Due to changes to the LOGIS service, the weekly news alert service will be ending. Council staff should read the article on these changes in the internal newsletter Citywire 13th May 2009
Friday, 22 May 2009
Thursday, 14 May 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 14/05):
Business & management:
• A US business school project has developed into testing out a new urban agriculture plan to construct and operate year-round, sustainable growing systems on supermarket rooftops.
Education
• Danish ministers are about to trial a system where senior level college students are allowed to take internet-connected computers into exams.
Environment & sustainability:
• An economist at a conference in Europe has proposed a pan-European strategy of small-scale energy generation and smart energy grids. He believes it would make everyone a partner in energy, would create millions of jobs, and would foster investment that would see the end of the current economic crisis.
• There are three key planks to a successful green cities strategy that will create jobs, stimulate business growth, and make cities more livable, desirable places: building retrofits, green jobs, and public transit enhancements.
• A new US study suggests that converting biomass to electricity rather than ethanol for transportation produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions and offers more “miles per acre.”
• A village in Scotland took their energy future into their own hands by buying into a local wind-turbine development. Money earned from their investment is being put back into making the village houses more energy efficient.
Health & wellbeing:
• US researchers are proposing that it is possible to have warning of a pandemic before the first case has even appeared, by detecting subtle signals in human behaviour.
• Canadian research has discovered that females have a stronger immune system than males.
Law & Government:
• Mayors and representatives from cities all over the world met yesterday at the UN to discuss how better infrastructure planning can help achieve sustainable urban development.
• The controversial French digital legislation similar to NZ’s Section 92, has been re-introduced and passed. The new act creates an agency that will monitor and enforce a “three strikes” approach to illegal downloading.
• The City of Vancouver has released guidelines for passive design for achieving energy efficiency and improved heating comfort through building design. The passive design elements can reduce a building’s energy demand by as much as 50 per cent.
• Mosman City Council in Australia has introduced Twitter as another means of communicating with its citizens. Responses have been mostly good – except for one person who thought it was a bit “creepy” that the council was “following me”.
Science, technology & transport:
• Astro_Mike is the first person to Twitter from space. During training for his space flight, astronaught Mike Massimino has used Twitter to post regular updates about his training.
• UK researchers have published a new estimate for total crude oil extraction, suggesting that more may have been removed than previously thought. Since their findings disagree with earlier calculations, clarification on how much oil reserve is left, is needed.
• Transport for London is beginning a 6-month trial of intelligent speed adaption technology, that aims to reduce road casualties, and help drivers avoid speeding fines.
• Better Place, invited by the Ministry of the Environment in Japan, has officially opened the first solar powered electric vehicle battery switching station in Yokohama.
• A US business school project has developed into testing out a new urban agriculture plan to construct and operate year-round, sustainable growing systems on supermarket rooftops.
Education
• Danish ministers are about to trial a system where senior level college students are allowed to take internet-connected computers into exams.
Environment & sustainability:
• An economist at a conference in Europe has proposed a pan-European strategy of small-scale energy generation and smart energy grids. He believes it would make everyone a partner in energy, would create millions of jobs, and would foster investment that would see the end of the current economic crisis.
• There are three key planks to a successful green cities strategy that will create jobs, stimulate business growth, and make cities more livable, desirable places: building retrofits, green jobs, and public transit enhancements.
• A new US study suggests that converting biomass to electricity rather than ethanol for transportation produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions and offers more “miles per acre.”
• A village in Scotland took their energy future into their own hands by buying into a local wind-turbine development. Money earned from their investment is being put back into making the village houses more energy efficient.
Health & wellbeing:
• US researchers are proposing that it is possible to have warning of a pandemic before the first case has even appeared, by detecting subtle signals in human behaviour.
• Canadian research has discovered that females have a stronger immune system than males.
Law & Government:
• Mayors and representatives from cities all over the world met yesterday at the UN to discuss how better infrastructure planning can help achieve sustainable urban development.
• The controversial French digital legislation similar to NZ’s Section 92, has been re-introduced and passed. The new act creates an agency that will monitor and enforce a “three strikes” approach to illegal downloading.
• The City of Vancouver has released guidelines for passive design for achieving energy efficiency and improved heating comfort through building design. The passive design elements can reduce a building’s energy demand by as much as 50 per cent.
• Mosman City Council in Australia has introduced Twitter as another means of communicating with its citizens. Responses have been mostly good – except for one person who thought it was a bit “creepy” that the council was “following me”.
Science, technology & transport:
• Astro_Mike is the first person to Twitter from space. During training for his space flight, astronaught Mike Massimino has used Twitter to post regular updates about his training.
• UK researchers have published a new estimate for total crude oil extraction, suggesting that more may have been removed than previously thought. Since their findings disagree with earlier calculations, clarification on how much oil reserve is left, is needed.
• Transport for London is beginning a 6-month trial of intelligent speed adaption technology, that aims to reduce road casualties, and help drivers avoid speeding fines.
• Better Place, invited by the Ministry of the Environment in Japan, has officially opened the first solar powered electric vehicle battery switching station in Yokohama.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 07/05):
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 07/05):
Business & management:
• The Office of Ethnic Affairs is holding a series of events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on the economic benefits of ethnic diversity from 11 - 22 May.
• Social networking can be used to create new opportunities for innovation, for business development and for maintaining relationships between the most talented people. But they can also become exclusive clubs that hoard power and undermine equality, meritocracy and openness.
• Providing sustainable working environments post-recession, might mean more casual and open areas in which many employees share the same equipment and space.
Environment & sustainability:
• A UK government commissioned report will assess the full energy potential of English and Welsh waters, to work out how and where to install marine renewable energy resources.
• The Internet's increasing appetite for electricity poses a major threat to companies such as Google, according to scientists and industry executives, and may mean that there is a need for provider companies to limit the Internet’s carbon footprint.
• In a recent survey, NZers overwhelmingly support a range of policies to manage climate change in addition to the emissions trading scheme (ETS).
• A NZ not-for-profit organisation is promoting the idea of introducing a renewable energy policy known as a Feed-In Tariff (FIT). In other OECD countries, FITs increase the uptake of small-scale renewable energy production.
• Russia has serious plans to exploit oil and gas reserves in the Arctic, and is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations in the region, to provide power to its oil companies. An environmentalist has condemned the plans as “highly risky”.
• A former industrial park on Chicago’s south side is the proposed site of a $60 million project to add 10 MW of solar photovoltaic panels, creating the US’s largest urban solar installation.
• The Improvement and Development Agency in the UK provides resource pages showing how local government needs to act on environment sustainability and climate change. Some in the sector are pioneering much of the best practice in the UK.
• Landcare Research's carboNZero programme has become the first greenhouse gas certification scheme in the world to receive international accreditation under the auspices of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).
• US researchers have found that mercury levels in the Pacific Ocean have risen 30% in the last 20 years, exposing more people to mercury in fish and other seafood.
• A great deal more work needs to be done in the US, so that water is not wasted, nor the energy required to move the water around. A good example of water wastage are irrigation systems, especially those using automatic timers that take no account of whether the water is actually needed or not.
Health & wellbeing:
• Healthy families, young minds, and developing brains is a report from the Families Commission showing that parents play a critical role in the physical development of children’s brains, with future impacts on family violence, crime, social and educational success and mental health.
Law & Government:
• Freedom on the Net is a report from Freedom House, on a selected number of countries across the globe. The report assesses access and control to the Internet by governments and others around the world.
• The UK government has released a proposed new Planning Policy Statement that sets out a comprehensive approach for planning for sustainable economic growth in all parts of the country.
• Social networking software will be a future trend that governments will need to learn to handle. A US report examines the issues around security and social networking use by government. The report identifies 4 broad government functions in sharing, that impact on defense, diplomacy and developmnet.
• And in the New Statesman, the use of social media in disaster management and emergency planning is discussed by the author of “Resilient Nation”
• The Bronx zoo, the oldest city zoo in America, is so badly affected by a multimillion dollar budget deficit, that it has ordered the shipping of hundreds of animals to other institutions.
People, culture & diversity:
• The Human Rights Commissioner says that NZ needs a Sign Language Commission that advocates for the language, much as the current Maori Language Commission does for te reo.
• A UK study has found that stalking of teenagers is taken less seriously by parents, schools and police, because of the belief that teenagers are simply being bullied. However, the study found that teenagers are more likely to come to physical harm from a stalker.
• Data from several surveys in Canada (including ones from Statistics Canada) have been used to produce the report How Canadians' Use of the Internet Affects Social Life and Civic Participation. Contrary to the view that heavy Internet users are withdrawn from society, the research has found that Internet users participate in society more.
• Surveys of a range of social media websites and other research are showing that users and designers of social media are from older generations, and that Gen Y (the 18 to 24 year-olds) are less likely to be connecting as much as older users.
Science, technology & transport:
• NZ scientists have discovered that the growth and retreat of NZ glaciers differs from glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere over the last 7000 years.
• The US Environmental Defense Fund has published a report on the new generation of innovative public transit already operating in a variety of communities in America.
• McAfee has released a report on the carbon footprint of spam emails – while these emails are often only seen as a nuisance, sending and deleting them actually uses a surprising amount of energy.
• A UK university has developed a retrofit plug-in hybrid conversion system for a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle. The sytem was developed using a van, but it’s believed that the technology could be scaled up to larger vans or even city buses.
• The good news – you can get rid of polystyrene by dissolving it in biodiesel and it will boost the engine’s power. The bad news – it will also boost harmful emissions.
• The CEO of a company manufacturing electric vehicle recharging systems, points out 5 features that will be necessary in building in any charging infrastructure.
• When the lights failed at a busy London intersection, but the traffic flowed better than before, the council decided to investigate. There will now be a 6 month trial with traffic lights at up to 7 junctions “bagged”, so that an assessment can be made as to whether accidents and traffic congestion will drop without the lights controlling traffic.
• A study of the most and least safe places to cycle in Britain shows that where there are more riders on the roads there is generally a lower accident rate, while in areas less popular for bikes, cycling can be more dangerous.
Business & management:
• The Office of Ethnic Affairs is holding a series of events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch on the economic benefits of ethnic diversity from 11 - 22 May.
• Social networking can be used to create new opportunities for innovation, for business development and for maintaining relationships between the most talented people. But they can also become exclusive clubs that hoard power and undermine equality, meritocracy and openness.
• Providing sustainable working environments post-recession, might mean more casual and open areas in which many employees share the same equipment and space.
Environment & sustainability:
• A UK government commissioned report will assess the full energy potential of English and Welsh waters, to work out how and where to install marine renewable energy resources.
• The Internet's increasing appetite for electricity poses a major threat to companies such as Google, according to scientists and industry executives, and may mean that there is a need for provider companies to limit the Internet’s carbon footprint.
• In a recent survey, NZers overwhelmingly support a range of policies to manage climate change in addition to the emissions trading scheme (ETS).
• A NZ not-for-profit organisation is promoting the idea of introducing a renewable energy policy known as a Feed-In Tariff (FIT). In other OECD countries, FITs increase the uptake of small-scale renewable energy production.
• Russia has serious plans to exploit oil and gas reserves in the Arctic, and is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations in the region, to provide power to its oil companies. An environmentalist has condemned the plans as “highly risky”.
• A former industrial park on Chicago’s south side is the proposed site of a $60 million project to add 10 MW of solar photovoltaic panels, creating the US’s largest urban solar installation.
• The Improvement and Development Agency in the UK provides resource pages showing how local government needs to act on environment sustainability and climate change. Some in the sector are pioneering much of the best practice in the UK.
• Landcare Research's carboNZero programme has become the first greenhouse gas certification scheme in the world to receive international accreditation under the auspices of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).
• US researchers have found that mercury levels in the Pacific Ocean have risen 30% in the last 20 years, exposing more people to mercury in fish and other seafood.
• A great deal more work needs to be done in the US, so that water is not wasted, nor the energy required to move the water around. A good example of water wastage are irrigation systems, especially those using automatic timers that take no account of whether the water is actually needed or not.
Health & wellbeing:
• Healthy families, young minds, and developing brains is a report from the Families Commission showing that parents play a critical role in the physical development of children’s brains, with future impacts on family violence, crime, social and educational success and mental health.
Law & Government:
• Freedom on the Net is a report from Freedom House, on a selected number of countries across the globe. The report assesses access and control to the Internet by governments and others around the world.
• The UK government has released a proposed new Planning Policy Statement that sets out a comprehensive approach for planning for sustainable economic growth in all parts of the country.
• Social networking software will be a future trend that governments will need to learn to handle. A US report examines the issues around security and social networking use by government. The report identifies 4 broad government functions in sharing, that impact on defense, diplomacy and developmnet.
• And in the New Statesman, the use of social media in disaster management and emergency planning is discussed by the author of “Resilient Nation”
• The Bronx zoo, the oldest city zoo in America, is so badly affected by a multimillion dollar budget deficit, that it has ordered the shipping of hundreds of animals to other institutions.
People, culture & diversity:
• The Human Rights Commissioner says that NZ needs a Sign Language Commission that advocates for the language, much as the current Maori Language Commission does for te reo.
• A UK study has found that stalking of teenagers is taken less seriously by parents, schools and police, because of the belief that teenagers are simply being bullied. However, the study found that teenagers are more likely to come to physical harm from a stalker.
• Data from several surveys in Canada (including ones from Statistics Canada) have been used to produce the report How Canadians' Use of the Internet Affects Social Life and Civic Participation. Contrary to the view that heavy Internet users are withdrawn from society, the research has found that Internet users participate in society more.
• Surveys of a range of social media websites and other research are showing that users and designers of social media are from older generations, and that Gen Y (the 18 to 24 year-olds) are less likely to be connecting as much as older users.
Science, technology & transport:
• NZ scientists have discovered that the growth and retreat of NZ glaciers differs from glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere over the last 7000 years.
• The US Environmental Defense Fund has published a report on the new generation of innovative public transit already operating in a variety of communities in America.
• McAfee has released a report on the carbon footprint of spam emails – while these emails are often only seen as a nuisance, sending and deleting them actually uses a surprising amount of energy.
• A UK university has developed a retrofit plug-in hybrid conversion system for a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle. The sytem was developed using a van, but it’s believed that the technology could be scaled up to larger vans or even city buses.
• The good news – you can get rid of polystyrene by dissolving it in biodiesel and it will boost the engine’s power. The bad news – it will also boost harmful emissions.
• The CEO of a company manufacturing electric vehicle recharging systems, points out 5 features that will be necessary in building in any charging infrastructure.
• When the lights failed at a busy London intersection, but the traffic flowed better than before, the council decided to investigate. There will now be a 6 month trial with traffic lights at up to 7 junctions “bagged”, so that an assessment can be made as to whether accidents and traffic congestion will drop without the lights controlling traffic.
• A study of the most and least safe places to cycle in Britain shows that where there are more riders on the roads there is generally a lower accident rate, while in areas less popular for bikes, cycling can be more dangerous.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 30/04):
Business & management:
• A top UN official has warned that the resilience of the Asia-Pacific region in the global recession will be chipped away unless several key issues are addressed.
• A Swiss employee is accusing her company of spying on her while she was ill, because the company has sacked her for destroying their trust by using Facebook while home on sick leave.
• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has released a report on energy efficiency in buildings. The report shows that under current financial and policy conditions, building decisionmakers around the world will not spend sufficiently on energy efficiency, and the report provides a roadmap on achieving a worldwide average of a 55 percent reduction in building energy use by 2050.
Education
• If you’re not sure about how well your Powerpoint presentations are working you could view an amusing online slideshow: “Presenting with Visuals”.
Environment & sustainability:
• The fifth biennial survey of Public Perceptions of New Zealand’s Environment released this month, shows that NZers believe water pollution and water related issues are the most important environmental issues facing NZ.
• Scientists writing in Nature, say that politicians should focus on limiting humanity's total output of CO2 rather than setting a "safe" level for annual emissions, and that three-quarters of the world's fossil fuel reserves must be left unused if society is to avoid dangerous climate change.
Health & wellbeing:
• A study funded by the US National Dairy Council, compares bone properties (in rats) between calcium from supplements and milk, and shows that milk or dairy products produce greater bone growth and strength than calcium supplements.
• NZ scientists are monitoring influenza virus resistance to Tamiflu, as there is a possibility that as the swine influenza spreads among people already exposed to Tamiflu-resistant strains of influenza, the swine flu may evolve resistance to the drug.
• Microsoft has launched a trial product designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communications fail or falter in a crisis.
• A California study has found that childhood asthma rates can increase as much as 30% with exposure to higher levels of traffic-related air pollution.
Law & Government:
• It has been reported that the US Dept of Justice is investigating Google, due to accusations of anti-competitive behaviour. The accusations concern a $125million deal between Google and author groups that would give Google exclusive digital rights to some books.
• UK communication firms will be asked to track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites, as part of modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.
• The European Parliament is voting on a set of new regulations next week, that may free European Internet providers to decide which content, services and applications European users can access and use. The new regulations will force users to choose among pre-packaged options of accessibility.
• Leeds and Greater Manchester are being proposed as pilot citiy-regions that may get central government functions devolved to them, so that they have more powers in a similar way to the mayor of London and his administration.
• Vancouver City has released a list of tangible actions and policies to guide the city to becoming the world’s greenest in a report: “Greenest City Quick Start Recommendations”.
Science, technology & transport:
• The UK Energy Research Centre has released a report that reviews over 500 other international reports and papers on policies to reduce CO2 emissions, and shows that policies can have a large impact in the reduction in car use and therefore, emissions.
• Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego and Microsoft Research have created a plug-and-play hardware prototype for personal computers that induces a new energy saving state known as “sleep talking.”
• General Electric has unveiled a new optical disc that can store 500 gigabytes of data, equivalent to 100 DVDs.
• A British survey has found that people are still confused about technology jargon. The survey company says that companies should use language people understand, rather than resorting to jargon. Among the most confusing terms, are “phone jack” and “desktop”.
• Companies with heavy investment in the Internet may believe that its future is with mobile phones, but others say that the mobile web is far from realising its potential.
• British designers have built a racing car that runs on a mixture of chocolate and vegetable oil, and has components made of soy or potato.
• Norway has had a law proposed that would ban vehicles that run solely on fuel after 2015. Hybrid vehicles would still be legal after that date.
• A top UN official has warned that the resilience of the Asia-Pacific region in the global recession will be chipped away unless several key issues are addressed.
• A Swiss employee is accusing her company of spying on her while she was ill, because the company has sacked her for destroying their trust by using Facebook while home on sick leave.
• The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has released a report on energy efficiency in buildings. The report shows that under current financial and policy conditions, building decisionmakers around the world will not spend sufficiently on energy efficiency, and the report provides a roadmap on achieving a worldwide average of a 55 percent reduction in building energy use by 2050.
Education
• If you’re not sure about how well your Powerpoint presentations are working you could view an amusing online slideshow: “Presenting with Visuals”.
Environment & sustainability:
• The fifth biennial survey of Public Perceptions of New Zealand’s Environment released this month, shows that NZers believe water pollution and water related issues are the most important environmental issues facing NZ.
• Scientists writing in Nature, say that politicians should focus on limiting humanity's total output of CO2 rather than setting a "safe" level for annual emissions, and that three-quarters of the world's fossil fuel reserves must be left unused if society is to avoid dangerous climate change.
Health & wellbeing:
• A study funded by the US National Dairy Council, compares bone properties (in rats) between calcium from supplements and milk, and shows that milk or dairy products produce greater bone growth and strength than calcium supplements.
• NZ scientists are monitoring influenza virus resistance to Tamiflu, as there is a possibility that as the swine influenza spreads among people already exposed to Tamiflu-resistant strains of influenza, the swine flu may evolve resistance to the drug.
• Microsoft has launched a trial product designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communications fail or falter in a crisis.
• A California study has found that childhood asthma rates can increase as much as 30% with exposure to higher levels of traffic-related air pollution.
Law & Government:
• It has been reported that the US Dept of Justice is investigating Google, due to accusations of anti-competitive behaviour. The accusations concern a $125million deal between Google and author groups that would give Google exclusive digital rights to some books.
• UK communication firms will be asked to track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites, as part of modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.
• The European Parliament is voting on a set of new regulations next week, that may free European Internet providers to decide which content, services and applications European users can access and use. The new regulations will force users to choose among pre-packaged options of accessibility.
• Leeds and Greater Manchester are being proposed as pilot citiy-regions that may get central government functions devolved to them, so that they have more powers in a similar way to the mayor of London and his administration.
• Vancouver City has released a list of tangible actions and policies to guide the city to becoming the world’s greenest in a report: “Greenest City Quick Start Recommendations”.
Science, technology & transport:
• The UK Energy Research Centre has released a report that reviews over 500 other international reports and papers on policies to reduce CO2 emissions, and shows that policies can have a large impact in the reduction in car use and therefore, emissions.
• Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego and Microsoft Research have created a plug-and-play hardware prototype for personal computers that induces a new energy saving state known as “sleep talking.”
• General Electric has unveiled a new optical disc that can store 500 gigabytes of data, equivalent to 100 DVDs.
• A British survey has found that people are still confused about technology jargon. The survey company says that companies should use language people understand, rather than resorting to jargon. Among the most confusing terms, are “phone jack” and “desktop”.
• Companies with heavy investment in the Internet may believe that its future is with mobile phones, but others say that the mobile web is far from realising its potential.
• British designers have built a racing car that runs on a mixture of chocolate and vegetable oil, and has components made of soy or potato.
• Norway has had a law proposed that would ban vehicles that run solely on fuel after 2015. Hybrid vehicles would still be legal after that date.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 23/04):
Business & management:
• 13% of adults in the UK have no bank account, compared to 1% to 5% in the rest of Western Europe. A proposal to start a post bank system that operates through the existing post office network has been made by a coalition of unions and small businesses.
• The Greenlist is a website which allows consumers to compare how environmentally friendly products may be across a range of different sustainability criteria, while also allowing companies to promote their products.
• The US annual Innovations Review Report highlights innovative strategies companies have implemented to reduce emissions, conserve resources and encourage sustainable behavior.
Education
• The Ministry of Education has studied completion rates among the first two years' intake of Modern Apprentices and more than half the young people in Modern Apprenticeships and industry training leave without completing their qualifications. There are also big variations between industries, ethnic groups and gender.
• Research in the UK being released at an economics conference this week, has found that if boys stay on at school for just 1 more year, their future salary is likely to rise by 13%. Also being released at the same conference: boys do worse at English when there are girls in their class.
• Personal learning environments are one of the future trends in decentralized forms of learning predicted in education.
• A US professor who teaches about open education, and founded OpenContent.org has predicted that university institutions will be irrelevant by 2020.
• Trainers are using micro-blogging (like Twitter) to foster learning and meet like-minded peers.
Environment & sustainability:
• Crop growth, drinking water and recreational water sports could all be adversely affected if predicted rainfall patterns over coming years prove true. New research raises concerns about the level of phosphorous released from soils into surface water and the surrounding environment.
• The Federal government in Australia is assuring people in Adelaide that water is secure for 2009-2010, after the local water authority said it couldn’t guarantee that water would be delivered over the next 2 years.
• The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) says forests are under increasing degrees of stress as a result of climate change. Forests could release vast amounts of carbon if temperatures rise 2.5C (4.5F) above pre-industrial levels.
• The movement in cities to include or convert spaces to growing food for local communities has its most prominent recent example in the Obamas digging up part of the White House Lawn, but had begun much earlier in other US cities.
• The UK consumer magazine “Which?” says that council taxes there could be reduced if consumers recycled more effectively, since less waste would need to go to landfills.
• 120 US companies that are pushing the envelope in terms of water treatment, purification and management, have been rated on their technology, intellectual property and know-how, team quality and market potential.
• Rivers in some of the world’s most populous regions are losing water, according to a comprehensive study of global stream flows.
Health & wellbeing:
• Waltham Forest council has become the first in the UK to demand the closure of a fast food restaurant because it is too close to a school.
• A British bioethics group is raising concern about the use of the Internet and new technologies to revolutionise health care. The group says that there has been a rise in the use of online drug sales and private DNA tests and scans in recent years.
Law & Government:
• The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has warned that organized crime is now global, and poses a threat to cities, countries and even entire regions.
• The UK’s Young Foundation has launched http://www.futurecommunities.net/ “aimed at anyone involved and interested in building the successful sustainable communities of tomorrow”.
• Architects in the UK are suggesting that Prince Charles is abusing his position to unfairly influence planning decisions.
• London’s mayor has earned praise for retaining some fun, when it would be easy to cut back due to the recession.
People, culture & diversity:
• The UK think tank Demos has released a report “Resilient Nation”, on how a prepared population can be resilient in the face of disaster. Lifestyles, infrastructure and extreme weather are contributing to a perception that Britain has a “brittle society”. The report outlines ways to build and sustain community resilience with support from central and local government, relevant agencies, the emergency services and voluntary organisations.
• Debate is ongoing in the UK about the safety of social networking sites for children. A survey there has shown that 99% of children and young people aged eight to 17 use the internet.
• A researcher in the UK is working on a study that contradicts the idea that globalisation and the internet are ironing out differences between people in different regions. His research shows that with increased mobility, particular personality types live in certain regions, and his research follows on from similar work in America.
Science, technology & transport:
• “Failure to yield: evaluating the performance of genetically engineered crops” is a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report shows that over the last 20 years “genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields”.
• Automotive manufacturers and traders in the UK, say that existing automotive technology has the potential to achieve significant emissions reductions, providing it has the right governmental encouragement.
• Experts predict that an ageing world population and continuing global military conflicts will be the two main drivers of robot design and function in the coming years.
• A digital software company is about to include Vancouver as its 3rd pilot city in a program to create working 3D models of urban centers. Salzburg, Austria was the first city, and Incheon, South Korea, the second.
• Leading automotive and energy companies have reached an agreement for a standardized plug for electric cars. Some of the automakers included in the agreement are Volkswagen, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Fiat, Toyota and Mitsubishi.
• 13% of adults in the UK have no bank account, compared to 1% to 5% in the rest of Western Europe. A proposal to start a post bank system that operates through the existing post office network has been made by a coalition of unions and small businesses.
• The Greenlist is a website which allows consumers to compare how environmentally friendly products may be across a range of different sustainability criteria, while also allowing companies to promote their products.
• The US annual Innovations Review Report highlights innovative strategies companies have implemented to reduce emissions, conserve resources and encourage sustainable behavior.
Education
• The Ministry of Education has studied completion rates among the first two years' intake of Modern Apprentices and more than half the young people in Modern Apprenticeships and industry training leave without completing their qualifications. There are also big variations between industries, ethnic groups and gender.
• Research in the UK being released at an economics conference this week, has found that if boys stay on at school for just 1 more year, their future salary is likely to rise by 13%. Also being released at the same conference: boys do worse at English when there are girls in their class.
• Personal learning environments are one of the future trends in decentralized forms of learning predicted in education.
• A US professor who teaches about open education, and founded OpenContent.org has predicted that university institutions will be irrelevant by 2020.
• Trainers are using micro-blogging (like Twitter) to foster learning and meet like-minded peers.
Environment & sustainability:
• Crop growth, drinking water and recreational water sports could all be adversely affected if predicted rainfall patterns over coming years prove true. New research raises concerns about the level of phosphorous released from soils into surface water and the surrounding environment.
• The Federal government in Australia is assuring people in Adelaide that water is secure for 2009-2010, after the local water authority said it couldn’t guarantee that water would be delivered over the next 2 years.
• The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) says forests are under increasing degrees of stress as a result of climate change. Forests could release vast amounts of carbon if temperatures rise 2.5C (4.5F) above pre-industrial levels.
• The movement in cities to include or convert spaces to growing food for local communities has its most prominent recent example in the Obamas digging up part of the White House Lawn, but had begun much earlier in other US cities.
• The UK consumer magazine “Which?” says that council taxes there could be reduced if consumers recycled more effectively, since less waste would need to go to landfills.
• 120 US companies that are pushing the envelope in terms of water treatment, purification and management, have been rated on their technology, intellectual property and know-how, team quality and market potential.
• Rivers in some of the world’s most populous regions are losing water, according to a comprehensive study of global stream flows.
Health & wellbeing:
• Waltham Forest council has become the first in the UK to demand the closure of a fast food restaurant because it is too close to a school.
• A British bioethics group is raising concern about the use of the Internet and new technologies to revolutionise health care. The group says that there has been a rise in the use of online drug sales and private DNA tests and scans in recent years.
Law & Government:
• The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has warned that organized crime is now global, and poses a threat to cities, countries and even entire regions.
• The UK’s Young Foundation has launched http://www.futurecommunities.net/ “aimed at anyone involved and interested in building the successful sustainable communities of tomorrow”.
• Architects in the UK are suggesting that Prince Charles is abusing his position to unfairly influence planning decisions.
• London’s mayor has earned praise for retaining some fun, when it would be easy to cut back due to the recession.
People, culture & diversity:
• The UK think tank Demos has released a report “Resilient Nation”, on how a prepared population can be resilient in the face of disaster. Lifestyles, infrastructure and extreme weather are contributing to a perception that Britain has a “brittle society”. The report outlines ways to build and sustain community resilience with support from central and local government, relevant agencies, the emergency services and voluntary organisations.
• Debate is ongoing in the UK about the safety of social networking sites for children. A survey there has shown that 99% of children and young people aged eight to 17 use the internet.
• A researcher in the UK is working on a study that contradicts the idea that globalisation and the internet are ironing out differences between people in different regions. His research shows that with increased mobility, particular personality types live in certain regions, and his research follows on from similar work in America.
Science, technology & transport:
• “Failure to yield: evaluating the performance of genetically engineered crops” is a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report shows that over the last 20 years “genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase US crop yields”.
• Automotive manufacturers and traders in the UK, say that existing automotive technology has the potential to achieve significant emissions reductions, providing it has the right governmental encouragement.
• Experts predict that an ageing world population and continuing global military conflicts will be the two main drivers of robot design and function in the coming years.
• A digital software company is about to include Vancouver as its 3rd pilot city in a program to create working 3D models of urban centers. Salzburg, Austria was the first city, and Incheon, South Korea, the second.
• Leading automotive and energy companies have reached an agreement for a standardized plug for electric cars. Some of the automakers included in the agreement are Volkswagen, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Fiat, Toyota and Mitsubishi.
Thursday, 16 April 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 16/04):
Education
• Robin Good provides an introduction to a resource article by Peter Morville, on visual thinking and communication solutions.
• Youtube has partnered with some major US universities (Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Yale, etc) to provide Youtube EDU. The more interesting content on the channel is straight from classrooms or lectures, and many schools have posted videos of guest lecturers, introductory classes and even a full semester's course.
• The final instalment of a UK government-commissioned report on school discipline has suggested that children shouldn’t have televisions in their bedrooms, and that a celebrity-saturated culture had led to bad role models.
Environment & sustainability:
• New Zealanders strongly support signing up to a new international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
• A new study on Monsant’s Roundup herbicide, shows that heavy reliance on Roundup may be weakening the herbicide’s ability to kill weeds.
• Climate change may cause weeds to become a more serious problem in Australia, as scientists there warned last month that tropical weeds may start to “move” southwards.
• According to a new US study, the higher a mother's level of exposure to air pollution in early and late pregnancy, the more likely it is that the baby would not grow properly. At the same time, researchers at Harvard say they are finally able to determine to what extent city air pollution impacts on average life expectancy.
• Researchers at the University of Ediburgh have discovered that failure to control type 2 diabetes may lead to poorer memory and diminished brain power.
• More and more news is appearing around the world to show how serious our water shortages are becoming.
Health & wellbeing:
• The Ministry of Health has launched a depression website to provide practical information, with video clips from NZers who talk about what worked for them. John Kirwan continues to play an integral part in the Ministyr of Health campaign.
• Doubt has been cast on Australian national guidelines that suggest there is a "low risk" level of drinking for under-18s. A Melbourne study shows no "safe" or "sensible" level of drinking for adolescents.
Law & Government:
• The UK government is promoting the idea of temporarily converting empty shops into social enterprises, local art displays or learning centres to help innovative communities prevent high streets declining The hope is to reduce the negative impact empty shops have on the high street - vital for town centre and business confidence.
• The UK Local Government Association is refuting claims by the press industry that council-run newspapers and magazines damage local newspapers.
• A UK commentator warns that the relationship between the press and politicians, will not work for the relationship between politicians and bloggers, who are less concerned about playing by “old rules”.
• The controversial French internet piracy bill that was going to introduce a “three strikes” system, has been defeated in the National Assembly, and an amended version will be reintroduced later in the year.
People, culture & diversity:
• Research from Unisys NZ shows that NZers believe that the global economic crisis will increase their risk of identity theft.
• Social networking users have still not learnt about being caught out by the material they post on their profiles. Tenants in the UK have been evicted after posting photos of a party on Facebook.
• A UK environmental charity has been getting teenagers involved in regenerating neighbourhoods with unused and neglected parks.
Science, technology & transport:
• New research by NASA scientists suggests the ozone layer of the future is unlikely to look much like the past because greenhouse gases are changing the dynamics of the atmosphere.
• A UK parish council is talking about taking a slightly alternative approach to traffic calming.
• Buying a PC with Windows 7 pre-installed, will still mean being able to downgrade to either Vista or XP, although there will only be security updates to the earlier versions.
• A new European study is suggesting that new CO2 standards for vehicles to be introduced in Europe from 2012 will lead not only to savings on oil (mainly via lower oil import volumes) but also to slightly lower global oil prices.
• Investing heavily in electric vehicles raises the need to consider recharging methods. Which is best - charging stations, battery swaps or home charging?
• The US report that showed just how high the risks are from shipping pollution has triggered criticism that European governments are underestimating the health risks from shipping pollution.
• One of London’s least appealing shopping destinations, Oxford Circus, is to have a “Barne’s Dance” crossing intersection. That’s the same kind of pedestrian crossing used at Queen Street intersections, where all traffic stops so that pediestrians can cross in any direction at the same time.
• Robin Good provides an introduction to a resource article by Peter Morville, on visual thinking and communication solutions.
• Youtube has partnered with some major US universities (Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Yale, etc) to provide Youtube EDU. The more interesting content on the channel is straight from classrooms or lectures, and many schools have posted videos of guest lecturers, introductory classes and even a full semester's course.
• The final instalment of a UK government-commissioned report on school discipline has suggested that children shouldn’t have televisions in their bedrooms, and that a celebrity-saturated culture had led to bad role models.
Environment & sustainability:
• New Zealanders strongly support signing up to a new international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
• A new study on Monsant’s Roundup herbicide, shows that heavy reliance on Roundup may be weakening the herbicide’s ability to kill weeds.
• Climate change may cause weeds to become a more serious problem in Australia, as scientists there warned last month that tropical weeds may start to “move” southwards.
• According to a new US study, the higher a mother's level of exposure to air pollution in early and late pregnancy, the more likely it is that the baby would not grow properly. At the same time, researchers at Harvard say they are finally able to determine to what extent city air pollution impacts on average life expectancy.
• Researchers at the University of Ediburgh have discovered that failure to control type 2 diabetes may lead to poorer memory and diminished brain power.
• More and more news is appearing around the world to show how serious our water shortages are becoming.
Health & wellbeing:
• The Ministry of Health has launched a depression website to provide practical information, with video clips from NZers who talk about what worked for them. John Kirwan continues to play an integral part in the Ministyr of Health campaign.
• Doubt has been cast on Australian national guidelines that suggest there is a "low risk" level of drinking for under-18s. A Melbourne study shows no "safe" or "sensible" level of drinking for adolescents.
Law & Government:
• The UK government is promoting the idea of temporarily converting empty shops into social enterprises, local art displays or learning centres to help innovative communities prevent high streets declining The hope is to reduce the negative impact empty shops have on the high street - vital for town centre and business confidence.
• The UK Local Government Association is refuting claims by the press industry that council-run newspapers and magazines damage local newspapers.
• A UK commentator warns that the relationship between the press and politicians, will not work for the relationship between politicians and bloggers, who are less concerned about playing by “old rules”.
• The controversial French internet piracy bill that was going to introduce a “three strikes” system, has been defeated in the National Assembly, and an amended version will be reintroduced later in the year.
People, culture & diversity:
• Research from Unisys NZ shows that NZers believe that the global economic crisis will increase their risk of identity theft.
• Social networking users have still not learnt about being caught out by the material they post on their profiles. Tenants in the UK have been evicted after posting photos of a party on Facebook.
• A UK environmental charity has been getting teenagers involved in regenerating neighbourhoods with unused and neglected parks.
Science, technology & transport:
• New research by NASA scientists suggests the ozone layer of the future is unlikely to look much like the past because greenhouse gases are changing the dynamics of the atmosphere.
• A UK parish council is talking about taking a slightly alternative approach to traffic calming.
• Buying a PC with Windows 7 pre-installed, will still mean being able to downgrade to either Vista or XP, although there will only be security updates to the earlier versions.
• A new European study is suggesting that new CO2 standards for vehicles to be introduced in Europe from 2012 will lead not only to savings on oil (mainly via lower oil import volumes) but also to slightly lower global oil prices.
• Investing heavily in electric vehicles raises the need to consider recharging methods. Which is best - charging stations, battery swaps or home charging?
• The US report that showed just how high the risks are from shipping pollution has triggered criticism that European governments are underestimating the health risks from shipping pollution.
• One of London’s least appealing shopping destinations, Oxford Circus, is to have a “Barne’s Dance” crossing intersection. That’s the same kind of pedestrian crossing used at Queen Street intersections, where all traffic stops so that pediestrians can cross in any direction at the same time.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 09/04):
Business & management:
• Karen Stephenson is a business anthropologist who “considers an organizational network as the “genetic code” that can be used to unlock any organizational culture”.
• A list of the best online collaborative tools for 2009 has been made available in the form of a collaborative map.
• There is increasing discussion about the death of newspapers, but a big issue that needs to be overcome if they are to survive, is the conflict between open access to the information that they contain, and content control.
• "Doing Well by Doing Good? An analysis of the financial performance of green office buildings in the USA," is a report published by the the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. It is the first report that investigates whether there is a financial benefit from building green offices.
• While going completely paperless isn't a realistic goal for most companies, decreasing paper use or going "paper-light" is a strategy that reaps several positive results.
Education
• A teachers and lecturers association in the UK has done a survey that has found more than one in 10 teachers are bullied by pupils and colleagues through text messages, emails and social networking sites.
• The same association has also discovered that growing numbers of pupils have mental health issues because of exam stress, family breakdown and pressures to look good.
Environment & sustainability:
• A ban on dishwasher detergents containing phosphates in a US county, has resulted in residents crossing state lines to buy the forbidden cleaners.
• A 5.6 acre flexible solar power generating system covering is being used as a landfill cover in Texas. Combined with the site’s methane gas-to-energy system, the landfill is expected to generate 9 megawatts of power.
• A Michigan-based financial group has announced ambitious plans to turn large areas of crime-ridden Detroit into urban farmland. The group wants develop up to 10,000 acres of underutilized and vacant land in downtown Detroit, and turn it into a mixture of cash crop land, ornamental gardens, and riding trails.
• The Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) Internation Biofuels Project has published the proceedings of its workshop on the environmental effects of biofuel technologies.
Health & wellbeing:
• Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have confirmed that drinking sugar-sweetened beverages while you are trying to lose weight will affect your ability to reduce weight.
• A Norwegian study of over 27000 mothers and their 18-month-old child, shows that mothers with negative thoughts and feelings are more likely to give their children unhealthy food.
• Men's mental health is a dramatically understudied and poorly understood area of human wellbeing. Men are half as likely as women to be diagnosed with depression, yet twice as likely to abuse alcohol and drugs.
Law & Government:
• A mix of rural and urban councils around the UK are being funded in a pilot project to provide better local information for an estimated one million people. The initiatives provide better access to information, but some also allow for more opportunities for communities to influence local decision making.
• The director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, says that public services in the UK may need to be delivered by the private sector after the UK gets through the recession.
• A new law in the UK has extended the right of parents to ask for more flexible family-friendly working hours. The law previously only applied to parents of children under 6, but is now being extended to parents with children up to the age of 16.
• Birmingham is investing in a £193m library, that will be the biggest public library in Britain, a clear sign of the renaissance of the UK’s construction of grand civic libraries.
• Attitudes towards ownership of land and buildings are changing dramatically in the wake of the credit crunch and the global financial meltdown in the UK. There is now a move to mutual or community-based ownership of sites for development.
People, culture & diversity:
• UNESCO and 32 other partner institutions, have collaborated to bring together the World Digital Library (WDL), that will be launched on the 21st of April. The WDL will feature unique cultural materials from around the world, and provide free and unrestricted public access.
• Thanks to a partnership with the United Nations refugee agency, the over two million users of the popular social networking website Facebook can now lend a hand to uprooted people around the world in need of shelter.
• A carbon typescript copy of Schindler’s list has been “discovered” again in cartons of papers from Thomas Kenneally’s work on his book “Schindler’s Ark”. The cartons were bought in 1996, but the list was only recently found.
Science, technology & transport:
• Cyberspies have infiltrated control systems of the U.S. electrical supply network and planted computer software tools that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, when triggered.
• If you were just getting a handle on Web 2.0 technology, Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media says that the new term will be “Web Squared”.
• A controversial EU Directive has come into force this week, that requires internet service providers to store the details of emails and internet phone calls.
• During a renovation of the art deco Empire State Building, its owners intend to invest an additional $20m to reduce its carbon footprint and energy consumption.
• According to a European Environmental Agency report, transportation continues to contribute disproportionately to Europe’s greenhouse gases, and still uses the least efficient modes to move people and goods.
• A French power plant that has been through a retrofit is to start operating this month with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
• Boris Johnson intends to make London the electric car capital of Europe. He is pledging funds from the Greater London Authority’s budget, and wants to see 100,000 electric cars and 25,000 charging points, as well as proposing to change planning regulations so that developers must install charging points.
• Karen Stephenson is a business anthropologist who “considers an organizational network as the “genetic code” that can be used to unlock any organizational culture”.
• A list of the best online collaborative tools for 2009 has been made available in the form of a collaborative map.
• There is increasing discussion about the death of newspapers, but a big issue that needs to be overcome if they are to survive, is the conflict between open access to the information that they contain, and content control.
• "Doing Well by Doing Good? An analysis of the financial performance of green office buildings in the USA," is a report published by the the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. It is the first report that investigates whether there is a financial benefit from building green offices.
• While going completely paperless isn't a realistic goal for most companies, decreasing paper use or going "paper-light" is a strategy that reaps several positive results.
Education
• A teachers and lecturers association in the UK has done a survey that has found more than one in 10 teachers are bullied by pupils and colleagues through text messages, emails and social networking sites.
• The same association has also discovered that growing numbers of pupils have mental health issues because of exam stress, family breakdown and pressures to look good.
Environment & sustainability:
• A ban on dishwasher detergents containing phosphates in a US county, has resulted in residents crossing state lines to buy the forbidden cleaners.
• A 5.6 acre flexible solar power generating system covering is being used as a landfill cover in Texas. Combined with the site’s methane gas-to-energy system, the landfill is expected to generate 9 megawatts of power.
• A Michigan-based financial group has announced ambitious plans to turn large areas of crime-ridden Detroit into urban farmland. The group wants develop up to 10,000 acres of underutilized and vacant land in downtown Detroit, and turn it into a mixture of cash crop land, ornamental gardens, and riding trails.
• The Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) Internation Biofuels Project has published the proceedings of its workshop on the environmental effects of biofuel technologies.
Health & wellbeing:
• Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have confirmed that drinking sugar-sweetened beverages while you are trying to lose weight will affect your ability to reduce weight.
• A Norwegian study of over 27000 mothers and their 18-month-old child, shows that mothers with negative thoughts and feelings are more likely to give their children unhealthy food.
• Men's mental health is a dramatically understudied and poorly understood area of human wellbeing. Men are half as likely as women to be diagnosed with depression, yet twice as likely to abuse alcohol and drugs.
Law & Government:
• A mix of rural and urban councils around the UK are being funded in a pilot project to provide better local information for an estimated one million people. The initiatives provide better access to information, but some also allow for more opportunities for communities to influence local decision making.
• The director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, says that public services in the UK may need to be delivered by the private sector after the UK gets through the recession.
• A new law in the UK has extended the right of parents to ask for more flexible family-friendly working hours. The law previously only applied to parents of children under 6, but is now being extended to parents with children up to the age of 16.
• Birmingham is investing in a £193m library, that will be the biggest public library in Britain, a clear sign of the renaissance of the UK’s construction of grand civic libraries.
• Attitudes towards ownership of land and buildings are changing dramatically in the wake of the credit crunch and the global financial meltdown in the UK. There is now a move to mutual or community-based ownership of sites for development.
People, culture & diversity:
• UNESCO and 32 other partner institutions, have collaborated to bring together the World Digital Library (WDL), that will be launched on the 21st of April. The WDL will feature unique cultural materials from around the world, and provide free and unrestricted public access.
• Thanks to a partnership with the United Nations refugee agency, the over two million users of the popular social networking website Facebook can now lend a hand to uprooted people around the world in need of shelter.
• A carbon typescript copy of Schindler’s list has been “discovered” again in cartons of papers from Thomas Kenneally’s work on his book “Schindler’s Ark”. The cartons were bought in 1996, but the list was only recently found.
Science, technology & transport:
• Cyberspies have infiltrated control systems of the U.S. electrical supply network and planted computer software tools that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, when triggered.
• If you were just getting a handle on Web 2.0 technology, Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media says that the new term will be “Web Squared”.
• A controversial EU Directive has come into force this week, that requires internet service providers to store the details of emails and internet phone calls.
• During a renovation of the art deco Empire State Building, its owners intend to invest an additional $20m to reduce its carbon footprint and energy consumption.
• According to a European Environmental Agency report, transportation continues to contribute disproportionately to Europe’s greenhouse gases, and still uses the least efficient modes to move people and goods.
• A French power plant that has been through a retrofit is to start operating this month with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.
• Boris Johnson intends to make London the electric car capital of Europe. He is pledging funds from the Greater London Authority’s budget, and wants to see 100,000 electric cars and 25,000 charging points, as well as proposing to change planning regulations so that developers must install charging points.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 02/04):
Business & management:
• The UK Green Building Council is making recommendations that will impact on developers, planners and policy-makers by increasing the level of biodiversity to be expected in building and urban environments.
• Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group are collaborating to work on finding the sustainability challenges that will have the greatest effect on managerial decision-making. An excerpt from the first of this series of interviews, includes a discussion about how to get out of the belief that success is only measured by growth.
• Scotland is intending to build the world’s largest tidal energy project, creating 700 jobs, to power a large computer data centre.
Education
• Male primary teachers may be unlikely to apply for jobs in schools where there are few other male teachers, contributing to the problem primary schools have in attracting them.
• British teachers are blaming an increase in bad behaviour in primary and secondary schools on the television programmes that children are watching.
• Also in the UK, researchers have confirmed that clever children may protect themselves from bullying or being shunned, by dumbing down and deliberately failing.
Environment & sustainability:
• A recent US online summit hosted by the Climate Savers Computing initiative and the EPA's Energy Star Program has been promoting the benefits of PC power management, emphasizing that some simple solutions can save a lot of power and money.
• Chicago is leading the US in green roofs in terms of total area, and has a goal of 6,000 rooftop gardens.
• Metro Vancouver Recycles is a reuse and recycling database set up in line with the region’s zero-waste policy. The database for customers, uses on-line maps to show the closest drop-off destinations, providing people with even more options than offered by municipal blue box collection programs.
• The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published a guide, "Climate Literacy" to help people understand how climate influences them and how they influence climate.
Health & wellbeing:
• Initial results on a heart “polypill” seem encouraging, but experts still disagree whether it is ethical to prescribe a pill for “lifestyle issues”.
• British scientists are warning that the washing of disinfectants, shampoos and other household cleaners into sewers and rivers, is triggering the growth of drug-resistant bacteria.
• A US study has surprised South Florida public health officials by saying that commercial vessels - freighters, tankers and cruise ships - generate enough air pollution to pose "a significant health concern for coastal communities".
• A Canadian study has found that people who take public transport are more likely to meet a heart and stroke foundation’s suggested daily minimum of physical activity, with implications for urban planning and public transport development.
• “Broken heart syndrome” was recognised by doctors in the 1990s – most of the patients have recently suffered some sort of physical or emotional distress, just before their heart symptoms appear.
• A £140m scheme to offer free swimming pool use to people aged 16 and under or over 60 in England is under way (about 20 million people), but about 140 councils turned down funding, saying they could not afford to offer free swimming to children.
Law & Government:
• Identifying people through social networking took on a new focus, when a Facebook site went up in the UK attempting to catch a rapist, and there are concerns that social networking sites are being used to promote sectarian violence.
• An EU report supports security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet, in spite of moves by some countries (eg France) to implement restrictions similar to our S92A copyright amendment.
• From April 1st, 44 councils in the UK will combine to become just 9 councils, bringing two thirds of England under unitary governance, which already exists in Scotland and Wales. The challenge for these new councils is to overcome scepticism that they can deliver better, more efficient services.
• The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission is proposing that fathers get more paid time off when their child is born in recommendations to change maternity legislation, and redress the gender imbalance.
• In the latest annual survey of UK local e-government, a plea was included to authorities "to get a permissive copyright policy on your website, publish your data in a way that computers can read easily, don't charge for your data and respond positively to people who ask you for basic data sets".
• Local governments in the US expand at an astonishing rate, and one of the biggest challenges involves deciding what to do about local governments that have grown unsustainably numerous, large, intrusive, and irresponsible.
People, culture & diversity:
• An influential US science advisor says that the human population on Earth has exceeded it’s “limits of sustainability”.
• Research shows that greater use of social networking is making it more difficult for users to maintain their privacy.
• Newspapers in print may be waning, and some may simply shrug if news goes completely online, but there is a risk that the in-depth investigative journalism that newspapers produce, will not be duplicated in online media formats.
Science, technology & transport:
• An experiment has begun in Moscow involving 6 volunteers from Russia, France and Germany, to see whether humans could cope with the isolation of travelling to Mars and back.
• Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox internet browser has joined with a graphics company to work on “accelerated 3D graphics on the web”.
• Microsoft Windows 7 will have multi-touch controls built in, to help bring touch into the mainstream of computer technology.
• France’s Gendarmerie are saving millions of euros, thanks to their migration away from a Microsoft-based desktop to an open source desktop and web applications.
• US research has found that it may be necessary to have regulations in place around the number of rocket launches made globally. They have discovered that ozone losses in the atmosphere from launches will eventually exceed the damage done by CFCs if limits aren’t placed on the space industry.
• The UK Green Building Council is making recommendations that will impact on developers, planners and policy-makers by increasing the level of biodiversity to be expected in building and urban environments.
• Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group are collaborating to work on finding the sustainability challenges that will have the greatest effect on managerial decision-making. An excerpt from the first of this series of interviews, includes a discussion about how to get out of the belief that success is only measured by growth.
• Scotland is intending to build the world’s largest tidal energy project, creating 700 jobs, to power a large computer data centre.
Education
• Male primary teachers may be unlikely to apply for jobs in schools where there are few other male teachers, contributing to the problem primary schools have in attracting them.
• British teachers are blaming an increase in bad behaviour in primary and secondary schools on the television programmes that children are watching.
• Also in the UK, researchers have confirmed that clever children may protect themselves from bullying or being shunned, by dumbing down and deliberately failing.
Environment & sustainability:
• A recent US online summit hosted by the Climate Savers Computing initiative and the EPA's Energy Star Program has been promoting the benefits of PC power management, emphasizing that some simple solutions can save a lot of power and money.
• Chicago is leading the US in green roofs in terms of total area, and has a goal of 6,000 rooftop gardens.
• Metro Vancouver Recycles is a reuse and recycling database set up in line with the region’s zero-waste policy. The database for customers, uses on-line maps to show the closest drop-off destinations, providing people with even more options than offered by municipal blue box collection programs.
• The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published a guide, "Climate Literacy" to help people understand how climate influences them and how they influence climate.
Health & wellbeing:
• Initial results on a heart “polypill” seem encouraging, but experts still disagree whether it is ethical to prescribe a pill for “lifestyle issues”.
• British scientists are warning that the washing of disinfectants, shampoos and other household cleaners into sewers and rivers, is triggering the growth of drug-resistant bacteria.
• A US study has surprised South Florida public health officials by saying that commercial vessels - freighters, tankers and cruise ships - generate enough air pollution to pose "a significant health concern for coastal communities".
• A Canadian study has found that people who take public transport are more likely to meet a heart and stroke foundation’s suggested daily minimum of physical activity, with implications for urban planning and public transport development.
• “Broken heart syndrome” was recognised by doctors in the 1990s – most of the patients have recently suffered some sort of physical or emotional distress, just before their heart symptoms appear.
• A £140m scheme to offer free swimming pool use to people aged 16 and under or over 60 in England is under way (about 20 million people), but about 140 councils turned down funding, saying they could not afford to offer free swimming to children.
Law & Government:
• Identifying people through social networking took on a new focus, when a Facebook site went up in the UK attempting to catch a rapist, and there are concerns that social networking sites are being used to promote sectarian violence.
• An EU report supports security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet, in spite of moves by some countries (eg France) to implement restrictions similar to our S92A copyright amendment.
• From April 1st, 44 councils in the UK will combine to become just 9 councils, bringing two thirds of England under unitary governance, which already exists in Scotland and Wales. The challenge for these new councils is to overcome scepticism that they can deliver better, more efficient services.
• The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission is proposing that fathers get more paid time off when their child is born in recommendations to change maternity legislation, and redress the gender imbalance.
• In the latest annual survey of UK local e-government, a plea was included to authorities "to get a permissive copyright policy on your website, publish your data in a way that computers can read easily, don't charge for your data and respond positively to people who ask you for basic data sets".
• Local governments in the US expand at an astonishing rate, and one of the biggest challenges involves deciding what to do about local governments that have grown unsustainably numerous, large, intrusive, and irresponsible.
People, culture & diversity:
• An influential US science advisor says that the human population on Earth has exceeded it’s “limits of sustainability”.
• Research shows that greater use of social networking is making it more difficult for users to maintain their privacy.
• Newspapers in print may be waning, and some may simply shrug if news goes completely online, but there is a risk that the in-depth investigative journalism that newspapers produce, will not be duplicated in online media formats.
Science, technology & transport:
• An experiment has begun in Moscow involving 6 volunteers from Russia, France and Germany, to see whether humans could cope with the isolation of travelling to Mars and back.
• Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox internet browser has joined with a graphics company to work on “accelerated 3D graphics on the web”.
• Microsoft Windows 7 will have multi-touch controls built in, to help bring touch into the mainstream of computer technology.
• France’s Gendarmerie are saving millions of euros, thanks to their migration away from a Microsoft-based desktop to an open source desktop and web applications.
• US research has found that it may be necessary to have regulations in place around the number of rocket launches made globally. They have discovered that ozone losses in the atmosphere from launches will eventually exceed the damage done by CFCs if limits aren’t placed on the space industry.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 26/04):
Business & management:
• The UN is highlighting 5 key areas for investment that could help revive the global economy and boost employment while at the same time, accelerating the fight against climate change, environmental degradation and poverty.
• The status of the US dollar is under threat again, with a UN panel recommending this week, that the world abandon the dollar as its reserve currency, and instead adopt a collection of currencies, something like the old Ecu, or European currency unit, which was a hard-traded, weighted basket.
• The World Trade Organisation is expecting exports to drop by 9% in volume in 2009, the biggest drop since World War 2.
• An alternative approach to getting rid of the unwanted stuff that clutters peoples homes has appeared, one writer calling it “unconsumption”. Rather than dumping goods for disposal in landfills, people are now using websites that allow them to advertise used items they want to give away, with even Facebook taking part in the trend.
• 65% of US companies surveyed say that they value environmental and sustainability knowledge in job candidates and 78% of companies said that value will rise in the next 5 years. Companies are increasingly educating their employees about goals in these areas.
• US insurers with annual premiums above $500 million must disclose climate change risks to investors and regulators for the first time from 2010, with the introduction of the requirement to file Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Surveys.
• Research commissioned by the Holiday Accommodation Parks Association of New Zealand shows that while staying at holiday parks, travellers contribute at least $623 million in direct expenditure and support a wide range of businesses in the community.
Education
• A blog aimed specifically at baby boomers and seniors comes from a school that has been developing tools specific to helping seniors learn how to use the computer and the Internet.
• IBM staff have been converted to become fans of attending conferences in Second Life, after attending a Virtual World Conference and an Annual Meeting of IBM’s Academy of Technology.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water is critical to energy production, but the water / energy “nexus” can be overlooked. The World Economic Forum and Cambridge Energy Research Associates have just published “Energy Vision Update 2009. Thirsty energy: water and energy in the 21st Century”.
• NZs largest representative body in the water industry is changing its name. Water New Zealand is now the trading name of the New Zealand Water and Wastes Association. The change has been made to reflect the need for a more cohesive approach to the management, use and conservation of water.
• A UK conference on the emerging role of green infrastructure in creating sustainable towns and cities and successful places was held in London this week. The conference highlights official advice to the UK government to move spending out of “grey” projects, and into “green” schemes like parks.
• The Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center has concluded in a paper, that while the US government is likely to use market-led mechanisms (cap and trade, or carbon tax) to reduce CO2 emissions, it is not enough on its own to reduce emissions adequately by the middle of the century.
• The McKinsey Global Institute is predicting another oil-shock as soon as 2010 to 2013. As soon as economies are moving ahead again, the Institute expects that increased energy demand will inevitably force the price of oil up again.
• The Accenture Intelligent City Network with members from the U.S., China, Russia and the Netherlands, aims to bring utilities and city governments from around the world together to collaborate on putting smart grids in place.
Health & wellbeing:
• The NZ Institute of Safety Management is moving to join an internationally recognised occupational safety and health development program.
• Keeping an eye on elderly dementia sufferers can mean carers are forced to diminish the sufferers’ enjoyment of small freedoms. A care home in the UK is making use of satnav technology that allows dementia sufferers to take “walkabouts” without carers having to become restrictive.
Law & Government:
• Concerns are expressed in the UK, about public sector organisations needing to make sure that their communications network infrastructure offers appropriate built-in reliability and security and is protected with continuity schemes that guarantee accessibility when people need them during large-scale disasters.
People, culture & diversity:
• In the last 3 years, social networking has provided internet users with more opportunities for sharing short updates about themselves, their lives, and their whereabouts online. Use of Twitter and similar services is high amongst the young, but user figures drop rapidly by increasing age.
• A grandparent organisation in the UK has released a report that highlights the huge role grandparents play in caring for grandchildren whose parents work and in family life. There have been calls for tax breaks for grandparents who are carers, and “granny leave” for working grandparents when a grandchild is born.
Science, technology & transport:
• A UK transport select committee report is suggesting ways that councils could be involved in attempts to reduce traffic congestion caused by the school run, including providing free bikes, using American-style yellow buses and increasing free public transport.
• Abandoned fuel stations in London could get a new life, by being converted into fast charge stations for electric-powered vehicles.
• A US Dept of Energy laboratory has discovered that simply changing truck tires from dual tires to single wide tires increases fuel efficiency by 6-10%.
• Toronto is another North American city moving more quickly towards introducing electric vehicles to its roads.
• The UN is highlighting 5 key areas for investment that could help revive the global economy and boost employment while at the same time, accelerating the fight against climate change, environmental degradation and poverty.
• The status of the US dollar is under threat again, with a UN panel recommending this week, that the world abandon the dollar as its reserve currency, and instead adopt a collection of currencies, something like the old Ecu, or European currency unit, which was a hard-traded, weighted basket.
• The World Trade Organisation is expecting exports to drop by 9% in volume in 2009, the biggest drop since World War 2.
• An alternative approach to getting rid of the unwanted stuff that clutters peoples homes has appeared, one writer calling it “unconsumption”. Rather than dumping goods for disposal in landfills, people are now using websites that allow them to advertise used items they want to give away, with even Facebook taking part in the trend.
• 65% of US companies surveyed say that they value environmental and sustainability knowledge in job candidates and 78% of companies said that value will rise in the next 5 years. Companies are increasingly educating their employees about goals in these areas.
• US insurers with annual premiums above $500 million must disclose climate change risks to investors and regulators for the first time from 2010, with the introduction of the requirement to file Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Surveys.
• Research commissioned by the Holiday Accommodation Parks Association of New Zealand shows that while staying at holiday parks, travellers contribute at least $623 million in direct expenditure and support a wide range of businesses in the community.
Education
• A blog aimed specifically at baby boomers and seniors comes from a school that has been developing tools specific to helping seniors learn how to use the computer and the Internet.
• IBM staff have been converted to become fans of attending conferences in Second Life, after attending a Virtual World Conference and an Annual Meeting of IBM’s Academy of Technology.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water is critical to energy production, but the water / energy “nexus” can be overlooked. The World Economic Forum and Cambridge Energy Research Associates have just published “Energy Vision Update 2009. Thirsty energy: water and energy in the 21st Century”.
• NZs largest representative body in the water industry is changing its name. Water New Zealand is now the trading name of the New Zealand Water and Wastes Association. The change has been made to reflect the need for a more cohesive approach to the management, use and conservation of water.
• A UK conference on the emerging role of green infrastructure in creating sustainable towns and cities and successful places was held in London this week. The conference highlights official advice to the UK government to move spending out of “grey” projects, and into “green” schemes like parks.
• The Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center has concluded in a paper, that while the US government is likely to use market-led mechanisms (cap and trade, or carbon tax) to reduce CO2 emissions, it is not enough on its own to reduce emissions adequately by the middle of the century.
• The McKinsey Global Institute is predicting another oil-shock as soon as 2010 to 2013. As soon as economies are moving ahead again, the Institute expects that increased energy demand will inevitably force the price of oil up again.
• The Accenture Intelligent City Network with members from the U.S., China, Russia and the Netherlands, aims to bring utilities and city governments from around the world together to collaborate on putting smart grids in place.
Health & wellbeing:
• The NZ Institute of Safety Management is moving to join an internationally recognised occupational safety and health development program.
• Keeping an eye on elderly dementia sufferers can mean carers are forced to diminish the sufferers’ enjoyment of small freedoms. A care home in the UK is making use of satnav technology that allows dementia sufferers to take “walkabouts” without carers having to become restrictive.
Law & Government:
• Concerns are expressed in the UK, about public sector organisations needing to make sure that their communications network infrastructure offers appropriate built-in reliability and security and is protected with continuity schemes that guarantee accessibility when people need them during large-scale disasters.
People, culture & diversity:
• In the last 3 years, social networking has provided internet users with more opportunities for sharing short updates about themselves, their lives, and their whereabouts online. Use of Twitter and similar services is high amongst the young, but user figures drop rapidly by increasing age.
• A grandparent organisation in the UK has released a report that highlights the huge role grandparents play in caring for grandchildren whose parents work and in family life. There have been calls for tax breaks for grandparents who are carers, and “granny leave” for working grandparents when a grandchild is born.
Science, technology & transport:
• A UK transport select committee report is suggesting ways that councils could be involved in attempts to reduce traffic congestion caused by the school run, including providing free bikes, using American-style yellow buses and increasing free public transport.
• Abandoned fuel stations in London could get a new life, by being converted into fast charge stations for electric-powered vehicles.
• A US Dept of Energy laboratory has discovered that simply changing truck tires from dual tires to single wide tires increases fuel efficiency by 6-10%.
• Toronto is another North American city moving more quickly towards introducing electric vehicles to its roads.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 19/03):
Business & management:
• Taking a boss hostage during disputes between them and their staff is becoming an increasingly common protest gesture in France.
• Switzerland has opened up its legendary system of bank secrecy and agreed to hand over information on wealthy clients suspected of tax evasion, following international pressure.
• Since the 1960s, teachers mainly in the US but also in the UK, have used Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz as an allegory of the economic depression of the late 19th Century.
• Resolution of equal pay claims in the UK is bogged down, with a 500% rise in claims in the last 4 years leaving employment tribunals struggling.
• A Pacific Institute report has concluded that the impacts of declining water quality and availability will be “far-reaching” for business and industry in the developed as well as the developing world.
Education
• The report on bullying in NZ schools is available from the website of the Children’s Commissioner.
• UK research conducted on behalf of the Good Schools Guide confirms what many parents of daughters have found - girls are far more likely to thrive, pass exams and stay in education if they go to a single-sex school.
• The first Maori language curriculum for mainstream schools was launched today. The launch is “a milestone for race relations in general because it will enable all NZ children to experience some Maori language from the very beginning of their schooling.”
Environment & sustainability:
• Local Government Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit was launched at the 'Adaptation to Climate Change Forum' in Melbourne in early March.
• According to China’s top climate change negotiator, consumer countries should take responsibility for the carbon emissions generated in the manufacture of goods, not the producer countries that export them.
• An executive officer of the Sydney Coastal Councils Group that has just received a report on climate change says, “Councils …...are a bit scared to declare the risks to their communities because they are waiting for direction from the state government”.
• The Swedish city of Kalmar is a coastal industrial city that has become the model for what all of Sweden hopes to achieve in becoming carbon neutral by mid-century.
• IBM has published a report that examines the opportunities and challenges of strategic water management. Five case studies provide perspectives from projects around the world.
• An economist at the Copenhagen climate change conference has said that the Kyoto protocol is “inefficient and ineffective” and should be dropped in favour of global carbon taxation. Scientists at the conference produced a list of 6 key messages about climate change.
Law & Government:
• Proposals about a Digital Rights Agency have been launched in the UK as part of the Digital Britain report, to trigger debate on the subject. The report highlights attitude changes in the digital age, saying consumers are no longer prepared to be told when and where they can access content.
• An Australian report on local government and the constitution, says that local government “is and always has been weak - a "servant" of the states - but recognition in the Australian constitution would have its dangers”.
• The Sustainable Public Lighting in Australia Toolbox is a 'one-stop-shop' which enables councils to access reports, tools, guidelines, policy and news to keep up-to-date on sustainable public lighting.
People, culture & diversity:
• The British Library thinks it has “mislaid” 9000 books, while 4 million volumes are to eventually transfer from the Bodleian Library in Oxford to a storage site in Swindon.
• Symantec’s Online Living report has found that UK parents believe their children are online for 18.8 hours per month, when the true figure is 43.5 hours.
• The Australian Local Government Association has an “Ageing Toolbox” called “Planning for an ageing community”.
• An international expert on child-friendly cities is in NZ from 18-24 March to talk about how cities can be made better for children, and will be attending the NZ Community Boards' Conference.
Science, technology & transport:
• The Centre for Independent Studies, an Australian policy think tank, has produced a report on the Australian car industry that suggests intervention by the Australian government may not succeed in saving the industry there.
• Pedestrian behaviour when crossing roads varies greatly, depending on the country. A proposal to use count down timers on crossings in London has raised the suggestion that it will make pedestrians “feel inferior” to drivers.
• Digital security is an increasingly serious issue. A BBC programme has shown just how easy it is for someone to create their own low-value botnet (a network of hijacked home computers), and a survey of London commuters suggests that 4.2m Britons store data on their mobiles that could be used in identity theft if the mobile is stolen.
• A conference in the UK has been told that the paper-like layered interfaces of systems like Windows, Linux and Mac OS requiring mouse, keyboard and desktop graphical interfaces will be replaced by gesture and touch interfaces.
• Taking a boss hostage during disputes between them and their staff is becoming an increasingly common protest gesture in France.
• Switzerland has opened up its legendary system of bank secrecy and agreed to hand over information on wealthy clients suspected of tax evasion, following international pressure.
• Since the 1960s, teachers mainly in the US but also in the UK, have used Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz as an allegory of the economic depression of the late 19th Century.
• Resolution of equal pay claims in the UK is bogged down, with a 500% rise in claims in the last 4 years leaving employment tribunals struggling.
• A Pacific Institute report has concluded that the impacts of declining water quality and availability will be “far-reaching” for business and industry in the developed as well as the developing world.
Education
• The report on bullying in NZ schools is available from the website of the Children’s Commissioner.
• UK research conducted on behalf of the Good Schools Guide confirms what many parents of daughters have found - girls are far more likely to thrive, pass exams and stay in education if they go to a single-sex school.
• The first Maori language curriculum for mainstream schools was launched today. The launch is “a milestone for race relations in general because it will enable all NZ children to experience some Maori language from the very beginning of their schooling.”
Environment & sustainability:
• Local Government Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit was launched at the 'Adaptation to Climate Change Forum' in Melbourne in early March.
• According to China’s top climate change negotiator, consumer countries should take responsibility for the carbon emissions generated in the manufacture of goods, not the producer countries that export them.
• An executive officer of the Sydney Coastal Councils Group that has just received a report on climate change says, “Councils …...are a bit scared to declare the risks to their communities because they are waiting for direction from the state government”.
• The Swedish city of Kalmar is a coastal industrial city that has become the model for what all of Sweden hopes to achieve in becoming carbon neutral by mid-century.
• IBM has published a report that examines the opportunities and challenges of strategic water management. Five case studies provide perspectives from projects around the world.
• An economist at the Copenhagen climate change conference has said that the Kyoto protocol is “inefficient and ineffective” and should be dropped in favour of global carbon taxation. Scientists at the conference produced a list of 6 key messages about climate change.
Law & Government:
• Proposals about a Digital Rights Agency have been launched in the UK as part of the Digital Britain report, to trigger debate on the subject. The report highlights attitude changes in the digital age, saying consumers are no longer prepared to be told when and where they can access content.
• An Australian report on local government and the constitution, says that local government “is and always has been weak - a "servant" of the states - but recognition in the Australian constitution would have its dangers”.
• The Sustainable Public Lighting in Australia Toolbox is a 'one-stop-shop' which enables councils to access reports, tools, guidelines, policy and news to keep up-to-date on sustainable public lighting.
People, culture & diversity:
• The British Library thinks it has “mislaid” 9000 books, while 4 million volumes are to eventually transfer from the Bodleian Library in Oxford to a storage site in Swindon.
• Symantec’s Online Living report has found that UK parents believe their children are online for 18.8 hours per month, when the true figure is 43.5 hours.
• The Australian Local Government Association has an “Ageing Toolbox” called “Planning for an ageing community”.
• An international expert on child-friendly cities is in NZ from 18-24 March to talk about how cities can be made better for children, and will be attending the NZ Community Boards' Conference.
Science, technology & transport:
• The Centre for Independent Studies, an Australian policy think tank, has produced a report on the Australian car industry that suggests intervention by the Australian government may not succeed in saving the industry there.
• Pedestrian behaviour when crossing roads varies greatly, depending on the country. A proposal to use count down timers on crossings in London has raised the suggestion that it will make pedestrians “feel inferior” to drivers.
• Digital security is an increasingly serious issue. A BBC programme has shown just how easy it is for someone to create their own low-value botnet (a network of hijacked home computers), and a survey of London commuters suggests that 4.2m Britons store data on their mobiles that could be used in identity theft if the mobile is stolen.
• A conference in the UK has been told that the paper-like layered interfaces of systems like Windows, Linux and Mac OS requiring mouse, keyboard and desktop graphical interfaces will be replaced by gesture and touch interfaces.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 12/03):
Business & management:
• A Cheshire salt mine still in operation is being used to store valuable archives, book collections and artifacts.
• The UN World Tourism Organisation says that the tourism industry has a key role to play in helping the world recover from the current financial crisis. Tourism growth in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to ease, while the Americas and Europe will be impacted the most.
• In an address delivered on International Women’s Day, Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor made the point that while every NZer is concerned about job security as the economic recession bites, women suffer a double whammy because of the gender pay gap.
• A recent US study has found that shopping online has less of an environmental impact than going to a traditional bricks-and-mortar store.
Education
• A school in the UK is trialling the use of facial recognition software to confirm attendance, rather than using the old-fashioned roll-call. Using biometrics in schools in the UK is widespread, but some campaigners say that schools’ use of biometrics is "a disproportionate response to a nonexistent problem".
• The chief executive of a UK university says that in the 21st century, higher education must adapt to serve the needs of a much wider section of the community than simply fresh-faced 18-year-olds.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water banking has been suggested recently for NZ’s future water management. Western states in the US have invested heavily in water banking, and the Washington State Dept of Ecology has released a report, Analysis of water banks in the Western states, which covers legislation, policies and programmes.
• An American think tank brought together prominent climate change deniers for a convention in New York this week. Although 58% of Americans believe human activity is causing climate change, many don’t see a need for urgent action. (For an alternative view of the background of the deniers, visit Grist, a US environmental news and commentary website.
• David J C Mackay is Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He has just written a detailed analysis of sustainable energy, and the book is available for download from the Web.
• James Lovelock (developer of the Gaia theory) has joined a former UK environment minister to condemn the European carbon trading scheme, saying it has proved to be "disastrous" and a "scam" in which companies have profited with no effect on emissions.
• A growing number of scientists and business leaders have concluded that there will need to be a 60-80% reduction in worldwide emissions in the next two to three decades, but climate impacts from greenhouse gas levels expected by 2050 will persist for about 1,000 years regardless of how well decision makers reduce future emissions.
Health & wellbeing:
• The World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society have launched the 3rd edition of the Tobacco Atlas (note also the World Health Organisation’s Tobacco Atlas) which includes interactive maps of global statistics relating to many aspects of the tobacco industry and its impact on health.
• The latest issue of Australasian Leisure Management refers in an article to the Australian draft national planning guidelines in the “Healthy Places and Spaces” project. Fact sheets, a consultation report , the draft and presentations are available via the website.
• Paranoia is a mental disorder once thought to afflict 1% of the population but now, according to studies, it affects a quarter of us. Environment, social influence, and the role of the media are discussed in a new book that discusses why paranoia may be on the rise.
• Mental health difficulties are most pronounced in countries that are rich but have high levels of income and social inequality. It is inequality that has the most profound and far-reaching consequences for individuals and wider society. These are conclusions from a report for the World Health Organisation on mental health in Europe.
Law & Government:
• The Reserves and Other Lands Disposal (ROLD) Bill has finally passed its first reading. The bill covers areas all over the country, including Albert Park and volcanic cones in Auckland.
• The introduction of “young mayors” in the UK has had a positive impact on issues that affect or are of concern to teenagers and raises involvement in the democratic process. As a result the initiative is to be expanded.
People, culture & diversity:
• European archives have been dealt a devastating blow with the collapse of the 6-storey building containing the Cologne archives. Microfilm duplicates of some of the archives are in a central warehouse in the Black Forest, but 26k of original materials were held in the 1971 building, dating from as early as 922.
• A large and powerful group of leaders’ wives in the Arab world, not well-known in the West, is influencing policies and attitudes towards women in 15 of the 22 Arab countries.
• A UK headmaster has suggested that giving teenagers another 2 hours to sleep in the morning would improve their ability to learn. Unfortunately, for any parents who might object scientists are proving that there is a good reason for letting teenagers have more sleep.
• According to David Armano, technology doesn't change human nature, but it changes human behaviour, because it allows us to communicate more quickly and easily. That results in networks, which have begun to take the place of institutions in the function of major roles in society. Armano describes this in his presentation “The microsociology of networks”.
• A new book argues that the single root cause of almost every social problem common in developed societies is inequality.
Science, technology & transport:
• A report from UK think tank Demos “Knowledge Nomads” explains who this new, global breed of scientists are, what motivates them and why their movement around the world is so important.
• A UK commentator explains why simply building technological infrastructure won't be enough to drive digital innovation in the UK.
• US & Japanese researchers have been able to prove the existence of a "spin battery," a battery that is "charged" by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). Meanwhile, research continues on how to get more energy out of lithium batteries, and MIT researchers believe that they have found a way to do this with only simple changes to the production process.
• A UK Nielsen survey of users' habits found that 67% of all those going online were spending time at social network and blogging sites, and that they are becoming more popular than personal e-mail.
• A US congressional investigation has revealed that plans to refurbish Trident nuclear weapons had to be put on hold because US scientists "lost knowledge" of how to make a mysterious but very hazardous material codenamed Fogbank.
• Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has said that browsing habits can now be monitored as if someone had put a "TV camera in one's room". He believes the integrity of the internet is under threat if online "snooping" goes unchecked.
• The city of Yokohama will jointly participate with Nissan in a 5-year project aimed at achieving zero emission-mobility. This follows a joint study completed in November last year, and the project will mean that the city adopts a zoning system with a zero-carbon central zone and a low-carbon zone in the outer areas.
• The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority has contracted a company to develop electronic vehicle charging infrastructure guidelines for planning design and installation of the infrastructure for plug-in vehicles.
• Mercedes has joined the sceptics who question the feasibility of the battery-swapping idea behind the Better Place concept for electric vehicles. Mercedes says they exhaustively studied the idea in the 1970s, and rejected it as potentially dangerous.
• The first new research for more than 50 years in the UK into the relationship between street lighting and road traffic accidents, will be published in the next few weeks. The report is not expected to support the widely held belief that street lighting reduces accidents by up to 30%. However, there are acute public fears that any switch-off will lead to higher crime rates.
• Energy generation using the ocean is on the rise with increasing numbers of commercial sites already generating power around the world, and a large number of other projects being tested.
• A Cheshire salt mine still in operation is being used to store valuable archives, book collections and artifacts.
• The UN World Tourism Organisation says that the tourism industry has a key role to play in helping the world recover from the current financial crisis. Tourism growth in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to ease, while the Americas and Europe will be impacted the most.
• In an address delivered on International Women’s Day, Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor made the point that while every NZer is concerned about job security as the economic recession bites, women suffer a double whammy because of the gender pay gap.
• A recent US study has found that shopping online has less of an environmental impact than going to a traditional bricks-and-mortar store.
Education
• A school in the UK is trialling the use of facial recognition software to confirm attendance, rather than using the old-fashioned roll-call. Using biometrics in schools in the UK is widespread, but some campaigners say that schools’ use of biometrics is "a disproportionate response to a nonexistent problem".
• The chief executive of a UK university says that in the 21st century, higher education must adapt to serve the needs of a much wider section of the community than simply fresh-faced 18-year-olds.
Environment & sustainability:
• Water banking has been suggested recently for NZ’s future water management. Western states in the US have invested heavily in water banking, and the Washington State Dept of Ecology has released a report, Analysis of water banks in the Western states, which covers legislation, policies and programmes.
• An American think tank brought together prominent climate change deniers for a convention in New York this week. Although 58% of Americans believe human activity is causing climate change, many don’t see a need for urgent action. (For an alternative view of the background of the deniers, visit Grist, a US environmental news and commentary website.
• David J C Mackay is Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He has just written a detailed analysis of sustainable energy, and the book is available for download from the Web.
• James Lovelock (developer of the Gaia theory) has joined a former UK environment minister to condemn the European carbon trading scheme, saying it has proved to be "disastrous" and a "scam" in which companies have profited with no effect on emissions.
• A growing number of scientists and business leaders have concluded that there will need to be a 60-80% reduction in worldwide emissions in the next two to three decades, but climate impacts from greenhouse gas levels expected by 2050 will persist for about 1,000 years regardless of how well decision makers reduce future emissions.
Health & wellbeing:
• The World Lung Foundation and the American Cancer Society have launched the 3rd edition of the Tobacco Atlas (note also the World Health Organisation’s Tobacco Atlas) which includes interactive maps of global statistics relating to many aspects of the tobacco industry and its impact on health.
• The latest issue of Australasian Leisure Management refers in an article to the Australian draft national planning guidelines in the “Healthy Places and Spaces” project. Fact sheets, a consultation report , the draft and presentations are available via the website.
• Paranoia is a mental disorder once thought to afflict 1% of the population but now, according to studies, it affects a quarter of us. Environment, social influence, and the role of the media are discussed in a new book that discusses why paranoia may be on the rise.
• Mental health difficulties are most pronounced in countries that are rich but have high levels of income and social inequality. It is inequality that has the most profound and far-reaching consequences for individuals and wider society. These are conclusions from a report for the World Health Organisation on mental health in Europe.
Law & Government:
• The Reserves and Other Lands Disposal (ROLD) Bill has finally passed its first reading. The bill covers areas all over the country, including Albert Park and volcanic cones in Auckland.
• The introduction of “young mayors” in the UK has had a positive impact on issues that affect or are of concern to teenagers and raises involvement in the democratic process. As a result the initiative is to be expanded.
People, culture & diversity:
• European archives have been dealt a devastating blow with the collapse of the 6-storey building containing the Cologne archives. Microfilm duplicates of some of the archives are in a central warehouse in the Black Forest, but 26k of original materials were held in the 1971 building, dating from as early as 922.
• A large and powerful group of leaders’ wives in the Arab world, not well-known in the West, is influencing policies and attitudes towards women in 15 of the 22 Arab countries.
• A UK headmaster has suggested that giving teenagers another 2 hours to sleep in the morning would improve their ability to learn. Unfortunately, for any parents who might object scientists are proving that there is a good reason for letting teenagers have more sleep.
• According to David Armano, technology doesn't change human nature, but it changes human behaviour, because it allows us to communicate more quickly and easily. That results in networks, which have begun to take the place of institutions in the function of major roles in society. Armano describes this in his presentation “The microsociology of networks”.
• A new book argues that the single root cause of almost every social problem common in developed societies is inequality.
Science, technology & transport:
• A report from UK think tank Demos “Knowledge Nomads” explains who this new, global breed of scientists are, what motivates them and why their movement around the world is so important.
• A UK commentator explains why simply building technological infrastructure won't be enough to drive digital innovation in the UK.
• US & Japanese researchers have been able to prove the existence of a "spin battery," a battery that is "charged" by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). Meanwhile, research continues on how to get more energy out of lithium batteries, and MIT researchers believe that they have found a way to do this with only simple changes to the production process.
• A UK Nielsen survey of users' habits found that 67% of all those going online were spending time at social network and blogging sites, and that they are becoming more popular than personal e-mail.
• A US congressional investigation has revealed that plans to refurbish Trident nuclear weapons had to be put on hold because US scientists "lost knowledge" of how to make a mysterious but very hazardous material codenamed Fogbank.
• Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has said that browsing habits can now be monitored as if someone had put a "TV camera in one's room". He believes the integrity of the internet is under threat if online "snooping" goes unchecked.
• The city of Yokohama will jointly participate with Nissan in a 5-year project aimed at achieving zero emission-mobility. This follows a joint study completed in November last year, and the project will mean that the city adopts a zoning system with a zero-carbon central zone and a low-carbon zone in the outer areas.
• The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority has contracted a company to develop electronic vehicle charging infrastructure guidelines for planning design and installation of the infrastructure for plug-in vehicles.
• Mercedes has joined the sceptics who question the feasibility of the battery-swapping idea behind the Better Place concept for electric vehicles. Mercedes says they exhaustively studied the idea in the 1970s, and rejected it as potentially dangerous.
• The first new research for more than 50 years in the UK into the relationship between street lighting and road traffic accidents, will be published in the next few weeks. The report is not expected to support the widely held belief that street lighting reduces accidents by up to 30%. However, there are acute public fears that any switch-off will lead to higher crime rates.
• Energy generation using the ocean is on the rise with increasing numbers of commercial sites already generating power around the world, and a large number of other projects being tested.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 05/03):
Business & management:
• The World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2009, places NZ 20th out of 133 countries, but a local tourism executive says that improvements to infrastructure and removing other barriers to development would make the industry even more competitive against other international visitor destinations.
• The title of this year’s World Trade Organisation Public Forum in September is “Global Problems, Global Solutions: Towards Better Global Governance”.
• America is now facing an unusual oil crisis. Supertankers that once raced around the world to satisfy the demand for oil are now staying moored offshore, fully loaded. The vast oil storage farms on land in the US are almost out of room, as oil companies and investors “stash” crude oil, while they wait for the market and demand to rise again.
• A conclusion about whether shorter working weeks save on energy consumption and costs may still be a little way off, although European countries using a shortened work week have shown that there are rises in productivity.
• A Harvard Business School paper argues that the beneficial effects of goal setting have been overstated and that systematic harm caused by goal setting has been largely ignored.
Education
• School phobia (well known in Japan) is on the increase elsewhere. In the UK, up to 3% of students experience anxiety at the start of the school day, but the problem is thought to be under-diagnosed.
• Three practical models, developed to assist businesses and their training partners in providing effective support for learners using e-learning in the workplace, have been released by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
• According to new research, people who spend money on "brain trainers" to keep their minds agile may get the same results by simply doing a crossword or surfing the internet.
Environment & sustainability:
• Seaweek is on this week (ending on the 8th), with events all over the country to help people discover what's special about our ocean and what they can do to make a difference.
• A new FAO study shows that the contribution of planted forests has become increasingly critical to future wood supplies.
• Vancouver City has created a Greenest City Action Team that will recommend immediate action steps to significantly improve Vancouver’s environmental performance and strategies for advancing green economic initiatives.
• An estimated 10 billion tonnes of ballast water are being carried around the globe each year, and more than 3,000 species of plants and animals are being transferred daily. A Global Industry Alliance has been launched with the International Maritime Organisation, which will assist the development of cost-effective ballast water treatment technologies, and new ship design options such as 'flow thru' ballast tanks and ballast-free ships.
• California’s Pacific Institute has released a report Water Scarcity and Climate Change: Growing Risks for Businesses and Investors that identifies water-related risks specific to eight key industries.
• Green campaigners are now aiming at America’s liking for extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply toilet roll made from virgin wood, saying that it causes more damage than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions.
• The UK’s Green Building Council is proposing that every commercial or public building should be required to undergo a green "MOT" of its energy efficiency, water use and the waste it generates.
• The environmental implications of a move to a plug-in grid for vehicles are more complicated than realised. The complexity stems from the multiplicity of vehicles, electricity-generating technologies and assumptions behind future projections for both.
Health & wellbeing:
• Research by the World Cancer Research Fund shows that apart from the third of cancers caused by smoking, another third could be prevented by nutrition, physical activity and obesity controls. The latest policy report, Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention provides recommendations for 9 groups of society who can influence these factors.
• The NZ Council of Christian Social Services report, Grassroots Voices focuses on family and whanau experiences of receiving support services from Christian social services and government agencies.
• A UK think tank report on mental health has concluded that five simple steps incorporated into daily life can fortify mental health, and can contribute to a more productive and fulfilling life.
• Glasgow University research shows that children in the UK watching more than 2 hours of television per day are more likely to develop asthma.
• Research by British psychologists suggests that people who carry a “bright side” gene pay less attention to negative things going on around them and focus instead on the happier aspects of life. They end up being more sociable and are generally in better shape psychologically.
• Researchers at Harvard Medical School have now shown that sometimes you can be positive by being negative and that people who tried to repress frustration (or anger) at work were more likely to feel trapped under a glass ceiling than those who found ways to let it all out.
Law & Government:
• Local government in the UK is being heavily impacted by the recession. Half of councils have cut jobs in the last few months, and 7 out of 10 are expecting further redundancies. Although demand for services will rise during the recession, council incomes are dropping while local tax is capped. A new government report advocates the creation of a price comparison website that will give the best deals and prices on £42bn of services procured by councils every year, and councils will have to disclose the pay and perks of their chief executives under new measures designed to crack down on town hall "fat cats".
• The Building Act and the laws covering swimming pools and shop trading hours are included in a government-wide review of red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy.
People, culture & diversity:
• The annual report on the cultural sector in NZ has been released. The number of people employed in this sector has increased by 21%, compared with an increase of 15% in total employment.
• UK statistics show that the teenage lifestyle now costs £9000 per year – things that were once luxuries are now “just part of the kit that the average teenager expects to own”. One commentator compares the costs for a disabled child.
Science, technology & transport:
• Researchers in China have discovered that chicken manure can be used to biodegrade crude oil in contaminated soil. The bacteria in chicken manure break down 50% more crude oil than in soil that lacks it.
• A UNEP report shows how annual savings of six billion barrels of oil and 2 gigatonnes of CO2 are achievable through an ambitious world wide programme, and shows how the world wide car fleet can reduce fuel consumption per kilometre by 50% by 2050.
• The Rocky Mountain Institute has launched an initiative intended to help communities prepare for plug-in vehicles, including full battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric and converted hybrid or internal combustion vehicles.
• A university survey of public opinion in the US, shows that half of all Americans expect another country to emerge this century as the world’s leader in addressing technological challenges that range from the economy to global warming.
• A US company is working on a project to turn roads into solar roads. Panels that can generate power from solar energy would be embedded in the road surface.
• Hybrid automotive engines are not a recent invention. This year sees the 100th anniversary of the first US hybrid car patent, awarded to an inventor in Belgium.
• University of South Australia researchers say "talking" cars could be on the road as soon as 2012 and the technology could reduce fatalities by half.
• Lotus have developed a new vehicle engine that takes aspects of a conventional 2-stroke, and adds a few neat tricks to that proven technology to create an engine truly flexible enough to run on almost anything, from 87 Octane to tequila to VP Nitromethane.
• The World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2009, places NZ 20th out of 133 countries, but a local tourism executive says that improvements to infrastructure and removing other barriers to development would make the industry even more competitive against other international visitor destinations.
• The title of this year’s World Trade Organisation Public Forum in September is “Global Problems, Global Solutions: Towards Better Global Governance”.
• America is now facing an unusual oil crisis. Supertankers that once raced around the world to satisfy the demand for oil are now staying moored offshore, fully loaded. The vast oil storage farms on land in the US are almost out of room, as oil companies and investors “stash” crude oil, while they wait for the market and demand to rise again.
• A conclusion about whether shorter working weeks save on energy consumption and costs may still be a little way off, although European countries using a shortened work week have shown that there are rises in productivity.
• A Harvard Business School paper argues that the beneficial effects of goal setting have been overstated and that systematic harm caused by goal setting has been largely ignored.
Education
• School phobia (well known in Japan) is on the increase elsewhere. In the UK, up to 3% of students experience anxiety at the start of the school day, but the problem is thought to be under-diagnosed.
• Three practical models, developed to assist businesses and their training partners in providing effective support for learners using e-learning in the workplace, have been released by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
• According to new research, people who spend money on "brain trainers" to keep their minds agile may get the same results by simply doing a crossword or surfing the internet.
Environment & sustainability:
• Seaweek is on this week (ending on the 8th), with events all over the country to help people discover what's special about our ocean and what they can do to make a difference.
• A new FAO study shows that the contribution of planted forests has become increasingly critical to future wood supplies.
• Vancouver City has created a Greenest City Action Team that will recommend immediate action steps to significantly improve Vancouver’s environmental performance and strategies for advancing green economic initiatives.
• An estimated 10 billion tonnes of ballast water are being carried around the globe each year, and more than 3,000 species of plants and animals are being transferred daily. A Global Industry Alliance has been launched with the International Maritime Organisation, which will assist the development of cost-effective ballast water treatment technologies, and new ship design options such as 'flow thru' ballast tanks and ballast-free ships.
• California’s Pacific Institute has released a report Water Scarcity and Climate Change: Growing Risks for Businesses and Investors that identifies water-related risks specific to eight key industries.
• Green campaigners are now aiming at America’s liking for extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply toilet roll made from virgin wood, saying that it causes more damage than gas-guzzlers, fast food or McMansions.
• The UK’s Green Building Council is proposing that every commercial or public building should be required to undergo a green "MOT" of its energy efficiency, water use and the waste it generates.
• The environmental implications of a move to a plug-in grid for vehicles are more complicated than realised. The complexity stems from the multiplicity of vehicles, electricity-generating technologies and assumptions behind future projections for both.
Health & wellbeing:
• Research by the World Cancer Research Fund shows that apart from the third of cancers caused by smoking, another third could be prevented by nutrition, physical activity and obesity controls. The latest policy report, Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention provides recommendations for 9 groups of society who can influence these factors.
• The NZ Council of Christian Social Services report, Grassroots Voices focuses on family and whanau experiences of receiving support services from Christian social services and government agencies.
• A UK think tank report on mental health has concluded that five simple steps incorporated into daily life can fortify mental health, and can contribute to a more productive and fulfilling life.
• Glasgow University research shows that children in the UK watching more than 2 hours of television per day are more likely to develop asthma.
• Research by British psychologists suggests that people who carry a “bright side” gene pay less attention to negative things going on around them and focus instead on the happier aspects of life. They end up being more sociable and are generally in better shape psychologically.
• Researchers at Harvard Medical School have now shown that sometimes you can be positive by being negative and that people who tried to repress frustration (or anger) at work were more likely to feel trapped under a glass ceiling than those who found ways to let it all out.
Law & Government:
• Local government in the UK is being heavily impacted by the recession. Half of councils have cut jobs in the last few months, and 7 out of 10 are expecting further redundancies. Although demand for services will rise during the recession, council incomes are dropping while local tax is capped. A new government report advocates the creation of a price comparison website that will give the best deals and prices on £42bn of services procured by councils every year, and councils will have to disclose the pay and perks of their chief executives under new measures designed to crack down on town hall "fat cats".
• The Building Act and the laws covering swimming pools and shop trading hours are included in a government-wide review of red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy.
People, culture & diversity:
• The annual report on the cultural sector in NZ has been released. The number of people employed in this sector has increased by 21%, compared with an increase of 15% in total employment.
• UK statistics show that the teenage lifestyle now costs £9000 per year – things that were once luxuries are now “just part of the kit that the average teenager expects to own”. One commentator compares the costs for a disabled child.
Science, technology & transport:
• Researchers in China have discovered that chicken manure can be used to biodegrade crude oil in contaminated soil. The bacteria in chicken manure break down 50% more crude oil than in soil that lacks it.
• A UNEP report shows how annual savings of six billion barrels of oil and 2 gigatonnes of CO2 are achievable through an ambitious world wide programme, and shows how the world wide car fleet can reduce fuel consumption per kilometre by 50% by 2050.
• The Rocky Mountain Institute has launched an initiative intended to help communities prepare for plug-in vehicles, including full battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric and converted hybrid or internal combustion vehicles.
• A university survey of public opinion in the US, shows that half of all Americans expect another country to emerge this century as the world’s leader in addressing technological challenges that range from the economy to global warming.
• A US company is working on a project to turn roads into solar roads. Panels that can generate power from solar energy would be embedded in the road surface.
• Hybrid automotive engines are not a recent invention. This year sees the 100th anniversary of the first US hybrid car patent, awarded to an inventor in Belgium.
• University of South Australia researchers say "talking" cars could be on the road as soon as 2012 and the technology could reduce fatalities by half.
• Lotus have developed a new vehicle engine that takes aspects of a conventional 2-stroke, and adds a few neat tricks to that proven technology to create an engine truly flexible enough to run on almost anything, from 87 Octane to tequila to VP Nitromethane.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 26/02):
Business & management:
• A review of the electricity sector in which a notable degree of consensus was achieved between generators, Transpower and large electricity users, recommends a new approach to regulation.
• A Business NZ survey of 647 companies, to help inform its recommendations to the Jobs Summit this week, suggests the credit crunch may not be as widespread as thought.
• A new book brings together some of the world’s best minds to discuss Bill Gate’s proposal to the World Economic Forum in Davos, that big corporations integrate doing good into their way of doing business.
• A US study has found that 60% of employees stole company data when they left their job last year.
• More and more US businesses are looking for ways to cut costs, and are turning to waste vegetable oil to reduce fuel bills.
Education
• A 35-question survey available in English and Māori, Census At School, aims to raise NZ students' interest in mathematics and statistics as well as provide a fascinating sketch of what they are thinking, feeling and doing.
• New UK research says that focussing on literacy and numeracy at the expense of creative teaching at primary school, means that children are leaving lacking knowledge about the arts and humanities.
• Advocates of an interactive, self-service approach to corporate learning provide an overview of corporate learning so far, and say that a 21stC training department must shift direction in three areas: embracing complexity and adaptation to uncertainty; inverting the structural pyramid; and adopting new models of learning.
Environment & sustainability:
• An international group of scientists is renewing calls for policymakers to reduce both nitrogen and phosphorus when attempting to alleviate nutrient pollution problems (eutrophication) in fresh and coastal waters.
• In the US, some research on carbon footprints in the suburbs versus carbon footpritns in high-rise cities, shows that the suburbs are producing higher carbon emissions.
• More than 140 countries attending the governing council of the UN Environment Programme, have agreed to initiate a process that should end in a legally binding, international treaty that will crack down on mercury pollution.
• Melbourne Water’s managing director believes that bushfire-related run-off will contaminate the water supply for 3 months, and water inflows to some sources will be reduced by a third for the next 30 years. At the same time, Monash University research shows that about the same number of people were killed by one January heat wave, as those in the Victoria bush fires.
Health & wellbeing:
• Less than 1% of Kiwi carers of disabled children and young people are satisfied with the supports provided to their family, according to a University of Auckland qualitative study.
• University of Otago research shows that outdoor workers in NZ are exposed to much higher levels of ultraviolet radiation from the summer sun than internationally recommended occupational exposure limits.
Law & Government:
• A recent UN Environmental Programme report that examines conflicts in developing countries, shows that investing in environmental management and the governance of natural resources is an investment in conflict prevention, especially since 18 violent conflicts around the world have been fuelled by the exploitation of natural resources since 1990.
• For the next three weeks, NZers have a rare opportunity to shape the Government’s human rights priorities at a time when the economic crisis makes human rights more important than ever.
• A major review of council procurement processes with a view to improvement and smart procuring has been completed in the UK.
• A UK study shows what effect policies introduced since 1997 have had on reducing poverty and inequality, and measures the extent of progress. The report also considers future direction and pressures, particularly in the light of recession and an ageing society.
• British research shows that while MPs are getting more adept at using the internet, they tend to see it as way of talking to rather than hearing from voters.
People, culture & diversity:
• According to a new research report, violent video games and movies make people numb to the pain and suffering of others.
• A UK neuroscience professor has warned that social network sites risk infantilising the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity. Another scientist says that the lack of “real” social networking via social sites could isolate people, with the lack of face-to-face contact resulting in real physical harm.
Science, technology & transport:
• The Commerce Commission conference Broadband at a Crossroads being held in Auckland today and tomorrow, is being webcast.
• Plans for a system that will allow people to use one username and password across the internet have moved closer, with a number of popular sites agreeing to the scheme in recent weeks.
• A UK waste station that converts rubbish into energy, is powering the first waste-powered electric garbage truck.
• A Japanese university has built a test track line, to develop an energy-saving drive system for urban transportation. The rail course uses lift motors and the principles behind roller coasters to move the train and gain energy.
• A review of the electricity sector in which a notable degree of consensus was achieved between generators, Transpower and large electricity users, recommends a new approach to regulation.
• A Business NZ survey of 647 companies, to help inform its recommendations to the Jobs Summit this week, suggests the credit crunch may not be as widespread as thought.
• A new book brings together some of the world’s best minds to discuss Bill Gate’s proposal to the World Economic Forum in Davos, that big corporations integrate doing good into their way of doing business.
• A US study has found that 60% of employees stole company data when they left their job last year.
• More and more US businesses are looking for ways to cut costs, and are turning to waste vegetable oil to reduce fuel bills.
Education
• A 35-question survey available in English and Māori, Census At School, aims to raise NZ students' interest in mathematics and statistics as well as provide a fascinating sketch of what they are thinking, feeling and doing.
• New UK research says that focussing on literacy and numeracy at the expense of creative teaching at primary school, means that children are leaving lacking knowledge about the arts and humanities.
• Advocates of an interactive, self-service approach to corporate learning provide an overview of corporate learning so far, and say that a 21stC training department must shift direction in three areas: embracing complexity and adaptation to uncertainty; inverting the structural pyramid; and adopting new models of learning.
Environment & sustainability:
• An international group of scientists is renewing calls for policymakers to reduce both nitrogen and phosphorus when attempting to alleviate nutrient pollution problems (eutrophication) in fresh and coastal waters.
• In the US, some research on carbon footprints in the suburbs versus carbon footpritns in high-rise cities, shows that the suburbs are producing higher carbon emissions.
• More than 140 countries attending the governing council of the UN Environment Programme, have agreed to initiate a process that should end in a legally binding, international treaty that will crack down on mercury pollution.
• Melbourne Water’s managing director believes that bushfire-related run-off will contaminate the water supply for 3 months, and water inflows to some sources will be reduced by a third for the next 30 years. At the same time, Monash University research shows that about the same number of people were killed by one January heat wave, as those in the Victoria bush fires.
Health & wellbeing:
• Less than 1% of Kiwi carers of disabled children and young people are satisfied with the supports provided to their family, according to a University of Auckland qualitative study.
• University of Otago research shows that outdoor workers in NZ are exposed to much higher levels of ultraviolet radiation from the summer sun than internationally recommended occupational exposure limits.
Law & Government:
• A recent UN Environmental Programme report that examines conflicts in developing countries, shows that investing in environmental management and the governance of natural resources is an investment in conflict prevention, especially since 18 violent conflicts around the world have been fuelled by the exploitation of natural resources since 1990.
• For the next three weeks, NZers have a rare opportunity to shape the Government’s human rights priorities at a time when the economic crisis makes human rights more important than ever.
• A major review of council procurement processes with a view to improvement and smart procuring has been completed in the UK.
• A UK study shows what effect policies introduced since 1997 have had on reducing poverty and inequality, and measures the extent of progress. The report also considers future direction and pressures, particularly in the light of recession and an ageing society.
• British research shows that while MPs are getting more adept at using the internet, they tend to see it as way of talking to rather than hearing from voters.
People, culture & diversity:
• According to a new research report, violent video games and movies make people numb to the pain and suffering of others.
• A UK neuroscience professor has warned that social network sites risk infantilising the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity. Another scientist says that the lack of “real” social networking via social sites could isolate people, with the lack of face-to-face contact resulting in real physical harm.
Science, technology & transport:
• The Commerce Commission conference Broadband at a Crossroads being held in Auckland today and tomorrow, is being webcast.
• Plans for a system that will allow people to use one username and password across the internet have moved closer, with a number of popular sites agreeing to the scheme in recent weeks.
• A UK waste station that converts rubbish into energy, is powering the first waste-powered electric garbage truck.
• A Japanese university has built a test track line, to develop an energy-saving drive system for urban transportation. The rail course uses lift motors and the principles behind roller coasters to move the train and gain energy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)