serendipityoucity

A small group of researchers including myself are doing a scan of maps, atlases and visual statistics on the Internet and the telecommunication infrastructure.  The start of our collection can be found in a bookmark sharing file that will expand with time.  And scanned images from paper products can be found here.  If you have ideas, suggestions, links to maps/atlases you have seen or data sources for Canada we would most appreciate them.

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The deal will not go through as Mr. Prentice said he is not satisfied that the deal "is likely to be of net benefit to Canada."

Globe & Mail
CBC
Bloomberg.com
VancouverSun

Thank you for your e-mail regarding Alliant Techsystems’ (ATK) proposed acquisition of the Information Systems and Geospatial Businesses of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA). I regret the delay in replying to you.

As you may know, ATK filed an application under the Investment Canada Act (ICA) for the review of its above-mentioned acquisition proposal.

Under the ICA, foreign investment proposals that are subject to review must obtain my approval before the investor can implement the transaction. My approval is given only where, after a rigorous review process, I am satisfied that the investment is likely to be of net benefit to Canada. The factors considered as part of the net benefit test are listed in section 20 of the ICA.

As part of the review process, Industry Canada officials consult with other federal government departments, and the provinces, to obtain their views and concerns relating to an acquisition. In addition, the investor can provide me with enforceable commitments to demonstrate that the investment is of net benefit to Canada.

Subsection 23(1) of the ICA requires that I notify an investor where I am not satisfied, on the basis of the information I have, that an acquisition is likely to be of net benefit to Canada. I have been authorized by the investor to say that on April 8, 2008, I sent ATK a letter under subsection 23(1). My decision was reached after a careful and rigorous review process during which I consulted with the relevant provinces and federal departments.

After receiving a letter under subsection 23(1) of the ICA, an investor has 30 days to make additional representations and give undertakings concerning the transaction. At the end of this period, I will either confirm my initial decision or approve the acquisition based on additional representations and undertakings provided by the investor.

Once again, thank you for sharing your views on this matter.

Sincerely,

The Honourable Jim Prentice, P.C., Q.C., M.P.

Relief Web Myanmar: Tropical Cyclone Nargis - May 2008.  Below is a list of maps to help with the relief. Note the many data sources implying very coordinated information collaborations.  These are incredible information management logistics.  Relief Web has an amazing data base of information on a per country basis, from lists of who is reporting on Burma, complete sector review, and more.  Imagine if we used the same type of energy during times of crisis toward crisis prevention in down times, the information we would have accessible for planning, war prevention, etc. would be amazing.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Before and After Nargis Images.  Here is a link directly to the NASA Nargis Image site.

Estimated Total Population Living Within Flood-Affected Areas, Myanmar (as of 05 May 2008)

The possibilities of database design and decision support systems for conflict prevention populated with heterogeneous datasets can lead to really interesting applications.  I think this is one of the many ways we can work together to wage peace.  For people interested in working with data sets derived from uncertain sources and the specificities of data lineage, accuracy (positional, temporal andattribute), logical consistency and completeness evaluations this is the document for you.  While this sounds dry, and well it is, the authors of the report are essentially seeking a way to have the data tell the truth and avoiding mistakes as best as possible in an environment of uncertaintly. 

Building a spatial decision support system for conflict prevention in the Caucasus
Harmonization of heterogeneous sources and data quality assessment procedures

by: Stephenne Nathalie and MacDonald Chris

Institutions: The Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen and the Joint Research Centre of the EU.

Just found an interesting series of Communications maps in the Atlas of Canada.  This series includes maps of the telegraph, telephone, television, radio and telecommunications which includes satellites in Canada.  The Telecom map was released in 1984!  Wonder how different the infrastructure is now?

I am surprised at what is on this map.  Just check out the legend below.  I keep forgetting that it takes a long time to build an infrastructures and for the idea of an infrastructure to become sorta  mainstream.  When this map came out I was not thinking of communication infrastructures, no one I knew had a personal computer, silicon valley north was in its very early days of development and I knew a bunch of young engineers fresh out of school working in some of those companies. For some this infrastructure must have been mainstream between and among an interesting group of communications pioneers as here is a map that shows early fiber optic cable deployment.

This is a really interesting book that explores and critically discusses open source coding and community based wireless, open source and technology groups in Quebec.  If you can read french it is well worth it!  The book was published by researchers from Laboratoire de communication médiatisée par ordinateur (LabCMO) at the Université du Québec a Montréal (UQAM). Imagine such a book for Canada or Ontario!

Table of Contents

L’action communautaire québécoise à l’ère du numérique (Nouveauté)

This was a whopper of a peer reviewed paper (57 pages!).  It was the result of detailed research into the archival and preservations practices of about 25 different fields of science.  It also marks the end of very exciting transdisciplinary, international and collaborative research work with InterPARES 2.  Archivaria makes its latest 8 journals available on-line to its members only and as this one #64 goes to print, issue #56 will become available on-line to the public at no cost.  I have however made the abstract available here.

Today’s Data are Part of Tomorrow’s Research: Archival Issues in the Sciences
Tracey P. Lauriault, Barbara L. Craig, D.R. Fraser Taylor, Peter L. Pulsifer
Archivaria #64, (Fall 2007), pp. 123-179.

ABSTRACT: Scientific data are essential for training in science and informed decision-making regarding health, the environment, and the economy. Cumulative data sets assist with understanding trends, frequencies and patterns, and can form a baseline upon which we can develop predictions. This paper discusses the preservation of scientific data, providing an overview of the characteristics of scientific data and scientific-data portals from a variety of fields, with a focus on data quality, particularly accuracy, reliability and authenticity, and how these are captured in metadata. These concepts are broadly defined from both scientific and archival perspectives. Based on an extensive literature review of publications from national and international scientific organizations, government and research funding bodies, and empirical evidence from a selection of InterPARES 2 Case Studies and General Study 10, which investigated thirty-two scientific-data portals, the paper includes a brief examination of machinebase “knowledge representation” (KR) and the potential implications for the preservation of scientific data, with a particular focus on formal ontologies. The paper also discusses the concept of record in the context of Web 2.0 environments, the paucity of scientific data archives, and the lack of funding priorities in this area. It is argued that archivists will have to work closely with scientific-data creators to understand their practices, that data portals are mechanisms that archivists can use to extend their preservation practices, and that it is not technology that is impeding progress regarding the preservation of scientific data; it is a lack of funding, policy, prioritizing, and vision allowing our scientific national resources to be lost.

RÉSUMÉ Les données scientifiques sont essentielles à la formation en sciences et à la prise de décision éclairée dans les domaines de la santé, de l’environnement et de l’économie. Les bases de données cumulatives aident à comprendre les tendances, les fréquences et les courants, et peuvent permettre de développer des prévisions. Cet article se penche sur la préservation des données scientifiques et des portails de données scientifiques d’un ensemble de domaines, en ciblant la qualité des données – surtout l’exactitude, la fiabilité et l’authenticité – et en examinant comment ces caractéristiques sont synthétisées par les métadonnées. Les auteurs donnent des définitions générales de ces concepts, dans des perspectives à la fois scientifiques et archivistiques. À partir d’une recension approfondie de la littérature sur le sujet (publications provenant d’organisations scientifiques nationales et internationales, d’organismes gouvernementaux et d’organismes de financement, ainsi que des observations empiriques d’un échantillon d’études de cas d’InterPARES 2 et de « General Study 10 » qui étudiaient 32 portails de données scientifiques), cet article examine sommairement la « représentation électronique des connaissances » (« machine-base "knowledge representation" [KR] ») et les répercussions possibles sur la préservation des données scientifiques, avec un accent particulier sur les ontologies formelles. Il présente aussi le concept de document dans le contexte d’un environnement Web 2.0, la rareté des archives sur les données scientifiques, et le fait que ce domaine ne figure pas souvent dans les priorités de financement. Les auteurs avancent que les archivistes devront travailler de près avec les scientifiques créateurs de données afin de comprendre leurs pratiques; que les portails de données sont des mécanismes dont les archivistes peuvent se servir pour parfaire leurs pratiques de préservation; et que ce n’est pas la technologie qui empêche le progrès en ce qui concerne les données scientifiques. C’est plutôt le manque de ressources, de politiques, de classement par ordre de priorités, et de vision qui occasionne la perte de nos ressources scientifiques nationales.

Ryan Knighton is going blind with retinitisa an so travels to St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt, Germany to hear a changing note in John Cage’s composition - As Slow as Possible, song duration 639 years.

"Travel, when I started going blind, became a paradox, because in the four square blocks of the neighbourhood where I normally stick, I have an incredibly rich memory place that I’m inside all the time and I know everything in really excruciating detail," Knighton, now 35, said during an interview at a neighbourhood café.

"But if I leave those four square blocks and I go to Berlin, even though I’m going out into the world, it feels incredibly small. It feels like I’ve gone into an emaciated pencil sketch, because I just have a generic idea of buildings around me and no sense of anything beyond that. I don’t know where to find anything. I don’t know if I’m walking by a mattress store or an ATM machine. "So I was interested in that paradox: that the world has somehow become smaller by going out into it to make it bigger."

"How I would get [to Halberstadt] on my own would imitate the way this organ is being handed down generation to generation, which is its actual performance - not the song itself but performing the co-operation of generations. And that’s very much what it’s like going through the world as a blind guy, because you’re always going [like] Tarzan, elbow to elbow, and indulging the trust of other people to get you where you’re trying to get."

John Cage used the I Ching to make compositional decisions.

via - Chasing the music of one moment

Here is the brief I submitted today.  It was a full 8 hours of work.  It represents the direction of my work, volunteer engagement, the things I believe in related to this committee and research in the past couple of years.  Lets see if it does anything!

Brief Submission - INDU Study on Canadian Science and Technology