Business & management:
• The UN has released a global report that predicts that world economic growth will fall steeply to 1.8 per cent this year and 2.1 per cent next year, down from 3.8 per cent in 2007.
• Researchers at the University of Bristol Centre for Market and Public Organisation have just published the results of a study on 4000 workers in the public sector, showing that almost half of them do regular unpaid overtime. They calculate that this saves UK public sector employers the costs of employing 60,000 more staff.
Education
• The Education Review Office has released a report “Partners In Learning: Schools’ Engagement with Parents, Whānau and Communities”, which indicates that parents are even more willing now to be involved with their child’s school than in the past.
• Massey University researchers in partnership with Wanganui District Library are to carry out a 4-year research project on identifying barriers to adult literacy and preferred learning options. It is hoped that new employment opportunities will be created due to higher literacy standards.
Environment & sustainability:
• The Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, will be speaking at the University of Auckland on World Environment Day (4 June), describing options for a low-carbon global economy.
• An exhibition in Manchester that celebrates urban gardening shows that guerrilla gardening is active in the UK, but also shows the importance of the good old British allotment.
• A design competition in New York has produced a concept for an apartment building that is as green as it could get – it would have a working farm on the roof.
Health & wellbeing:
• The UN has created the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis to work on a comprehensive plan to tackle problems caused by the worldwide rise in food prices. The FAO believes that an important part of the problem is the lack of biodiversity in the crop and animal species grown for food supply.
• Non-communicable diseases are now the biggest killers globally, with the world’s leading infectious diseases becoming less important causes of death over the next 20 years. The trend was reported in the WHO report “World Health Statistics 2008”. The WHO also says that the global food crisis, climate change and pandemic influenza are the main threats to human health.
Law & Government:
• The IMF report referred to this week on the status of NZ’s economy is available here.
• The UK Government is expected to introduce a bill to Parliament this year called the “Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill”. The new bill is intended to strengthen the rights of local people in having a say over their own area, including the right to force a debate on specific local issues onto the local council agenda.
• The UK Home Office has announced a decision to extend the British Crime Survey to include 11-16 year olds. A survey has shown that 1 in 5 London teenagers have had a cell phone or MP3 player stolen, and many of them routinely carry at least £100 worth of electronics with them.
• A survey of UK crime in 2003/4 has shown that crimes by girls aged between 10 and 17 had risen 25%, with the most common crimes being theft, violent attacks, criminal damage and public order offences.
• A UK study of the fear of crime shows that it is an important indicator of a society’s wellbeing and that where people were concerned about social change and declining morality, they were more likely to also fear crime, regardless of the local crime rate.
• Greater Manchester’s approach to local governance has not been to take the Lord Mayor approach of London, but to negotiate a multi-area agreement (MAA) between the individual councils and government.
People, culture & diversity:
• Statistics NZ's longitudinal immigration survey has produced results recently showing that lifestyle is the main reason for immigrants to choose in deciding to come to NZ.
Science, technology & transport:
• Broadband users in Australasia are spending more time watching video via the Internet, than by watching TV or going to the movies.
• Locals and environmental groups in east London are strongly opposed to plans for a £500m six-lane road bridge across the Thames. A new study of 6 options for crossing the river shows that there’s one option that could be the most sustainable, the cheapest, it would encourage cycling & walking and would be faster to build -- a cable-car across the Thames.
• A US woman faces charges over her masquerade as a boy on a Facebook profile. She used her online profile to bully a girl, who committed suicide when “he” ended their virtual relationship. However, the prosecution under computer laws may raise questions for other users of alternative identities or profiles on the Internet.
• The OECD has sounded a warning about the rate at which nations are moving to the new Internet addressing system.
• A US “drive-by-wire” automated car is getting a lot of interest because it is suggested that it could drastically cut traffic jams by increasing the flow of traffic up to 3 times.
Friday, 23 May 2008
Thursday, 15 May 2008
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 15/05):
Business & management:
• Organisations that have embraced writing in plain English can take part in the WriteMark Plain English Awards, with the winners to be announced in September. The awards will include a “People’s Choice Award”.
Education
• Schools in the US are registering with the US Green Building Council’s LEED certification program, showing that they intend to build and operate schools that are more energy and water efficient.
Environment & sustainability:
• The Sustainable Development Commission in the UK has produced a report “Health place and nature. How outdoor environments influence health and well-being:
a knowledge base”.
• The suggestion has been made that degradation of the mangrove forests on Myanmar’s coast may have played a part in the seriousness of the current disaster. Since the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami, mangroves have received greater attention for their potential in protecting coastlines against storm surges, although there is still dispute amongst scientists over their role.
• A US Dept of Energy feasibility report says that 20% of US electricity could be provided by wind power by the year 2030 – the same proportion of power generated now by nuclear power plants.
Health & wellbeing:
• Cigarette vending machines that can recognise the age of the purchaser are waiting for approval to be introduced in Japan, to help in preventing under-age smokers.
• A Canadian analysis that looks at the relationship between health records and sales receipts alcoholic shows that hospitalisations for assault go up in direct relation to increased alcohol sales near the victims' homes.
Law & Government:
• Winners of the Association of Local Government Information Management Best of the Best Web Awards have been announced, with Northland Regional Council winning best website design in 2008, while Inland Revenue has won best government site in the People's Choice NetGuide web awards for the second time in three years.
• District planning could be challenged by a small London parish, as residents claim their parish still has “liberty” status in an attempt to prevent the construction of a high rise development.
• The London Thames Gateway Development Corporation is leading a regeneration programme to the east of London, that will see over 8000 new homes built and almost as many new jobs.
People, culture & diversity:
• Research has shown that although NZers don’t know their neighbours well, most would like to – if time pressures and an overall reduction in community friendliness and trust weren’t an issue.
• Facebook announced a series of changes last week that it will be making to its site to increase security for young web users, in an agreement with 49 attorney generals of US states. At the same time, a debt charity in the UK is warning about credit card advertising on Facebook, targeted at young people.
• In NZ, Netsafe’s Hector’s World has been available to all primary school children since 2005/6, teaching them about internet safety. The animated dolphin has now been launched in primary schools in the UK.
• MySpace is now allowing its users to share their public profile content with any other website, rather than restricting it to only other MySpace users.
• Online or virtual worlds aimed at children under the age of 13 are increasingly popular, giving them freedom to express themselves. One virtual child’s site has 90 million account holders.
Science, technology & transport:
• A technical fellow from Boeing has described a hybrid plane-car under development that could make “aviation available to everyone as a daily means of transportation”, at the Electric Aircraft Symposium in California.
• Bournemouth is to be the first town in the UK to have super-fast broadband fibre laid via the sewers, a method of laying the cables that is considered to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly, as roads do not have to be dug up.
• Google has announced the launch of its move into the social side of the Internet, with its Friend Connect tools.
• Should the Internet be divided into 2 zones, one “safe”, and one a free environment? This is one of the ideas put forward in a recently published book on possible future directions for the Internet.
• Internet telephony fraud is showing a new trend, where usernames and passwords for voice-over-IP phone accounts are being sold for more than stolen credit cards.
• Organisations that have embraced writing in plain English can take part in the WriteMark Plain English Awards, with the winners to be announced in September. The awards will include a “People’s Choice Award”.
Education
• Schools in the US are registering with the US Green Building Council’s LEED certification program, showing that they intend to build and operate schools that are more energy and water efficient.
Environment & sustainability:
• The Sustainable Development Commission in the UK has produced a report “Health place and nature. How outdoor environments influence health and well-being:
a knowledge base”.
• The suggestion has been made that degradation of the mangrove forests on Myanmar’s coast may have played a part in the seriousness of the current disaster. Since the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami, mangroves have received greater attention for their potential in protecting coastlines against storm surges, although there is still dispute amongst scientists over their role.
• A US Dept of Energy feasibility report says that 20% of US electricity could be provided by wind power by the year 2030 – the same proportion of power generated now by nuclear power plants.
Health & wellbeing:
• Cigarette vending machines that can recognise the age of the purchaser are waiting for approval to be introduced in Japan, to help in preventing under-age smokers.
• A Canadian analysis that looks at the relationship between health records and sales receipts alcoholic shows that hospitalisations for assault go up in direct relation to increased alcohol sales near the victims' homes.
Law & Government:
• Winners of the Association of Local Government Information Management Best of the Best Web Awards have been announced, with Northland Regional Council winning best website design in 2008, while Inland Revenue has won best government site in the People's Choice NetGuide web awards for the second time in three years.
• District planning could be challenged by a small London parish, as residents claim their parish still has “liberty” status in an attempt to prevent the construction of a high rise development.
• The London Thames Gateway Development Corporation is leading a regeneration programme to the east of London, that will see over 8000 new homes built and almost as many new jobs.
People, culture & diversity:
• Research has shown that although NZers don’t know their neighbours well, most would like to – if time pressures and an overall reduction in community friendliness and trust weren’t an issue.
• Facebook announced a series of changes last week that it will be making to its site to increase security for young web users, in an agreement with 49 attorney generals of US states. At the same time, a debt charity in the UK is warning about credit card advertising on Facebook, targeted at young people.
• In NZ, Netsafe’s Hector’s World has been available to all primary school children since 2005/6, teaching them about internet safety. The animated dolphin has now been launched in primary schools in the UK.
• MySpace is now allowing its users to share their public profile content with any other website, rather than restricting it to only other MySpace users.
• Online or virtual worlds aimed at children under the age of 13 are increasingly popular, giving them freedom to express themselves. One virtual child’s site has 90 million account holders.
Science, technology & transport:
• A technical fellow from Boeing has described a hybrid plane-car under development that could make “aviation available to everyone as a daily means of transportation”, at the Electric Aircraft Symposium in California.
• Bournemouth is to be the first town in the UK to have super-fast broadband fibre laid via the sewers, a method of laying the cables that is considered to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly, as roads do not have to be dug up.
• Google has announced the launch of its move into the social side of the Internet, with its Friend Connect tools.
• Should the Internet be divided into 2 zones, one “safe”, and one a free environment? This is one of the ideas put forward in a recently published book on possible future directions for the Internet.
• Internet telephony fraud is showing a new trend, where usernames and passwords for voice-over-IP phone accounts are being sold for more than stolen credit cards.
Thursday, 8 May 2008
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 08/05):
Business & management:
• Environment ministers attending an OECD meeting have agreed that competitiveness challenges associated with the shift towards a low-carbon economy are real but manageable.
• 40% of senior news editors believe that people will be reading newspapers mostly online in a decade’s time, but 85% of them are optimistic about the futures of their newspapers.
• An Auckland and a Christchurch hotel have made it into a ranking of the world’s best hotels. The ranking is compiled on a travel site that had 160 000 opinions submitted in 2007.
Environment & sustainability:
• Green Roofs for Healthy Cities is an organisation that aims to increase the awareness of the economic, social, and environmental benefits of green roof infrastructure across North America, with 30% more green roofs installed in America last year.
• Dutch researchers have released a calculator that will let you compute a “water footprint” – for example, 140 litres of water is needed for production of a cup of coffee, 40 litres for an apple.
• The US Environmental Protection Agency says that e-waste is now the fastest-growing area of the municipal waste stream.
• A US report on factory farming, says that that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
• A report from the US National Academies of Science on desalination raises concerns about the environmental impact and cost effectiveness of the widely touted technology to convert seawater to fresh water.
• Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has started construction of a 7 kilometre square zero-carbon city, intended to house 50 000 people and include retail and light industry.
• German researchers using a new computer model are suggesting the Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase.
Health & wellbeing:
• Pneumonia kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined, according to a new report from the UN.
• The Health Research Council is backing a project that has primary school children taking part in an eight-week programme, keeping a diary of what they eat and wearing a pedometer to record their activity levels. The programme is in addition to their academic study.
• Although Pacific participants in a mental health survey were less likely to drink than Maori or 'other' (mainly of European descent), for those who did drink, the prevalence of hazardous drinking was significantly higher.
Law & Government:
• The Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) in the UK is an organisation devoted to helping local councils improve their performance. The organisation says political leaders like councillors have a responsibility to engage their staff.
• 2 influential British speakers on prison and justice reform will be in NZ to attend next week’s Prison Fellowship Conference.
The consultation period for Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 has been extended to 5.00pm Friday 23 May, to allow organisations to seek input from their membership.
People, culture & diversity:
• Speakers at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, say that game design and social networks are merging into one of the most persuasive forces on the net.
• The BBC Click programme has worked out how personal details can be stolen from a person’s Facebook profile, using a data mining application.
• UN officials have stressed the role of a secure and independent media, and access to information, in empowering individuals and advancing development.
• The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has recommended that the relevant parties develop mechanisms to allow the participation of indigenous peoples in the global debate on climate change.
• The Broadcasting Standards Authority report “Seen and heard: children’s media use, exposure and response” is now available.
Science, technology & transport:
• Bicycles are promoted all over the world as a way of combating rush-hour traffic, but in London, where folding bikes on commuter trains is an increasing phenomenon, other commuters are losing their patience.
• Scientists in Europe have discovered that city road networks have similar mathematical patterns to those found in biology (eg like the veins in leaves). They believe that the results of their study could even help city planners to better predict how some street networks will evolve and to plan accordingly.
• Take care with the email address that you choose for yourself – you’re revealing more about yourself than you realise.
• London’s congestion tax has not necessarily resulted in an improvement in air pollution in the city, however an expanded “low emissions zone” that went into effect at the end of 2007 may improve air quality as it targets heavy vehicles that don’t meet pollution standards.
• Speakers at the Web 2.0 expo say that the future of the World Wide Web is going to be about mobile phones that are location aware, temporarily situated and socially connected [and they] will transform our experience of the web, the world and ourselves. • Leading figures in the web community have spoken about their hopes for the future of the web, on the 15th anniversary of the signing of the document that made web technology available to everyone free of charge.
• Environment ministers attending an OECD meeting have agreed that competitiveness challenges associated with the shift towards a low-carbon economy are real but manageable.
• 40% of senior news editors believe that people will be reading newspapers mostly online in a decade’s time, but 85% of them are optimistic about the futures of their newspapers.
• An Auckland and a Christchurch hotel have made it into a ranking of the world’s best hotels. The ranking is compiled on a travel site that had 160 000 opinions submitted in 2007.
Environment & sustainability:
• Green Roofs for Healthy Cities is an organisation that aims to increase the awareness of the economic, social, and environmental benefits of green roof infrastructure across North America, with 30% more green roofs installed in America last year.
• Dutch researchers have released a calculator that will let you compute a “water footprint” – for example, 140 litres of water is needed for production of a cup of coffee, 40 litres for an apple.
• The US Environmental Protection Agency says that e-waste is now the fastest-growing area of the municipal waste stream.
• A US report on factory farming, says that that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
• A report from the US National Academies of Science on desalination raises concerns about the environmental impact and cost effectiveness of the widely touted technology to convert seawater to fresh water.
• Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has started construction of a 7 kilometre square zero-carbon city, intended to house 50 000 people and include retail and light industry.
• German researchers using a new computer model are suggesting the Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase.
Health & wellbeing:
• Pneumonia kills more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined, according to a new report from the UN.
• The Health Research Council is backing a project that has primary school children taking part in an eight-week programme, keeping a diary of what they eat and wearing a pedometer to record their activity levels. The programme is in addition to their academic study.
• Although Pacific participants in a mental health survey were less likely to drink than Maori or 'other' (mainly of European descent), for those who did drink, the prevalence of hazardous drinking was significantly higher.
Law & Government:
• The Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) in the UK is an organisation devoted to helping local councils improve their performance. The organisation says political leaders like councillors have a responsibility to engage their staff.
• 2 influential British speakers on prison and justice reform will be in NZ to attend next week’s Prison Fellowship Conference.
The consultation period for Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 has been extended to 5.00pm Friday 23 May, to allow organisations to seek input from their membership.
People, culture & diversity:
• Speakers at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, say that game design and social networks are merging into one of the most persuasive forces on the net.
• The BBC Click programme has worked out how personal details can be stolen from a person’s Facebook profile, using a data mining application.
• UN officials have stressed the role of a secure and independent media, and access to information, in empowering individuals and advancing development.
• The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has recommended that the relevant parties develop mechanisms to allow the participation of indigenous peoples in the global debate on climate change.
• The Broadcasting Standards Authority report “Seen and heard: children’s media use, exposure and response” is now available.
Science, technology & transport:
• Bicycles are promoted all over the world as a way of combating rush-hour traffic, but in London, where folding bikes on commuter trains is an increasing phenomenon, other commuters are losing their patience.
• Scientists in Europe have discovered that city road networks have similar mathematical patterns to those found in biology (eg like the veins in leaves). They believe that the results of their study could even help city planners to better predict how some street networks will evolve and to plan accordingly.
• Take care with the email address that you choose for yourself – you’re revealing more about yourself than you realise.
• London’s congestion tax has not necessarily resulted in an improvement in air pollution in the city, however an expanded “low emissions zone” that went into effect at the end of 2007 may improve air quality as it targets heavy vehicles that don’t meet pollution standards.
• Speakers at the Web 2.0 expo say that the future of the World Wide Web is going to be about mobile phones that are location aware, temporarily situated and socially connected [and they] will transform our experience of the web, the world and ourselves. • Leading figures in the web community have spoken about their hopes for the future of the web, on the 15th anniversary of the signing of the document that made web technology available to everyone free of charge.
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