intimidation and anti-Semitism in the classroom. The primary target of the organized campaign was Professor Joseph Massad. Columbia University ultimately formed an ad hoc committee to investigate, which released its report on 31 March 2005. Joseph Massad responds to the report.
Response to the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report
The Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report[1] suffers from major logical flaws, undefended conclusions, inconsistencies, and clear bias in favor of the witch-hunt that has targeted me for over three years. Despite these major limitations, the report acknowledges that there has been an organized attempt by internal and external forces to intimidate faculty at Columbia and that I have been the central target of this attempt. In the following, I will point out the most glaring flaws in the report to illustrate that not only was the committee illegitimate, but that it has also produced a report that is not defended by argument, facts, or proof.
I should reiterate that I do not recognize the legitimacy of the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee established by the Columbia administration, as I consider it an instrument in the ongoing campaign to suppress academic freedom on this campus. This is so because the charge of the committee ignored the central question of the intimidation of faculty by other faculty, by students, by administrators, and by forces from outside the university. I told this to the members of the committee when I met with them on March 14th and clarified to them that I had acquiesced in appearing before them out of a combined sense of obligation and intimidation. It is this sense that motivates my response to the report that the committee released on March 28.
Pedagogy in Context
Let me begin with section IV of the report titled "Pedagogy in Context." Despite the limitations placed on the committee by its official charge, the committee's report was forced to acknowledge that I have been the target of a political campaign by actors inside and outside the university, as well as by registered and unregistered students inside and outside my classroom. It affirms that during the Spring of 2002, I was spied upon by at least one other professor on campus, that my class was disrupted by registered students (non-auditors) and unregistered auditors, and that individuals and organizations outside the university targeted me, my class, and my teaching.
Furthermore, the report not only confirms that in my classes, and specifically in the Spring 2002 course on Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies, I allowed all questions to be asked, but, in fact, implicitly assigns blame to me for being too open during the Spring 2002:
there is ample evidence of [Massad's] willingness — as part of a deliberate pedagogical strategy — to permit anyone who wished to do so to comment or raise a question during his lectures. For many students this approach itself became problematic because it allowed a small but vociferous group of fellow students to disrupt lectures by their incessant questions and comments. (Section IV)
The report also claims that as a result of this situation, the atmosphere in the classroom, as described by some students, was "tense": "Some students referred to 'emotional outbursts,' another to the atmosphere being 'combative.'" Yet despite these limitations and provocations against the professor, the report states that "A significant number of students found Professor Massad to be an excellent and inspiring teacher, and several described his class as the best they took at Columbia."[2] Moreover, the report further affirms that instead of being provoked to respond to this campaign inappropriately or irresponsibly, that I seem to have taken my professorial tasks professionally and responsibly:
Outside the classroom, there can be little doubt of Professor Massad's dedication to, and respectful attitude towards, his students whatever their confessional or ethnic background or their political outlook. He made himself available to them in office hours and afterwards. One student, critical of other aspects of his pedagogy, praised his "warmth, dynamism and candor" and his unusual accessibility and friendliness. One of the group of students who questioned him regularly and critically in class told us of their friendly relations outside class where their discussions often continued.[3]
As for limitations that I insisted on in my classroom, the report confirms one: ""Professor Massad…has been categorical in his classes concerning the unacceptability of anti-semitic views."[4] The report also affirms that the committee did not find that any of my students were "penalized for their views by receiving lower grades."[5] The report does not find any other limitations that I imposed on my students. It is in this context that the report examines the claim made by Deena Shanker, which is alleged to have taken place during the Spring 2002 class on Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies.
Student Claims
The report engages Deena Shanker's claim in a way that renders it into a moving target. The committee first reports Deena Shanker's testimony in which she claims that I told her "If you're going to deny the atrocities being committed against Palestinians, then you can get out of my classroom!"[6] Shanker has two witnesses, one is a registered student, and one whom she claims was a visitor for the day, a claim that has not been verified by anybody except for Shanker who is the only witness that this person was visiting my class, just as he is her witness that the incident she describes took place! As for the registered student, he provided testimony that differs significantly from that provided by Shanker. He alleges that I "raised" my "voice considerably and said that 'I will not stand by and let you sit in my classroom and deny Israeli atrocities."[7]
Note that Shanker's claim that I instructed her to "get out of my classroom" is not corroborated but rather replaced by a different claim altogether. The fact that I deny that the incident ever took place and that my testimony is corroborated by three students, two graduate Teaching Assistants and one registered undergraduate student, while mentioned in the report, is treated as immaterial to the report's conclusion. Also immaterial to the report's conclusion is the report's finding that Shanker did not register this complaint in her anonymous evaluation of the course, nor reported it to any one in authority nor spoke of it to me, her professor.
The report, despite noting the campaign against me during the Spring of 2002 from inside the classroom and outside it, from inside the university and outside it, and despite its finding that I had conducted myself in a responsible professorial way with students who would incessantly disrupt and interrupt my class, surprisingly moves to conjure up a fantastic scenario wherein it "finds it credible that Professor Massad became angered at a question that he understood to countenance Israeli conduct of which he disapproved, and that he responded heatedly."[8] This the report explains as consisting of an allegedly "rhetorical response…conveying that [Shanker's] question merited harsh public criticism."[9]
Thus, what the report finds credible is that I became "angered" and "responded heatedly" with "harsh public criticism." Notice that the charge is a moving target. It started with the claim that I threatened to expel Deena Shanker from my class, to my threatening not to "stand by" while Shanker denies Israeli atrocities, to the final form of the charge, namely that I responded "heatedly" to Shanker with "harsh public criticism." It is this last charge that the report found "credible."
The Committee makes no attempt to relate Shanker's allegations to two of its own findings: first, that those testifying before the Committee agreed that I conducted my class in an inclusive manner, both in terms of allowing everyone to ask questions and that I set no limitations on the questions that could be asked. How then was the allegation that I sought to exclude, whether directly or through a heated exchange, a student who disagreed with me found credible? And, second, that I and my class were already the target of an organized attempt at espionage and intimidation when Shanker claimed to recover her memory suddenly because of hearsay by another student interviewed in "Columbia Unbecoming."
Let me move now to the report's attempt to establish facts. The report never claims that it established Shanker's claim as true beyond a reasonable doubt, rather that it found it "credible." What this suggests is that at best the evidence was not persuasive enough to establish the claim as a solid incontrovertible fact but rather as "credible." Still, the report never explains the basis on which the committee found Shanker's claim and her witnesses more "credible" than my denial and that of my witnesses. Floyd Abrams, the advisor to the committee, responded to my public query by telling the Chronicle of Higher Education "That's what juries do all the time."[10]
Mr. Abrams seems to elide the fact that the ad hoc committee is not a court and that unlike the ad hoc committee, a real court and a real jury listen to real testimony, not from volunteers, but from all who were determined to be present when an incident occurred, and that the witnesses are subjected to cross-examination. These important elements, which escaped the attention of our esteemed lawyer, did not apply to the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee, as it is not a court of law, evidenced by its failure to accord me due process. Indeed, the committee's conclusion of the credibility of Shanker's claim stands undefended by facts, logic, or argumentation, all of which are absent in relation to this finding.
In contrast with the committee's conclusion that at worst it found it "credible" that I responded to Shanker "heatedly" with "harsh public criticism," President Bollinger reached an altogether different conclusion. In a radio interview on April 1st 2005 with NPR's Brian Lehrer, Bollinger responded to Lehrer's statement that the committee found it probably true that Massad "yelled at a Jewish student to get out of his classroom," by affirming that the described incident "did in fact happen" (emphasis added). Bollinger not only changes the report's finding that the claim of a "heated" response and "harsh public criticism" is "credible" but transforms it into a new claim, namely, that I instructed Shanker to "get out" of my class room, and that this claim is a "fact."
As for the Tomy Schoenfeld's claim, the Committee affirms that it occurred at an unspecified time ("in the late Fall or early Spring terms of the 2001-2002 academic year"), and at an unspecified place ("in a building adjacent to campus on 113th or 114th street"), at an event with an unspecified title and unknown sponsor.[11] Schoenfeld claims that at this alleged event I asked him "How may Palestinians have you killed." He brought with him one witness who, like him, also could not recall the time, place, or title of the event at which this alleged incident took place. According to the report,
Mr. Schoenfeld told the committee that he had not spoken to a dean or advisor about the incident. By contrast, an assistant dean of student affairs in the School of General Studies recalls that Mr. Schoenfeld spoke with her about the incident shortly after it occurred. Although he seemed upset, she remembers that at the time he did not think this episode warranted further action.[12]
Although the report mentions that I have denied that this incident ever took place, that I have never met or seen Mr. Schoenfeld, the report concludes that "In light of the confirmation of the event by another student and the contemporaneous reporting to a dean, the committee finds it credible that an exchange of this nature did occur at a location adjacent to campus."[13]
Let me emphasize that what the committee found "credible" is not that I allegedly asked Schoenfeld "how many Palestinians have you killed," rather that an "exchange of this nature" occurred. What that means, the report does not clarify. It would seem that based on this finding, anyone who was a student in any department at Columbia University in the last six years can come forward to this committee claiming an imaginary exchange with me at some event whose date, place, sponsor, and title need not be disclosed, and the committee will find their claim at least partly "credible."
There is therefore a glaring illogic governing the committee's finding in this instance, given the facts available to it. Moreover, I should reemphasize that given the organized political campaign against me, which the report acknowledges, it is mystifying why the report fails to make any connection between this campaign and the nature and timing of the claims made by Shanker and Schoenfeld.
Grievance Claims
Now having established these two claims against me as being "credible," the committee moves to analyze why this situation occurred and what remedies are needed. The committee declares that:
Almost none of the issues enumerated in the preceding pages found their way into the normal channels for addressing student concerns about curriculum and instruction, particularly complaints about individual faculty and specific courses. The establishment of this committee was a response to the failure to address such concerns clearly, promptly, and consistently. These failures reflected both the negligent or misguided behavior of individuals and widespread systemic confusion about responsibility and authority. As a result of these failures, outside advocacy groups devoted to purposes tangential to those of the University were able to intervene to take up complaints expressed by some students, further confusing the location of responsibility and authority for addressing student concerns about instruction at Columbia.
This is indeed a surprising conclusion. Since the report tells us that neither Deena Shanker nor Tomy Schoenfeld (nor even Lindsay Shrier, for that matter, who had complained to the committee about Professor George Saliba) sought to register their complaints against me with any university channel, how could the university be faulted for not addressing their grievances? As there were no other grievances of merit against me, or Professor Saliba, according to the report, or against any other professor for that matter, to what failure of university grievance procedure is the committee referring? This is especially puzzling as the report states that "Many of the matters brought before us did not, in our opinion, constitute the basis for formal grievances but were issues that warranted sympathetic hearing and an appropriate university response."[14] Which matters exactly then were reported to existing grievance channels that failed to address them? On that, the report remains silent.
The report issued by the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee is indeed a weak report that is flawed in its very essence. Not only does it not provide a logical progression of its arguments to reach a conclusion, it simply states conclusions that are undefended in the body of the report. This applies as much to its finding claims by Shanker and Schoenfeld "credible" as to it identifying the university grievance procedure as having failed, which in turn pushed complaining students to outside parties. The report fails completely to establish facts or to persuade by reasoned argument. Its conclusions are simply baseless, demonstrating a lack of courage and a lack of principled commitment to academic freedom.
The only possible logic that might have contributed to the findings reported by the committee is the logic of pressure exercised by the administration and outside groups on the committee to declare specific findings. Such pressures are hardly separable from the national campaign targeting academic freedom on various campuses across the country. It was these pressures to which the administration had initially acquiesced when it established the Ad Hoc Committee as part of the inquisition of the faculty. Since as I demonstrated above, the report's conclusions follow no logic or consistent argument, one is left with a sense of bewilderment as to why the committee would find unsubstantiated student claims more "credible" than the testimony of professors. It is here where the political element was perhaps greatest in influencing the findings of the committee, wherein it decided to throw the witch hunters a morsel to placate them.
Even though the report acknowledges that there has been an ongoing organized effort at intimidation, by forces both external and internal to the university, of Middle East faculty at Columbia, especially me, and that this has been going on for years, the committee fails to see how its very establishment and the manner in which it established its findings makes it part of this campaign of intimidation. The objective of this campaign is to silence all dissenting scholarly voices, indeed to silence scholarship per se on the Palestine/Israel conflict. As scholarship on the conflict has largely uncovered the scale of the atrocities and historical wrongs that Israel and the Zionist movement have visited and continue to visit on the Palestinian people, the witch hunters won't have any of it. It is high time that Columbia faculty stood up to this internal and external campaign that seeks to suppress our academic freedom and to destroy the institution of the university. If we fail to act now, the repercussions will indeed be grave for all of us.
Joseph Massad is a professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University.
Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report, Ira Katznelson, Chair; Lisa Anderson; Farah Griffin; Jean E. Howard; and Mark Mazower, Columbia University (28 March 2005)
EI EXCLUSIVE: Joseph Massad's statement to Columbia University's Ad Hoc Grievance Committee (5 April 2005)
"Columbia Unbecoming" in the clear light of day, Monique Dols (5 November 2004)
Joseph Massad responds to the intimidation of Columbia University, Joseph Massad (3 November 2004)
Columbia Considers Limits on Political Expression at University, Jacob Gershman, The New York Sun (19 April 2004)
Curriculum reform should start in the U.S. and Israel, Joseph Massad (18 August 2003)
Policing the academy, Joseph Massad (14 April 2003)
1. This response will be posted on www.censoringthought.org and on my webpage at www.columbia.edu/cu/mealac/faculty/massad/
2. All citations in this section are from Section IV of the report.
3. Section IV.
4. Section III, C.
5. Section III, D.
6. Section III, 1.
7. Ibid.
10. Jennifer Jacobson, "Columbia U. Report Criticizes Professor's Classroom Conduct But Finds No Pattern of Anti-Semitism," Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 April 2005.
11. Section III, 2.
14. Section VI, 5.
Anti-Semitism vs. anti-colonialism
Joseph Massad 24 August 2018
The future of the Nakba
Joseph Massad 13 May 2018
The Balfour Declaration's many questions
Joseph Massad 8 November 2017
EI EXCLUSIVE: Joseph Massad's statement to Columbia University's Ad Hoc Grievance Committee
Some Observations on Academic Freedom
Feroze Sidhwa 10 April 2005
Pro-Israel group monitoring, intimidating Columbia faculty
Jared Malsin 29 April 2010


text:
22 killed in explosion near chemical plant in China
Author: Sprandy Okoko Published Date: November 28, 2018 Comments: Leave a Comment on 22 killed in explosion near chemical plant in China
Road and industrial accidents are common in China. A blast at a chemical plant in southwest Sichuan province left 19 dead and 12 injured in July.
At least 22 people were killed and at least another 22 were wounded after an explosion was reported near a chemical plant in China early Wednesday.
The incident occurred near the Hebei Shenghua Chemical in Zhangjiakou City, in the northern Hebei province, Channel News Asia reported.
The injured were taken to hospital for treatment following the blast, which occurred at 00:41 am, according to the statement. The charred and smoking remains of trucks and cars were scattered on a road as firefighters worked at the scene, according to photos posted on Twitter by state broadcaster CGTN.
The statement did not say whether the factory was affected by the blast or whether it took place on a road. "On-site search and rescue work and investigation of the cause of the accident are still underway," the propaganda department said.
Zhangjiakou will host the Olympic alpine skiing events at the 2022 Winter Games, which Beijing is organising. It was not immediately clear if the explosion was near the site.
The cause of the blast remains under investigation. Further information about the explosion was not immediately clear.
Tagged 22 dead in china eplosion, 22 killed in china, 22 killed in china eplosion close 2 chemical plant, Chemical plant, China, China explosion, Explosion
Author: Sprandy Okoko
Theresa May's administration decline to produce details of Brexit deal legal advice →
← Democrat Kathleen Kane ordered to report to prision

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
from os.path import join as pjoin

import numpy as np
import numpy.testing.decorators as dec

from scipy.io.netcdf import netcdf_file as netcdf

from nipy.io.imageformats import load, MincHeader, Nifti1Image

from nose.tools import assert_true, assert_equal, assert_false
from numpy.testing import assert_array_equal

try:
    import imagedata
except ImportError:
    decimg = dec.skipif(True, 'no imagedata package on python path')
else:
    decimg = lambda x : x

@decimg
def test_eg_img():
    mnc_fname = pjoin(imagedata.minc_path, 'avg152T1.mnc')
    mnc = MincHeader(netcdf(mnc_fname, 'r'))
    yield assert_equal, mnc.get_data_dtype().type, np.uint8
    yield assert_equal, mnc.get_data_shape(), (91, 109, 91)
    yield assert_equal, mnc.get_zooms(), (2.0, 2.0, 2.0)
    aff = np.array([[0, 0, 2.0, -90],
                    [0, 2.0, 0, -126],
                    [2.0, 0, 0, -72],
                    [0, 0, 0, 1]])
    yield assert_array_equal, mnc.get_best_affine(), aff
    data = mnc.get_unscaled_data()
    yield assert_equal, data.shape, (91,109, 91)
    data = mnc.get_scaled_data()
    yield assert_equal, data.shape, (91,109, 91)
    # Check highest level load of minc works
    img = load(mnc_fname)
    data = img.get_data()
    yield assert_equal, data.shape, (91,109, 91)
    yield assert_equal, data.min(), 0.0
    yield assert_equal, data.max(), 1.0
    yield np.testing.assert_array_almost_equal, data.mean(), 0.27396803, 8
    # check dict-like stuff
    keys = mnc.keys()
    values = mnc.values()
    for i, key in enumerate(keys):
        yield assert_equal, values[i], mnc[key]
    items = mnc.items()
    # check if mnc can be converted to nifti
    ni_img = Nifti1Image.from_image(img)
    yield assert_array_equal, ni_img.get_affine(), aff
    yield assert_array_equal, ni_img.get_data(), data

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


This Support section includes literature related to planning and implementing positive behavior support interventions. It includes articles on single subject and group research and edited texts that summarize evidence-based practices. The articles are organized around the key features of positive behavior support interventions: proactive, teaching, and management strategies. Click on the citations below to be redirected to either the publication itself (if available) or the publisher's website where the item can be purchased.
Although a variety of strategies may be research based, the specific approaches selected should be relevant to needs and preferences of people in need of support, assessments conducted, and settings and circumstances in which strategies will be used. The ultimate value of any support practice is its impact on behavior and quality of life.
A Component Analysis of Positive Behavior Support Plans – McClean & Grey (2012). Article describing outcomes of a component analysis of 1,272 interventions, evaluating the impact of different elements on child behavior change (for purchase).
An Evaluation of Positive Behavioural Support for People with Very Severe Challenging Behaviours in Community-Based Settings – McClean, Grey, & McCracken (2007). A study on a framework for supporting adults living together in a community setting aimed at reducing challenging behavior while increasing the person's quality of life (free).
A Positive Behavioural Support Model for Breaking the Barriers to Social and Community Inclusion – LaVigna & Willis (2005). A study on a framework for removing barriers to full inclusion of adults with developmental disabilities that engage in challenging behavior (free).
Positive Behavior Support for People with Developmental Disabilities: A Research Synthesis – Carr, Horner, Turnbull, and colleagues (1999). A book that is a meta analysis of the research in positive behavior support and includes recommendations for future research (free).
Antecedent Assessment and Intervention: Supporting Children and Adults with Developmental Disabilities in Community Settings – Luiselli (2006). Updated from a previous publication with a focus on helping psychologists, educators, and rehabilitation specialist support children with challenging behavior (for purchase).
Quality of Rapport as a Setting Event for Problem Behavior – Magito-McLaughlin & Carr (2005). Article describing two companion studies to assess the relationship between rapport and behavior of individuals with developmental disabilities and intervention to enhance caregiver rapport (free).
Functional Communication Training to Reduce Challenging Behavior: Maintenance and Applications in New Settings – Durand & Carr (1991). Research article on teaching function communication skills to three children with developmental disabilities (free).
A family-centered positive behavior support approach to the amelioration of food refusal behavior: An empirical case study – Binnendyk, L., & Lucyshyn, J. M. (2009). A parent training strategy using positive behavior support is described for increasing the amount of food eating by a young child diagnosed with autism (free).
Training a Family in Physical Interventions as Part of a Positive Behavior Support Intervention for Challenging Behavior. – Hewitt, Keeling, & Pearce (2015). Article providing a case study of proactive and reactive methods to address and adult son's violent behavior and improve the family's confidence in managing the behaviors.
Designing and Evaluating Assessment-Based Interventions to Reduce Stereotypy Among Adults with Autism in a Community Job – Reid, D. Hl, Parson, M. B., & Lattimore, L. P. (2010). An example where functional analysis and positive behavior support interventions resulted in increased work behaviors for adults diagnosed with autism (free).
Employing the Principles of Positive Behavior Support to Enhance Family Education and Intervention – Hieneman & Fefer (2017). Discussion article outlining the features of PBS, how they may be applied with families, and recommendations (free).
Strategies for Helping Parents of Young Children Address Challenging Behaviors in the Home – Chai & Lieberman-Betz (2016). An article for parents and educators that presents a real scenario regarding the use of positive behavior support for a 3 year-old girl (free).
Transforming Parent-Child Interaction in Family Routines: Longitudinal Analysis with Families of Children with Developmental Disabilities – Lucyshyn et al. (2015). Evaluation of a PBS intervention with 10 families within 36 routines using multiple baseline designs (free).
Parent Implementation of Function-Based Intervention to Reduce Challenging Behavior: A Literature Review – Fettig & Barton (2014). A research synthesis that describes variables within the studies and recommendations for future directions (for purchase).
Collaborating with Parents to Implement Behavioral Interventions for Children with Challenging Behaviors – Park, Alber-Morgan, & Fleming (2011). An article designed for practitioners and serves as a guide for training parents in implementing supports for their child (free).
Intervening in the Lives of Youth with Complex Behavioral Health Challenges and their Families: The Role of the Wraparound Process – Bruns et al. (2010). An article describing wraparound process, an approach that is aligned with PBS to address significant behavioral challenges in youth (free).
Implementation of positive behavior support with a sibling set in a home environment – Duda, Fox, Clarke, & Dunlap (2008). Study describing functional assessment and multi-component intervention for three children with behavioral challenges using a multiple baseline design across routines (free).
Family Implementation of Positive Behavior Support for a Child with Autism: Longitudinal, Single-Case, Experimental, and Descriptive Replication and Extension – Lucyshyn et al. (2007). An experimental case study of positive behavior support with a child with autism in his family home over a 10 year period (free).
Intervening in Children's Lives: An Ecological, Family-Centered, Approach to Mental Health Care – Dishion & Stormshak (2007). A book describing an ecological approach to intervention that shares features with PBS (for purchase).
Family-school Collaboration and Positive Behavior Support – Minke & Anderson (2005). An article that describes the challenges of school and parent collaboration and offers suggestions for overcoming those challenges (free).
Families and Positive Behavior Support: Addressing Problem Behavior in Family Contexts – Lucyshyn, Dunlap, & Albin (2002). A book summarizing the research on PBS with families and offering guidance for implementation (for purchase).
Parent-Professional Collaboration for Positive Behavior Support in the Home – Marshall & Mirenda (2002). Article discussing challenges and benefits of parent professional collaboration via a case study relevant to assessment, intervention, and implementation (free).
Contextualized Behavioral Support in Early Intervention for Children with Autism and their Families – Moes & Frea (2002). Study of functional communication training within family routines that informed and evaluated intervention related to contextual fit (for purchase).
Triple P-Positive Parenting Program: Towards an Empirically Validated Multilevel Parenting and Family Support Strategy for the Prevention of Behavior and Emotional Problems in Children – Sanders (1999). An article about the comprehensive, multilevel system of parenting for high-risk children and their parents (for purchase).


text:
Abbott, Carlisle S.
Recollections of a California Pioneer
New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1917. First Edition. Hardcover. Twelvemo size, 235 pp. Written after the author had passed 88 years of age, this important early work follows his decision as a young man to leave his home in the East to seek gold in California in 1850. The..... More
Austin, Mary; Smith, Elmer Boyd (Illustrations)
The Land of Little Rain [Association copy, Willie A. Chalfant]
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903. Smith, Elmer Boyd. First Edition. Hardcover. First printing, octavo size, 298 pp. Mary Austin's "The Land of Little Rain" is still highly regarded today; as the editors of "The Zamorano 80" state: "[t]hese charming sketches of the desert and semi-desert country comprising the Owens..... More
Barrington, Alexander; Grabhorn, Jane Bissell (Editor); Parker, Arvilla (Initials)
A California Gold Rush Miscellany; Comprising: the Original Journal of Alexander Barrington, Nine Unpublished Letters from the Gold Mines, Reproductions of Early Maps and Towns from California Lithographs; Broadsides, etc. etc.
San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1934. Parker, Arvilla. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 550 copies, unnumbered, Second Series of Rare Americana, No. 4, quarto size, 60 pp. This collection of miscellany was carefully selected to give an honest and authentic viewpoint of the early mining days in California from the..... More
Becker, Robert H.
Designs on the Land, Diseños of California Ranchos
San Francisco: The Book Club of California (printed by Robert Grabhorn and Andrew Hoyem), 1969. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 500 copies, oblong elephant folio size, [178] pp. The Book Club of California publication number 133, being a sequel to Robert Becker's earlier club publication of 1964 (no. 118). This..... More
Chalmers, Claudine; McClatchy, James (Foreword)
Splendide Californie!; Impressions of the Golden State by French Artists, 1786 to 1900
San Francisco: The Book Club of California [designed by The Yolla Bolly Press], 2001. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 450 copies, unnumbered, folio size, 159 pp. After moving from Cannes, France, to Northern California, historian and researcher Claudine Chalmers was captured by the history and landscape of the Golden State;..... More
Coolbrith, Ina; Keith, William (Illustrations)
Songs From the Golden Gate
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895. Keith, William. First Edition. Hardcover. First printing, duodecimo size, 169 pp., inscribed by Ina Coolbrith. Ina Donna Coolbrith (1842-1928) lived a life rather unusual for a woman of her days. She moved with her family at the age of 7 years from Illinois to..... More
Dawson, Glen (Publisher)
Early California Travels Series
Los Angeles: Glen Dawson, 1951-1954. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Most volumes stated edition size of 200, volumes 1 through 20 (continuous), duodecimo size, approx. 1600 pp. total, with two pieces of related ephemera. Per the check-list, "The Early California Travels Series is a set of small volumes relating to the history..... More
Dawson, Nicholas; Watson, Douglas S. (Editor); Camp, Charles L. (Introduction); Parker, Arvilla (Illustrator)
Narrative of Nicholas "Cheyenne" Dawson (Overland to California in '41 & '49, and Texas in '51); Number Seven of the Rare Americana Series Printed & Published by The Grabhorn Press of San Francisco in May, 1933.
San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1933. Parker, Arvilla. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 500 copies, quarto size, 107 pp. Nicholas Dawson (1819-1903), the partly self-educated schoolteacher infected with wanderlust, spent much of his life travelling on foot across America. His wanderings brought him through Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas to Mexico..... More
Delano, Alonzo; Dane, G. Ezra (Foreword); Nahl, Charles (Illustrator)
Pen-Knife Sketches, or, Chips of the Old Block; A Series of Original Illustrated Letters, Written by One of California's Pioneer Miners, and Dedicated to that Class of Her Citizens by the Author. Reprinted from the Only Edition (1853) with the Illustrations by Charles Nahl and a New Foreword by G. Ezra Dane.
San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1934. Nahl, Charles. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Quarto size, 80 pp. Alonzo Delano (1806 - 1874), who went by the pen name "Old Block", was an American humorist, pioneer town city father, and a California Gold Rush Forty-niner; his sketches of gold rush camp life rivaled..... More
Fourgeaud, Dr. Victor J.; Hall, Carroll D. (Prolegomenon); Walker, Lawrence E. (Artist)
The First Californiac; Being a Reprint of "Prospects of California" Written by Dr. Victor H. Fourgeaud for the April 1, 1848 Issue of "The California Star", San Francisco's First Newspaper, of Which Samuel Brannan was the Publisher
San Francisco: The Press of Lewis and Dorothy Allen, 1942. Walker, Lawrence E. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 225 copies, duodecimo size, 61 pp. The exploration of California led many people to write effusively of the merits of Golden State, and Victor Fourgeaud (1815-1875) does so here in this reprint..... More
Johnson, Kenneth M. (Introduction and Comments)
The Sting of The Wasp; Political & Satirical Cartoons from the Truculent Early San Francisco Weekly...
San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1967. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 450 copies, folio size, [108] pp. The Christmas Publication for 1967, reproducing in colour twenty full-page lithographs from the celebrated San Francisco weekly, "The Wasp", which during the final decades of the nineteenth century alternately entertained and..... More
Larson, Roger Keith; Powell, Lawrence Clark (Foreword)
Controversial James; An essay on the life and work of George Wharton James
San Francisco: (Printed at the Yolla Bolly Press for) The Book Club of California, 1991. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. One of 400 copies, quarto size, [112] pp., with original purchase invoice from the Book Club laid in. A biography and bibliographical checklist of George Wharton James (1858-1923). James was the..... More
Leighly, John.
California as an Island: An Illustrated Essay...; With Twenty-five Plates & a Bibliographical Checklist of Maps showing California as an Island
San Francisco: The Book Club of California, printed by Robert Grabhorn and Andrew Hoyem, 1972. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. One of 450 copies, folio size, [155] pp., with original sales invoice. The Book Club of California's 141st publication, and its Christmas book for 1972. The curious misconception that California was..... More
Lewis, Oscar; Bechtel, K.K. (Foreword); Adams, Ansel (Illustrator)
One Fifty-Five Sansome; Being the Story of the Land on which the Industrial Indemnity Building Stands Today
San Francisco: Industrial Indemnity Company, 1955. Adams, Ansel. First Edition. Wraps. Octavo size, 26 pp. The fascinating history of the land and building at 155 Sansome, commissioned by the Industrial Indemnity Company. Written by noted San Francisco historian Oscar Lewis (1893-1992, not to be confused with the New York anthropologist..... More
Madden, Henry Miller
German Travelers in California
Fairfax, California: The Roxburghe Club of San Francisco (printed by Mallette Dean), 1958. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 125 copies, octavo size, 40 pp. Henry Miller Madden (1912-1982?) served as the University librarian at CSU-Fresno for thirty years, and was, in addition, an author, scholar, and translator in his own..... More
McAdie, Alexander; Mathews, Lucia K. (Decorations); Mathews, Arthur F. (Frontispiece)
Infra Nubem, The Lights Outside, La Bocana; Philopolis Series
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson (Philopolis Press), 1909. Limited Edition. Hardcover. No. 2 of 500, duodecimo size, 47 pp. Written by American meteorologist Alexander McAdie (1863-1943), who made many advances in the field of meteorology and was also in charge of the U.S. Weather Bureau in San Francisco from 1903..... More
Pine, George W.
Beyond the West; Containing An Account of Two Years' Travel in That Other Half of Our Great Continent Far Beyond The Old West
Utica, N.Y. T.J. Griffiths, 1870. First Edition. Hardcover. Duodecimo size, 456 pp. Full title page: "Beyond the West; Containing An Account of Two Years' Travel in That Other Half of Our Great Continent Far Beyond The Old West, On the Plains, In the Rocky Mountains, and Picturesque Parks of Colorado..... More
Pinney, Thomas
John Ignatius Bleasdale: A Friend of Wine in New Worlds
San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 2006. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. One of 250 copies, quarto size, 75 pp. John Ignatius Bleasdale (1822-1884) was a Catholic clergyman, who took his knowledge of wine making from Victoria to California during the early days of the California wine industry. The Book..... More
[Publisher]
Aerial/Map Volume of Contra Costa County, California (Real Estate Atlas of Contra Costa County, California)
Miami, FL: Real Estate Data, Inc., 1980. Softcover. Oblong atlas folio size, 581 pp., 17th Edition. While the western portion of Contra Costa County, California was fully developed by 1960, primarily due to industrial development during World War II, the central and eastern portions are now far different from how..... More
Rice, Felicia; Marryatt, Frank
An Excerpt from Mountains and Molehills, or Recollections of a Burnt Journal; An Illustrated Book of Travels in California by Frank Marryatt, 1855
Moving Parts Press for The Book Club of California, 2011. Rice, Felicia. Limited Edition. No binding. Number 12 of 75 copies, illustrated broadside, signed and numbered by artist Felicia Rice. The Book Club of California, one of the oldest book clubs in the U.S. for collectors and lovers of the..... More
Ritchie, Ward
Job Printing in California, With Four Original Examples of Early California Printing. 1955.; Early California Travels Series, Volume XXVI
Los Angeles: Glen Dawson [printed by William M. Cheney], 1955. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 200 copies, duodecimo size, 35 pp. Harry "Ward" Ritchie (1905-1996) founded The Ward Ritchie Press, a fixture in the Southern California literary landscape, in 1932. He was responsible for publishing thousands of books, including over..... More
Sheldon, Stewart, Rev.
Gleanings By the Way, From '36 to '89
Topeka, Kansas: Privately Printed / Geo. W. Crane & Co., Printers and Binders, 1890. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo size, 262 pp., inscribed by the Rev. Sheldon. Presentation copy from the author to his daughter, per a typed notation tipped onto the verso of the flyleaf (directly opposite the title page)..... More
Taber, [Isaiah West] (Photographer)
Sutro Baths, Cliff House, Sutro Heights [wrapper title: Sutro Baths, Heights and Cliff House]
[San Francisco]: [Engravings made by S.F. Photo Engraving Co., Sacramento], c. 1895. Taber, [Isaiah West]. Wraps. Oblong octavo, 96 pp. Isaiah West Taber (1830-1912), a native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, came to California shortly after the gold rush began on the ship "Friendship". After trying his hand at mining, ranching..... More
Tevis, A[ugustus] H[avens], Rev., A.M.
Beyond The Sierras; or, Observations on the Pacific Coast
Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1877. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Duodecimo size, 259 pp., inscribed by "the author" As a current book review stated, "It seems like a dream to have seen the first vessel sailing for this El Dorado in 1848, and now within thirty years to be reviewing the..... More
[Wadsworth, H.H.]
Hetch Hetchy Valley; Report of Advisory Board of Army Engineers to the Secretary of the Interior on Investigations Relative to Sources of Water Supply for San Francisco and Bay Communities, February 19, 1913
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913. Wraps. In original wraps, octavo size, 146 pp., with two folding map. "Hetch Hetchy was the first major battle of the environmental movement. It pitted a powerful city against a dedicated group of conservationists. It pitted Gifford Pinchot, America's first forester, against John Muir, America's..... More


Bank paints a promising picture in "Vietnam at a Glance: Great Expectations" report.
Vietnam will certainly achieve its growth target of 6.7 per cent in 2016, HSBC states in its latest report "Vietnam at a Glance: Great Expectations", released on January 6.
The country's strong growth is set to continue but macro policy management could become difficult.
Export growth is expected to rebound to double digits, reflecting new investments. Meanwhile, domestic demand should remain firm thanks to robust private spending, which should be helped by still-low interest rates.
Strong FDI flows are expected to support acceleration in exports. Macro policy management will likely be harder, as continued strong growth gradually stokes price pressures. HSBC expects exports to return to double-digit growth even as global growth remains lackluster, predicting a mere 0.1 ppt rise in global GDP, to 2.5 per cent.
Disbursed FDI rose to a record high $14.5 billion in 2015, up 17.4 per cent from the previous year. "We expect the number to rise further in 2016, reflecting improvements in the investment climate (including the potential relaxation of foreign investment restrictions)," the report stated.
New investments, coupled with continued market share gains in key products, such as electronics, footwear, and textiles and apparel, should boost Vietnam's shipments, even if global demand remains soggy.
In 2015 tech exports jumped another 34 per cent to reach $48 billion, thanks to steady investments by multinational businesses, which were attracted by Vietnam's fast growth, low wages, and large and eager workforce.
With growth having firmly shifted gears to the 6-7 per cent range, the bank forecasts inflation to rebound emphatically in the second half of the year, though the uncertainty around this outlook is quite high, given the difficulty of forecasting the path of oil prices.
Another source of uncertainty is gauging to what degree productivity increases may be contributing to the lack of core inflation momentum. It's possible that new investments, especially in the manufacturing sector, may have helped raise both labor and total factor productivity, though it's hard to confirm this given issues around the reliability of employment data.
Together with base effects from stabilizing oil prices and a likely pick-up in food inflation, HSBC forecasts headline inflation to rise to 3 per cent year-on-year by the end of the first half and hit 5.1 per cent year-on-year by the second half, breaching the central bank's target.
One event that could prove pivotal to Vietnam's long-term economic prospects is the upcoming National Party Congress (NPC) XII, scheduled from January 21 to 28. The NPC will be the focus as the new leadership provides clues about the reform outlook.
Of the various duties of the NPC, the two that are likely to be most significant to Vietnam's economic management are the election of the new Central Committee and national leadership team, and the adoption of a new Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) for the next five and ten years (2016-2025).
Vietnam's potential is no doubt great, and HSBC remains positive about the short-term outlook for the economy. However, numerous issues and potential obstacles remain if growth is to be sustained in the long run.


Saint-Gobain Seals was recently selected to supply OmniSeal® spring-energized seals and Rulon® bearings for use in high-performance clinical chemical analyzer systems. Chemical analyzers are used in a variety of professions such as medicine and forensics and in such industries as environmental, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, agricultural, consumer products, and food and beverage. In large routine laboratories, the number of sample numbers that are being handled can reach to hundreds of thousands per year because a single analyzer can analyze different types of samples whether they are, for example, whole blood samples for stat testing; serum and plasma samples for routine testing; or CSF and dialysate samples for specialty testing.
Laboratory managers utilizing chemical analyzer systems fitted with these seals and bearings will significantly maximize equipment run time while minimizing maintenance costs. The benefits are due to a combination of their proprietary Fluoroloy® seal and Rulon® polymer bearing, which improves maintenance intervals by 200% or more, resulting in the end user needing to only service the equipment one to two times per year in comparison to a typical six times per year with other systems. This reduction in maintenance time and spare part costs translates into an overall lower cost of ownership for the end user.
Aside from contributing to the workflow and cost-efficient value of the analyzer systems, the Seals business has also provided sustainable solutions such as surgical tools in the medical and dental fields (seals are being used in a full-powered, battery-operated endoscopic stapler) and hematology, HPLC equipment and mixers in the analytical and pharmaceutical fields. Saint-Gobain Seals has been a trusted manufacturing partner in the Life Sciences market for over 30 years, and key elements in their sealing and polymer designs address critical sealing, friction control, chemical compatibility, material compliance and weight reduction.
Their Fluoroloy® and Rulon product lines are registered trademarks of Saint-Gobain Seals, consisting of a family of proprietary materials that are composed primarily of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) based resins and developed to perform in the most diverse and extreme applications for various markets such as Life Sciences, Aerospace, Oil & Gas and Automotive. There are more than 100 standard Fluoroloy® and Rulon® grades available, several of which are FDA compliant and USP Class VI certified, making them well suited for medical and analytical equipment applications.


text:
r4isstatic.com
Web Design, Content Strategy, Information Architecture, and Telling Stories to the Machines
Tag Archives: semantic web
On Avatar, 3D, Augmented Reality and Truly Interactive Television
Happy New Year! Firstly, a little apology – I put a note at the top of my last blog post saying that I'd explain my use of the terms 'Internet' and 'Web' soon – I did in fact write a post – but somewhere along the line it never made it out into the wild world. So for that, sorry – but the gist of it was that perhaps I should have used the term 'Internet' to refer to the underlying infrastructure network, and the 'Web' to refer to the network of information that can be built on top of this.
And now on to the main topic for today. I've talked previously about how we could/should be using the Web to provide representations of the narratives we currently tell via radio and television. I said that whilst on-demand services such as iPlayer have had great success, and have certainly improved the consumption of media, they're not really game-changers, in that they are an attempt to replicate the form of a linear medium within a non-linear medium. As such, although they benefit from the latent abilities of the Internet (speed, distribution, on-demand), they do not take full advantage of the Web. These are still TV or Radio 'adaptions' of stories, being distributed by the Internet. What we need is the 'Web' adaption of the same story.
I've been working over the past month or so on a prototype that will explore these possibilities. At first glance, it seems to be very similar to Wikipedia, in that there are pages for characters, places, events, and links between them. The audience can undertake similar journeys to that of a visitor to Wikipedia – i.e. non-linear, explorative journeys – things which people are already doing (for instance when they say they got 'lost' on Wikipedia – in a positive sense!). However, what is different is that these URIs, and the HTML representations of their subjects, are connected directly in the same way as the story itself is being told. Thus, a collection of these URIs, joined together through hyperlinks, can be seen as a small web, or constellation, representing the story itself – a Web adaption – which allows the audience to explore the story from all angles, and gain new perspectives.
For a while now, I've been thinking of how the mainstream user will benefit from all this. I think the effect will be fairly subtle at first, and I was imagining two ways of experiencing the story – firstly by hopping from URI to URI and being immersed in the 'world' of that thing, and secondly, by taking a step back and examining the web of connections between things, and travelling through this web along a particular path – the act of telling the story. The latter, I imagined, would be through the form of some fairly standard 'dots and lines' visualisation, but at the back of my mind, I wasn't satisfied with this. Co-incidently, I then saw Avatar in 3D at the cinema. Personally, I felt pretty let down by the paucity of imagination shown in the storytelling, but I had to admit that the 3D effect was intriguing. Perhaps, rather than visualising the links through a limited, 2D 'dots and lines' diagram, the audience could gain a greater understanding by viewing the story's Web in 3D, allowing them to see all sides of it.
This is still a possibility, though again I'm very aware of the lack of availability of devices and technologies in the consumer market which support 3D. That, of course, may change, but I wondered whether there were other ways of improving the experience. I was worried that without this, it would just seem, to the general audience, like a replication of Wikipedia (albeit containing information that neither Wikipedia nor fan-wikis hold in such a structured, clickable manner).
And then I considered the ideas of convergence and Augmented Reality – essentially reminding myself that the Internet and the Web, and our interaction with it, need not be restricted to the browser. The Web is, at its heart, merely the highly structured data store – on top of which we can build user interfaces across virtually any connected platform. So, I started to think about mobile and TV viewing. When I'm watching drama, or sport, or the news, I often want to know more – why something is important, what someone is referring to, more about a player, what's the bigger picture etc. At present, the content is communicated to me via the screen, I interpret it, and then have to go off on my own search to find out more. When doing so, I have to begin again from scratch, communicating the same content (or a near approximation of it) with a computer connected to the Web. What if the content presented to me on screen also had the underlying semantic structures that meant it could do the communication with the Web?
The simplest form of this would be on a mobile device, where, whilst watching the programme (and indeed at any other time), you would navigate to a portal which can guide you to the correct URI contained within the narrative structure – this could take the form of a search engine, or a listing – that way, I could search for 'Jack Bauer' and be taken straight into the 'world' of 24 – or, more powerfully, if I witnessed an important event happening on screen, I could click the relevant link in the portal, and see other events that have led up to this, more information etc.
But there's an even more advanced version of this, which I strongly believe could be prototyped and developed pretty quickly. There are technologies available which can take a drama script, and output RDF triples, creating Web structures which represent every element of the narrative, down to the words. These can also be enhanced by matching the triples to timing information within a media representation – so, for instance, identifying that an event happens at 20 minutes into this particular version of the episode, but 15 minutes into another version.
Couple this with the growing links between the consumption of media and the Internet – TV over IP, such as BT Vision, or even on-demand services such as iPlayer. The media is being streamed to the audience – but this is potentially a two way channel – and if we have all the information about the narrative structure and timings for the programme available on the web, then the user can access that wealth of information whilst they are watching – either directly onto the screen, or on a supplementary mobile device.
Just think of what this means for drama, for starters. The 'flashback' device in storytelling, essentially used to give the audience a reminder of previous events, so that they can greater enjoy the current story, no longer needs to be incorporated into the linear representation of the story – because as the story is produced, it is connected on the Web to all previous parts of the story. Thus, if the audience wishes to learn more about something, or get a reminder of previous events, they can access them. If you were watching a programme, you could pause it, or activate your mobile device – the playback device would know the timing information of the audience's action, and could query the Web to find the relevant URIs of information, and present the knowledge found there, back to the user. For instance, if a reference was made on-screen to a past event, rather than the production team having to add in a flashback sequence, the audience could activate the communication at the point of reference, and be presented with the original clip of that event happening. Taken further, this then starts to really break down the linearly-imposed walls between 'episodes' of programmes – which are, of course, relics of the original linear nature of television – and instead presents the audience with something much more suited to their own mental models of the narrative they are consuming. In the end, it wouldn't really matter what episode you were watching – you could be freely exploring the whole universe of narrative, surfing between clip and clip, consuming the story in the order you prefer. Obviously it's not something you'd want to be doing constantly, but it brings the freedom of the Web to the self-imposed closed structure of the television – and opens up whole new ways of experiencing the stories we tell.
As I mentioned, these are only fresh ideas being formed as we speak, so I'm sure the solution isn't completely straightforward, but it really does seem that all the various puzzle pieces exist, they just need to be brought together – and the potential could be huge.
This entry was posted in Semantic Web and tagged Entertainment/Culture, Hypertext, semantic web, Technology/Internet, World Wide Web on January 7, 2010 by Paul.
The Web as a Creative Tool
Radio Daze, by Ian Hayhurst – creative commons license from Flickr
This year, the World Wide Web celebrates its' 20 anniversary. I've been thinking about what use we've made of this technology during this time, and the way in which I like to think about how we could help fulfill the potential of the Semantic Web. As ever, thanks go to several people and bloggers out there whose ideas have inspired me, and the conversations I've had with them in general. Again, this may be stating the obvious to some people, but I feel it's important to try and draw the threads of the patterns I'm seeing together in the hope that it will help others make the leap to looking at the potential of the WWW in a completely new way.
Up until recently, the Web has mainly been used as an enabling technology. By this, I mean that it has allowed us to do things faster, easier, cheaper, wider and for longer than ever before. However, these things that we've been doing with the Internet are, in the main, very much things that we were doing before the Web hit the mainstream. If anything, we've concentrated mainly on transposing these traditional methods of communication and interaction onto a new platform – and a platform is exactly what we've been using the Web for. Essentially doing the same as we've been doing before, but "now with added web!" as it were. On the way, we've (possibly accidentally) created concepts that didn't exist before – for instance the whole notion of websites, but overall it's been a case of doing the traditional things, using the web – and the benefits listed above have come as a kind of side-effect.
The industry in which I attempt to make a living – television and radio – is doing the same thing. The on-demand products from all the major UK broadcasters offer the benefits I've mentioned, but when it comes down to it, they are still just replicating traditional platforms – it's all about using your device as a substitute for your radio or your TV. Yes, we get the extra benefits of stuff being available for longer, and potential personalisation, but we still haven't fully escaped the mindset of using the Web purely as a platform – as if it was just a new type of box for watching or listening. It can be, but it can also be so much more.
The other way in which we have tended to use the Web has been as a commercial tool. I mean this in two ways. Firstly, again, it's a case of imitating existing processes on the Internet – hence the success of retailers, such as Amazon and Play. However, I think that the main use has been the way in which the Web has been seen as vital to a commercial strategy – not just in terms of selling goods directly through the Internet, but in a promotional sense as well. If you want to be successful now, you need a promotional presence on the Web. Again, however, what role is the Web playing in this, apart from the side effects? Very little. We're still promoting and distributing things, it just happens to be a new platform for doing so.
I think it's especially interesting to note the dichotomy between the way in which we've transposed old methods of 'doing' onto the Web, whilst creating new 'things' which are 'of' the Web. But the crux of the matter is that we've never really (in a mainstream sense) tried to properly transfer the traditional 'things' which make up our world onto the Web, and then set about creating new ways of interacting with these things via the Web.
So that's what we've done up until now. But what of the future?
In the mid-1990s, when CD-ROMs and the Web were beginning to puncture mainstream consciousness, the buzz-word was 'interactive'. Yet I think this has always been a mis-nomer. The way we've used the web so far in terms of the creative arts still conforms to a flat structure. People create things, whether they be songs, pictures, television/radio programmes, even blog posts, post them on the Web, and that's it. The thing that has been created is effectively fixed, static. Other people can create their own works as a result of these things, but again, it's almost as if they perform the act of creation 'offline', and then only when it comes to 'publishing' does the thing go 'online'.
The Web, as I understand it, is essentially very simple. As I've mentioned in other posts, it's just dots and lines. The dots are the things we identify, and the lines are the links we make between them. So far, we've concentrated on using the dots to represent 'pages', and the 'lines' have been (mostly) simple navigational links, with little meaning invested within them. These dots and lines, though, could be used as a model for almost anything – they are, after all, the essence of communication, the construction of a narrative. What we should be doing, is using the Web in the same way we would write a book, or make a TV/radio programme.
By this, I mean that just as you pull together ideas, resources, things in the construction of a work, we would use the Web to do the same thing – except we'd be able to retain the links back to where the individual parts of the work came from, with less need for someone to do the hard work of analysis for us. For instance, knowing that a line in a TV show is a reference to a famous film from the 50s, knowing that an author is alluding to a Norse legend, knowing that a piece of music is sampling others, even knowing that a work of art was painted using oils or watercolours, or uses symbols which have distinct meanings – all this would be explicit and available to anyone, via the links – encouraging learning, truly 'reading between the lines', as it were. Indeed, then we could claim to use the word 'interactive' properly – because a work that is published by someone would no longer be a flat, finished structure – audiences would be able to explore it from all angles, trace links to other things, and, importantly, then create their own works by linking things together in a brand new way.
Of course, one of the main objections to the trend of making things available online is that we lose the context of things, the author loses the power. I think that I disagree here – that's not a failing of the Web itself, it's a failing of our limited use of it. If we were to use the Web in the way I've talked about, then authorship would be another valid link to make – and one that should always be traversable – credit would actually be easier to give, and would also hopefully, importantly begin to encourage a true breaking down of the walls between 'producers' and 'consumers' – we would, and should be, enabling the audience to create entirely new things, using our things – that's still a valid thing to do, as long as the credit is given, and the links between what one person has originally made, and someone else has remixed, are made.
As I mentioned towards the beginning of this post, it's almost as if so far, we've done things the wrong way round – we've been so busy creating the new platforms and enablers that we've failed to see the true potential of them – and that can only really be achieved once we start migrating not the processes and devices (e.g. the process of shopping, the ability to watch TV etc.) but the things we create for those processes, onto the Web. Dots can be more than webpages, lines can be more than navigational links. Create the things (from which we may create exciting new things we haven't even thought of yet…), then refine the processes that help us find, share and experience them.
This entry was posted in Semantic Web and tagged digital revolution, future, linked data, media, semantic web, Technology/Internet on July 26, 2009 by Paul.
Narratives and the Semantic Web
Super Bowl Sunday Crystal Ball, by Circulating, from Flickr, Creative Commons license
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect – but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly…timey-wimey…stuff."
The websites that we create around the narratives we tell currently focus on the objects within those narratives, like the playing pieces in a set of toys. More often than not, these are hand-crafted, static pages about certain editorially defined objects. Although we can record the links between objects implicitly as things that the audience can travel along, we tend not to expose them as things that the audience can explore and see in context. This, however, is what we are really interested in when describing narratives or telling stories. We define the objects within the world of the narrative, and then describe the interactions and changes between the objects. The intriguing thing is not necessarily the objects themselves, but the ways in which they change, or otherwise. A truly engaging website would therefore allow the audience to explore the world of the narrative not only by navigating between the objects, but by exposing and analysing the links between them, in order to derive more satisfaction.
Outside of the web, when we focus on an object, our minds give it context, and naturally establish the links between relative objects. For instance, when on a train journey, if I look out the window, I can see that branch of that tree which is placed there. We are instantly aware of both the object and its context, the thing and its links. Do the same thing with a computer, and it could identify and create a URL for a branch of a tree, but this would exist in a vacuum. It is up to us to give it the context. Using the principles and technologies underlying the Semantic Web, however, we can start to embed the context, the links, the meaning, so that, when using the web, we do not have to define these things every time. Instead, we can concentrate on uncovering and analysing those links, so that we can derive greater understanding and enjoyment from them.
Currently, websites such as www.bbc.co.uk/programmes define the objects, their contexts and links in a semantic web fashion, so that we can uniquely identify a particular object. Essentially, it provides the building blocks upon which we can establish the type of website I hae described above. Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, these building blocks are the limits of what we can currently, reliably, achieve. Emerging technologies such as SPARQL and RDF/graph visualisations will help us to build upon these blocks, but I do not think we currently have an established, reliable 'toolkit' or process that we can use to do this. However, this does not mean it cannot be done – it needs further experimentation. In the meantime, we can set about ensuring that the websites we build now will allow us to achieve the ideas mentioned above.
In the context of the BBC, there are two areas in which I can imagine the benefits of such an approach. The first, I will only give a overview of, as I have only thought briefly about the possibilities. The other, regarding fictional narrative, has been the focus of my previous blog posts, and I will continue the discussion here.
The first area is sport, particularly football. The BBC Football website contains a wealth of information, covering what is, in effect, the (almost) closed-off world of football. Fans essentially are following a narrative which spans matches, clubs, leagues, seasons, cup competitions etc. There is, obviously, some organisation taking place on the website – organising the clubs into their leagues, for instance. However, the links between these things – and here I mean not just the clubs, but the players, the action – are rarely revealed. We know that a team is relegated from a division because on one day their page exists within the 'Premier League' section, whereas the next, they are in the 'Championship' section. Their history may be recorded on the team's page, or preserved in the numbers of a league table for a particular season, but there is no way of effectively (and, most importantly, engagingly) charting their fortunes. Of course, we can present these things in the numbers and bar charts and graphs, but they do not take advantage of the existence of the narrative behind them – which is really what people are interested in. Similarly with players. When two players go in for a tackle, we know that they have a history of confrontation, or perhaps an embarrasing own goal incident – what if we could provide the context around that tackle as and when, and after, it happens – filling in the back story, and getting the audience excited and engaged.
Similarly, by identifying and putting objects and events in context, we can give the audience something to latch on to. Take, for instance, a penalty incident. Say that the match was being covered on 5 Live with a commentary, it was shown and discussed on Match of the Day by pundits, and then also talked about on forums and 606 by fans. If we had an identifiable 'hook' for the incident, then potentially we could build a page which brought together all these different interpretations and discussions of the same event. That way, the audience would have an effective overview of the incident, with informed (and perhaps ill-informed!) opinions – their understanding and enjoyment would be enhanced, and of course, they could make their own contribution.
Back to the fiction – in my last post, I linked to a couple of images within which, I tried to explain what I aim to achieve, and where the benefits could be found. The first diagram establishes the episodes as a whole, regardless of series – and then drills down to a particular series, and a particular episode. A website that deals with a fictional narrative needs to remember that the episodes are merely a window onto the universe for the audience. If we intend to allow the audience to fully explore the universe, then apart from pointers leading them from/to episodes, as a form of 'way-in' (which, incidentally, should probably be through /programmes) the episodes themselves should (probably) not be included – all that exists are the objects (the places, the times, the characters) and the events.
The first diagram, once an episode has been specified, identifies the characters and events within the episode that are crucial to the narrative. For this, I limited myself to a handful of events and characters, which meant that I did not fully get the richness of the narrative across. However, potentially, we could identify as many events etc. as we require. Below the timeline of events (as presented to the viewer) there are coloured blobs, representing the characters in the events. This view shows us how the characters come and go throughout the episode (for instance, the Doctor only really appearing at certain points in the beginning, middle and end).
The second diagram gets closer to the value of this kind of site. Here, we see that the way in which each character experiences the events of the episode is quite different. This is crucial both to the plot and to the audience's understanding and enjoyment of the episode. If, for instance, you wondered exactly how things tied together, then exploring this kind of site would allow you to piece together the parts of the puzzle. Perhaps on each character's page, we would show their timeline, and how things happened to them. From the Doctor's perspective, for instance, the event at the end of the episode is the first thing that happens to him – and the last from Sally's point of view. Also, by showing these different timelines in the context of each other, we see the intricate way in which Steven Moffat (the writer) is able to weave the story together – giving the audience a greater appreciation of the story as a whole.
Obviously, Blink (so far) is an atypical episode of Doctor Who. By and large, the stories do not tend to concern themselves with the 'timey-wimey' stuff. However, over the course of a series, or indeed several series, characters, events etc re-appear – for instance the 'Bad Wolf' motif – the reason that the cliffhanger to 'Turn Left' works so well, is because it draws together elements of continuity established throughout several series. The audience gets maximum enjoyment out of such a moment because they are aware of the links and the context.
So what of the original series, whereby both 'timey-wimey' stuff and 'story-arcs' were at a minimum? Well, there are still instances of recurring themes, but overall, stories are self contained. That's fine – they could be slotted into this kind of website just like everything else, because it essentially gives us a great pool of narrative to draw upon – if and when needed. Crucially, though, they represent a pool of ideas that future writers can draw upon if they wish. Continuity should not restrict the writing of future stories – the previous stories merely open out the fictional universe, creating more richness for authors. As such, when feeding the 'classic' stories into the website, the site becomes a form of 'official' wiki. Users can and should be encouraged to contribute, as a form of writing their own stories, but a distinction can be drawn between the events depicted on screen (it is, after all, and should not be forgotten, a television show..) and those where people 'fill in the gaps'. The series itself has touched upon this, with the idea of certain events being 'fixed points' and others being 'in flux'. As long as the narrative is not disrupted (i.e. breaks down so that it no longer makes sense to the audience) or becomes to insular (i.e. relying too heavily on continuity, so that new audiences are driven away), then continuity can enhance the fictional narrative universe as a whole.
Finally, a new diagram which, on a very basic level, tries to illustrate the idea that the website could be explored and presented through the model of, as quoted above, "a big ball of wibbly-wobbly…timey-wimey…stuff." The diagram is quite obviously incomplete, but the idea is that the objects and the links between them are visualised, and the audience can then choose to look at a particular object, and see how it ties in to everything else – seeing both the object and its changing context and perspectives at the same time.
Phew. That's enough for now. Till next time…
This entry was posted in Doctor Who, Football, Semantic Web and tagged bbc, doctor who, Football, RDF, semantic web on March 3, 2009 by Paul.
Canon Flux
Blue Box – by Brainless Angel, Creative Commons, via Flickr
Well, that's been an interesting couple of weeks. I've made progress on both the RDF/Ontology and the Ruby/Rails front – although one much more significantly than the other. We'll deal with both in a moment, but first a few encouraging signs.
Thanks, as ever, to those who have commented on my posts so far – some interesting questions have been posed, of which I'll get onto later, and ideas have been discussed. One thing that has encouraged me a great deal has been this article by Tom Scott and Michael Smethurst on coherence at bbc.co.uk – most of which I'm familiar with from work, but the references to non-linear narratives, the BBC as a story-telling organisation, and how to adapt that for the web, are of particular interest and encouragement, because narrative and story-telling is at the heart of what I'm trying to achieve. Michael also wrote this article over at the Radio Labs blog, which is gathering plenty of praise (not least from Tim Berners-Lee himself!) – from my perspective, it's given me a useful focus on the steps I'd need to take to move these ideas from blog posts to a working prototype, and hopefully beyond.
So, how have I been getting on with a) developing a front-end website for exploration and administration of a fictional universe (by administration, I mean the creation of new elements in the 'toy-box' and the links between them), and b) an ontology (and accompanying RDF examples) to describe the narrative content of episodes?
Ruby/Rails – A Web Front End
One half of this project has always been focused on providing a front end application/web site. One in which users (I won't limit or define *who* they might be at the moment) could navigate and explore a fictional universe, in a wider, more open format than the current focus strictly on the episodes. A suggested approach to the project as a whole has been to create the web app first, use that to produce and store the data in a MySQL (or similar) database, and then expose the data as RDF etc. Unfortunately, my lack of technical expertise has severely hindered my progress on this front. Over a week and a half has been spent on just getting Ruby/Rails up and running properly, and learning the basics (for which, thanks must go to Anthony Green and Craig Webster in particular for being patient and offering help whenever possible). Although it's still a strand which I think is important, and would like to develop, I've been worried that concentrating solely on the Ruby/Rails side is taking me away from the semantic web/linked data roots of the idea, which I'd prefer to get sorted out first. I've also realised that before I can really begin to develop the front end properly, I need to know the scope and domain model inside out. Both of these I had a fair idea of, but the domain model in particular was very much a work in progress – and so I felt there was less value in developing the application until I had it sorted out. Note my use of the past tense to describe the domain model – which leads us nicely on to…
OntoMedia – An Ontology for Describing the Narrative Content of Media
This is a story of serendipity (which reminds me, of course, of the Jon Pertwee story 'The Green Death', aka 'The One with the Giant Maggots', in which the concept of serendipity plays an important role – anyway, where was I?). I've already described in detail my frustrations previously with the tantalising prospect of the SUDS ontology – something which several people have helpfully mentioned as a good starting place, but for which an actual ontology specification has been lacking. I'm still pursuing the SUDS material, thanks to Kim in the comments, but I've managed to get my hands on an ontology which might just be what I need – OntoMedia. A chance meeting with Mike Jewell at the last OpenSoho (see, networking can be useful) led to a discussion of this project – and it turns out that whilst at the University of Southampton, Mike and Faith Lawrence (amongst others) developed an ontology called OntoMedia for doing just as described in the heading. It has its' roots in an exploration of online fan fiction, and is extremely detailed and flexible. The fan fiction roots also mean that it has been designed with geeky subjects like Doctor Who in mind, which is a bonus. However, being so detailed and tailored to the fan fiction roots means that, speaking personally, it sometimes focuses a little too much on fantasy genre elements (detailed descriptions of clans, bonds, blood oaths, woods and coppices etc), whilst seemly lacking a couple of minor basics (although I'm still getting to grips with it, so it's possible that I'm just missing the obvious bits…!). But that's not to knock it at all – it's a highly accomplished piece of work, and allows all kinds of narratives to be described. Since our initial meeting, I've been discussing the possibility of developing and improving the onotology – I truly believe that with a little more work, it brings me a huge step closer to my goal, and could end up being widely used throughout the BBC. To be honest, I'm just surprised that no one else had picked up on its' potential yet.
I think I'll leave a detailed description of how to go about implementing stuff in OntoMedia for another blog post, but what I can do is give you a flavour of the basic principles. Essentially you establish the existence of (at least) two universes – reality, and the fictional universe. Within the fictional universe you establish a timeline, your characters, locations etc, and link your characters to defined actors in the 'real world'. Here, we can deal with characters and elements which are of dubious or multiple origins – we can deine essentially concepts that are shared between media, and their provenance as part of a universe (or context). I've also then defined episodes as being things existing in the real world, with their own timelines – the episodes are then linked into the bbc.co.uk/programme equivalents. Finally, you establish events which can occur in multiple timelines (and in different orders within those timelines). That's the principle, at least. For me, it all harks back quite nicely to that 'toy-box' analogy. You set the scene, choose your characters, then tell the story. It's also important to bear in mind that we're not trying to restrict creativity and lay down the law for what happened and when – to use the analogy from within Doctor Who, some things are fixed points in time (i.e. the stuff shown on screen), others are in flux.
As for my progress so far, I've been helped by Yves Raimond in particular for reminding me of the benefits of writing n3 triples, Patrick Sinclair and Nicholas Humphrey for other guidance. I've been working to two case studies. The first is to eventually show the benefits of linking characters and events across several episodes – for this, I've defined the scope as the 2005 series of Doctor Who (including The Christmas Invasion), with the intention to show the Bad Wolf arc (I can then extend this to cover the second, third and fourth series). The results of which can be seen here and here. (You'll need an RDF extension like Tabulator for Firefox to navigate the links properly).
The second case study is designed to highlight the benefits of exploring events in the fictional universe and comparing them with the order in which they occur within a given episode – so that the skill with which the writer has constructed the story can be fully appreciated, and the enjoyment of the story can be increased. For this case study, I've chosen to concentrate on the award winning story from the 2007 series, 'Blink' – famous for its use of multiple, interconnected timelines – very 'timey-wimey', as they say. Results so far, which just set up the timeline, the episode, the characters, actors and locations, can be found here.
Events and occurrences are, by their nature, a little more complex, and I'm currently trying to get my head around how best to represent them – the OntoMedia ontology allows extremely detailed representations of the data, but I'm trying to stick to simple representations for the moment – the achievement of which is my current challenge.
The ontology allows, essentially, the description of any narrative. Which leads me to a potential further case study. Obviously for the moment I've been concentrating on fictional universes – but this could easily apply to the real world. Could this be a way to describe events and blend the semantic web into other areas of the BBC's output in an easier and more subtle way? For instance, coverage of a football match – again, define the teams, the players, the timeline of the match and the various events. Then, again, we would have permanent, stable URIs for each team, player, event – I think the possibilities and potential are huge.
Finally, in terms of my overall approach – my current thinking is to continue with writing the RDF, then load it into a triple store. An application would then be written to allow the querying of data in the triple store, and its representation in a well designed, user facing front end. If there are standard patterns in the RDF for creating characters, events etc using Ontomedia, then ideally the application would take these recipies and allow the user to input the data without having to interact directly with writing RDF.
So there we are – a great deal of progress – not all the way there, but a huge step forward – although the phrase 'Standing on the Shoulders of Giants' does come to mind… Once I've worked ou how to represent events and occurrences, the triple store will be next, then the Ruby/Rails application, and then some design magic. Wish me luck!
This entry was posted in Doctor Who, Semantic Web and tagged British Broadcasting Corporation, doctor who, online fan fiction, RDF, semantic web, semantic web/linked data roots on January 31, 2009 by Paul.
Tuning Fork, by Toby Esterhase, via Flickr – Creative Commons
Part three of my investigation into fictional content modelling. See the previous two posts for the background to the project. Thanks to those who've been discussing the ideas – I think it's coming along nicely. I've been playing around with writing some RDF, trying to link up various ontologies, and explaining what I'm trying to do as I go along. Here's a plain text file of quasi-RDF within comments – see what you think…(UPDATE: Now here in beautiful RDF format 🙂 )
One thing that has come up in the discussions, though, is that there's perhaps two elements to what I'm trying to achieve. The first is to link existing ontologies and, if needed, build a new one, to help describe the narrative content of 'stories' within the context of television and radio programmes. The second is to experiment (and for me to learn) with existing ontologies, again, linking them up, to build dynamic and interesting webpages that work on linked data principles.
So I'm interested in the ontology *and* what kind of cool stuff we could build on top of it (which includes ideas around remixing narrative, and audience story-telling). I haven't got any definite plans on top of that at the moment, but I think the key is to see where it takes us. Well, I have an image in my mind of the types of things we could do, but again, it will be easier to describe them by prototypes. Something that might help is if I was to link to this diagram, from the aforementioned Tristan Ferne's Radio Labs blog, describing similar things to do with the Archers – except linking that up with linked data/ontology work…
Which would lead to something like the diagram below. Again, it isn't a complete set of what I want to do, but it shows the types of objects we're talking about, the relationships between them, and where they link to ontologies:
Contextual Data Model
Actors – Using FOAF, with possible extensions, this would be a URL for each actor who appears in a BBC show. This page could pull in a biography from WIkipedia, for instance, but mainly it will show the audience all the programmes that the actor has appeared in. Linking Actors to Characters, all the way through to Episodes, would allow us to auto-generate the cast lists for the /programmes episode pages. However, one problem in an early implementation might be that if we only record 'significant' events within an episode, the cast lists won't represent everyone – but over time, this could be improved (the rest of the cast could possibly be listed manually against the episode, greyed-out, until they have their own URL).
Portrayal – This would allow an Actor to play many Characters, and a Character to be played by many Actors. Here I'm thinking more of 'flashback' scenes where you see a character as a child, but as Tom pointed out in the comments, this could be used to handle the different actors playing the Doctor. BUt how then would you deal with the different 'characterisations' of the same character?
This is where the recursive relationship around 'Character' comes in – I haven't worked out exactly what to call this yet, but it would allow both the foaf:knows relationship, and potentially use the owl:sameAs to link different Doctors? (Perhaps not – but something along those lines).
Again, a many-to-many resolver is needed between Characters and Events, which I've called 'Action' – I'm not sure whether these many-to-many objects would need to be made explicit and have their own URLs, but the main objects certainly would, as they could have useful pages for the audience to explore.
Events would be pages that would describe a significant event in the episode, something that would be worth describing, for instance an event which is part of a wider story arc – we would then need a URL to link these together, so you could say that 'Someone points out that Donna has something on her back' is part of the 'Donna/Time-Beetle' story arc (apologies for the random example!). This is, though, where the main value of the project would be for the audience. BY giving an event a URL, the user could trace storylines throughout the episodes, outside of the confines of the episode structure – making the fictional universe more cohesive, rather than restricting our view to the episodes, which are like 'windows' onto the fictional universe.
Similarly, if a user then wanted to write a story featuring some of the characters, they could refer to the character's URL (which would then allow us to have something on the character's page to say 'others have written stories using this character' – linking out onto the web, and promoting new writers and stories. The users could equally refer to events, perhaps building events into their owns stories, taking them as cues for new stories etc. Again, it all fits in with the idea of giving our audience the tools to be creative, whilst using the advantages of the BBC website's exposure to promote audience creativity.
There's one many-to-many resolver which I'm not sure about at the moment – between Events and Episodes – what if the same event was shown, or even just referred to, in more than one episode? We would need some way of defining this – but I'm not sure of the correct term for it yet, hence the '???' object.
So – events could be described using the Event Ontology. Actors and Characters would use the FOAF ontology. Episodes would use the Programmes Ontology. We therefore just need a way of tying them together, and then once we have some examples, it would be good to start thinking about what new things we might need from a new ontology.
On the subject raised in the comments about expressing a person in FOAF as fictional or real – I'd side withi Tom in saying that it would be better to label the individual people as fictional, so that it was explicit which FOAF people were characters or not – and then you'd also have the issue of characters being used to represent, for instance, historical figures such as Charles DIckens…
Anyway, that's enough for this entry. I hope I've got a little further in both clarifying the two strands of the idea, and exploring the breadth and potential of it. Comments, discussion, etc. encouraged! I'm hoping to present the idea in a meeting this coming Tuesday as a possible 10% time project, so I will keep you posted…
This entry was posted in Doctor Who, Semantic Web and tagged bbc, doctor who, FOAF, RDF, semantic web, storytelling on January 11, 2009 by Paul.
Archives Select Month May 2018 (1) December 2017 (1) October 2015 (1) July 2015 (1) February 2015 (1) September 2014 (1) July 2014 (2) June 2014 (1) May 2014 (14) March 2014 (1) January 2014 (1) September 2013 (1) August 2013 (1) July 2013 (1) June 2013 (2) January 2013 (2) October 2012 (2) August 2012 (2) May 2012 (1) April 2012 (2) January 2012 (1) December 2011 (1) October 2011 (1) September 2011 (1) July 2011 (3) December 2010 (1) October 2010 (1) September 2010 (3) August 2010 (1) March 2010 (1) January 2010 (1) November 2009 (1) July 2009 (1) March 2009 (1) February 2009 (1) January 2009 (4) December 2008 (1) October 2008 (1)
Categories Select Category Doctor Who (9) Football (1) Ideas (8) Life (20) Music (13) Notes (1) Semantic Web (29) Speaking (5) Storytelling (13) Uncategorized (4) User Experience (7)


text:
African Wildlife: The Fine Line Between Scourge and Savior
Written by Sean Koenig, ChangeStream Media co-founder
Imagine commuting to work, only to find your office has been demolished by a herd of wooly mammoths. Or returning home to find your yellow lab has been devoured by a saber-toothed tiger. The extinction o megafauna of North America makes life easier in ways we almost never acknowledge, and the fierce opposition to limited re-introduction of wolves indicates how unlikely it is we'd welcome back our ecological heritage, even if it were possible.
In rural Sub-Saharan Africa, living alongside megafauna is not a hypothetical situation. Every day is a struggle to coexist with elephants and hippos that can devour a field of crops in a night, and lions and hyenas that feast on untended cows and goats. Finding ways to reduce and manage these conflicts, while turning the surrounding wilderness into a valuable economic asset, may be the only way to ensure the continued existence of the ecosystem from which our species evolved.
This is the issue ChangeStream Media will be exploring over the coming months, as we work with groups in several countries pioneering strategies like game management, sustainable resource harvesting, and eco-tourism.
Our first stop is in Namibia, one of the world's foremost leaders in Community Based Natural Resource Management. When the nation was formed in 1990, land rights for rural communities were written directly into the constitution. There are currently over 80 wildlife conservancies established around the country, allowing communities to benefit from wildlife by harvesting game meat, licensing tourist lodges, and permitting trophy hunting. In exchange, these communities must equitably share the benefits from these activities throughout the community and actively monitor the health of the flora and fauna in their territory.
Adapted with permission from NACSO's 2014 Audit Report
Our partners in Namibia, the World Wildlife Fund, along with a coalition of groups including the Namibian Association of Conservancy Support Organizations (NACSO) and the Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation organization (IRDNC) have helped to develop an innovative way for conservancies to manage their natural resources.
Yesterday I had a chance to learn about this tool, called the Event Book system, from two of its developers, Dave Ward and Dr. Greg Stuart-Hill at the NACSO headquarters in Windhoek (below). In a future post, I'll explain more about the system and introduce you to the Salambala Conservancy, which has done an amazing job in implementing it.
← What Makes the Mexican Island of Cozumel So Special?
Rural Tanzania's Eco-Innovation Center →
· © 2020 ChangeStream Media · Powered by · Designed with the Customizr theme ·


text:
Bruchidius aureus is een keversoort uit de familie bladkevers (Chrysomelidae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort werd in 1977 gepubliceerd door Arora.

aureus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia