International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP)
Technical Commission 9 - Relationship Between Computers and Society

Workshop
At Makerere University, Uganda
22-23 March 2010

"ICT for development" has attracted wide attention for several years now. Often we hear about ICT in Africa, much more rarely about ICT from African voices. Why did our knowledge about the correlations between ICT and the economy and society fail to develop ICT to support development? Is the mainstream model of conceptualising and implementing ICT4D applicable and helpful in the African context? What are the alternatives to dominant approaches?

This workshop is intended to provide a forum for discussion of ICT research approaches and findings that emerged from and relevant to the African contexts. We are particularly interested in receiving written submissions from African researchers in ICT for development, and from African intellectuals outside the mainstream ICT-based approach to economic growth and social improvements.

We welcome explanatory papers, aiming at analysis and understanding of ICT in actual African contexts. More precisely, the workshop invites short papers in the following focal areas:
discontinuities between the African context and dominant ICT paradigm
role of information, and ICT, within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world
barriers against Africa's adoption, appropriation and autonomous use of ICT
cultural issues that may shape ICT adoption in unexpected ways
alternative strategies of ICT implementation and sustainability in Africa
uncertainty, unpredictability, risk and serendipity related to ICT initiatives
role of ICT in empowerment, illiteracy, poverty eradication, and human development in Africa.

The workshop is intended to be informal and inclusive in order to provide a "bigger picture" of ICT in Africa. We welcome participants from academic institutions engaged in similar research, governmental and non-governmental organizations, public and private sector representatives, entrepreneurs and grass-root movements, civil society and ICT practitioners.

Submissions
We call for submission of short papers, in the form of long abstracts, up to 2000 words. Please send them as email attachments to this address:
african-voices@googlegroups.com

The selection process will eschew traditional peer review processes as a means of improving inclusivity. However, the workshop organizers will select papers to balance the range of relevant topics and to keep the quantity of papers to manageable levels consistent with the objectives of the workshop. The programme committee will examine the potential of developing some of these short papers into full papers for publication in a special issue of an IS journal and will invite their authors to extend their papers as required by the journal. In addition, all papers will be published online in workshop proceedings, so that participants can make references to their contributions.

Workshop Chair
Jude Lubega, Faculty of Computing and IT, Makerere University, Uganda
jlubega@cit.mak.ac.ug

Programme Co-chairs
Walter Brown, School of Information Technology, Monash South Africa
walbrown@mail.ngo.za

Walter De Vries, devries@itc.nl and Gianluca Miscione, miscione@itc.nl
Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management, International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, The Netherlands

Deadlines:
Submissions of short papers: 30 November 2009
Acceptance: 15 December

Organisers
International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), Technical Commission 9
Faculty of Computing and IT, Makerere University

Due to the inherent limitations of maps, language, or any other modality, the spatial knowledge that can be conveyed is necessarily restricted to an incomplete subset of the spatial features and relations present in the real world. Accordingly, spatial information is presented on various levels of granularity depending on the assumed information needs by the recipients, ranging from coarse high-level information concerning geographic areas to detailed low-level information concerning spatial actions in small-scale space.

For the special issue, we solicit contributions addressing the integrated and flexible presentation of spatial information both by systems and by humans.

The deadline for full paper submissions is
-- December 31, 2009 --

See the attached CfP for further information.

Best regards,

Thora Tenbrink and Stephan Winter

An article in Gazeta Wyborcza (english translation available) examines how millions of subsidies for developing high-speed internet networks in areas lacking this infrastructure. The EC fund provides assistance to local companies to create these networks. On the maps used, most areas of Poland have good high-speed internet coverage and are ineligible. These maps were, however, prepared for broadband regional networks, larger projects with larger areas of coverage. The Interior Ministry wanted to save money and used these maps. Actual high-speed internet coverage from a base station is 2 km, but these maps show coverage of 8km from a base station. The maps also don't consider effects of topography nor the buildings, which can block base station signals.

Aware of the problem, the ministry is rewriting terms of eligibility, but they will only become valid in June when the current application process is complete. Applications have been submitted for around 2 million Euros. Start of the project has already been delayed once, from May 2008 to December 2008.

Scale: it matters! Rarely is the connection to money as clear as here.

Appeals Court Rejects Santa Clara County's Basemap Data Sale
February 5, 2009

In a unanimous decision, the three-Justice panel of the California Court of Appeal affirmed the Santa Clara County Superior Court's decision requiring Santa Clara County to comply with public requests for a copy of its GIS parcel basemap, under the conditions of California's Public Records Act (PRA). The Court validated the California First Amendment Coalition's (CFAC) demand for the data at no more than the cost of duplication, and without restrictions of use.

In its appeal of the trial court's decision, the County tried several arguments to justify its policy of selling GIS basemap data for over $150,000, and belatedly, for withholding the data with the claim that its parcel basemap was Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII). The Appellate Court's decision states:

I. Federal homeland security provisions do not apply here.
Both the Critical Infrastructure Information Act and the accompanying Department of Homeland Security regulations make a distinction between submitters of critical infrastructure information (to DHS) and recipients of PCII (from DHS). The federal prohibition on disclosure of PCII applies only to recipients of PCII. Because the County did not receive PCII (it submitted its data to DHS in order to obtain PCII designation), the federal provisions do not apply.

II. The proffered California Public Records Act exemption does not apply.
After independently weighing the competing interests in light of the trial court's factual findings, the public interest in disclosure outweighs the public interest in nondisclosure.

III. There is no statutory basis either for copyrighting the GIS basemap or for conditioning its release on a licensing agreement.
This issue was a matter of first impression ("de novo") in California, for which the Court concluded that "end user restrictions are incompatible with the purposes and operation of the CPRA."

Peter Scheer, Executive Director of CFAC stated, "The Santa Clara decision has potentially far-reaching implications. ... It could also apply to virtually any government-created databases, at the local level and statewide, in California and in other states."

Bruce Joffe, organizer of the Open Data Consortium project and technical adviser to CFAC, said, "The Court of Appeal decision soundly refuted Santa Clara County's attempt to restrict public access to its parcel basemap under various mis-applied principles. In doing so, the Court has clarified public access principles that previously were undetermined."

Item (I.) prevents county governments from using "homeland security" as a blanket cover for any or all of its GIS data that may have some market value. This clarification of the Homeland Security Act's (6 U.S.C. § 133) application of the PCII designation is new ("de novo"). The Court pointed out a fundamental contradiction in the County's claim of PCII restriction to distributing its basemap data. If the GIS basemap in the County's hands was to be considered PCII, then the County could use its own data "only for purposes appropriate under the CII Act, including securing critical infrastructure or protected systems" since the federal law strictly restricts use of that data to the narrow purposes enumerated in the CII Act (6 C.F.R. § 29.3(b) (2007). Referring to the remarks of a private commentator, (Bagley, "Benchmarking, Critical Infrastructure Security, and the Regulatory War on Terror" (2006), the decision notes [the County] "cannot use DHS as a 'black hole' in which to hide information that would otherwise have come to light."

Item (II.) confirms the public's interest in making county GIS data accessible. Citing case law (Connell v. Superior Court, supra, 56 Cal.App.4th at p. 616.), the Court noted, "If the records [that are] sought pertain to the conduct of the people's business, there is a public interest in disclosure. The weight of that interest is proportionate to the gravity of governmental tasks sought to be illuminated and the directness with which the disclosure will serve to illuminate." Some of CFAC's proffered examples of how access to the GIS basemap will contribute to understanding of government activities included "comparison of property tax assessments, issuance of permits, treatment of tax delinquent properties, equitable deployment of public services, issuance of zoning variances." These examples were well illustrated in the Amicus Brief co-signed by 77 GIS Professionals.

Item (III.) limits county government from copyrighting its data, or from using licensing agreements to restrict use of its data by the public. The Court agreed with CFAC that "No reported California decision has ever concluded that a public agency may refuse to release copies of public records to protect its own purported copyright." Balancing "the interplay between copyright law and California's public records law," the Court affirmed that "unrestricted disclosure is required." Doing so serves the purpose of the statute, which is "increasing freedom of information by giving members of the public access to information in the possession of public agencies." "That policy would be undercut by permitting the County to place extra-statutory restrictions on the records that it must produce, through the use of end user agreements."

Is this issue over now? Well, maybe so, or maybe no. Santa Clara County has the right, until March 17, to petition the California Supreme Court to review the case.

Will the County continue to fight against public record access to its GIS data? The final sentence of the Court of Appeal decision states, "The costs of the writ proceeding in this court are awarded to real party in interest, CFAC." The unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, on top of the decision of the Superior Court, on top of the Attorney General's written opinion, on top of common sense regarding the facts of the case, on top of the example of 41 other California counties that provide their basemap data for $100 or free, all this would indicate that the County would lose in the Supreme Court as well. One wonders what could be motivating the County to continue this very expensive resistance to complying with the PRA.

Whether the County appeals again or not, the matter will be remanded back to the trial court to determine allowable costs that the County may charge for producing the GIS basemap. The County has argued that it requires "data compilation, extraction, or programming" time and expense to produce the GIS basemap, while CFAC says "since the County sends copies of the basemap to its paid subscribers on a regular basis, it does not appear that any additional programming would be necessary to fulfill CFAC's request for the data under the PRA."

The California First Amendment Coalition (www.cfac.org) is a nonprofit advocacy organization, located in San Rafael, CA, dedicated to free speech and open government. Its executive director, Peter Scheer, can be reached at: ps@cfac.org or 415-460-5060.

CFAC is represented in the Santa Clara litigation by attorney Rachel Matteo-Boehm and colleagues Roger Myers and Kyle Schriner with the San Francisco office of Holme Roberts & Owen.

The Court's decision, in .pdf format, may be downloaded from http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/H031658.PDF

This important issue, assuring public access to county GIS data, is being validated through the legal system thanks to the interest, talent, and dedication of many people:
Dennis Klein (Boundary Solutions, Inc.) brought the issue to the California Attorney General's attention 51 months ago. (The AG's office confirmed that the CPRA applies to GIS basemap data 41 months ago.)
Tom Newton (California Newspaper Publishers Association) alerted Peter Scheer (California First Amendment Coalition) about this issue, and
CFAC decided to carry the issue through this unfolding legal process.
Rachel Matteo-Boehm (Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP) heads the legal team whose competent arguments convinced the Court of Appeal and the Superior Court.
Many GIS professionals and several GIS Associations signed petitions, sent opinions to the Attorney General, co-signed the Amicus Brief, and offered ideas and support. Thank you, thank you for responding to a public policy issue that directly affects our profession as well as benefits the general public.

To contribute your support to the Open Data Consortium project, please contact Bruce Joffe at GIS.Consultants@joffes.com or 510-238-9771.

Due to request of delaying the submission by several authors, the deadline of GEOG-AN-MOD 09 ( http://www.lisut.org/workshop/GEOG-AN-MOD09/) for submitting full paper has been extended to Friday, 27 February, 2009.
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On behalf of (GEOG-AN-MOD 09) Programme Committee, it is a pleasure to invite you to participate to the:

Fourth International Workshop on "Geographical Analysis,
Urban Modeling, Spatial Statistics"
GEOG-AN-MOD 09
http://www.lisut.org/workshop/GEOG-AN-MOD09/

in conjunction with


The 2009 International Conference on Computational
Science and its Applications (ICCSA 2009)
June 29th to July 2rd, 2009
Kyung Hee University-Global Campus, Yongin (Korea)
http://www.iccsa.org/

Workshop Description
The growth of Spatial Data Infrastructures, Geo-portals and private sector initiatives (e.g. Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, etc.) produced an increase of geographical data availability at any scale and worldwide. This growth has not been fully coupled by an increase of knowledge to support spatial decisions. Spatial analytical techniques and geographical analysis and modelling methods are therefore required in order to analyse data and to facilitate the decision process at all levels. Old geographical issues can find an answer thanks to new methods and instruments, while new issues are developing, challenging the researchers for new solutions. This workshop is aimed at contributing to the development of new techniques and methods to improve the process on knowledge acquisition

The programme committee especially requests high quality submissions on the following Conference Themes :
Geostatistics and spatial simulation;
Agent-based spatial modelling;
Cellular automata spatial modelling;
Spatial statistical models;
Space-temporal modelling;
Spatial network modelling;
Geovisual analytics, geovisualisation, visual exploratory data analysis;
Visualisation and modelling of track data;
Spatial Optimization;
Interaction Simulation Models;
Data mining, spatial data mining;
Spatial Data Warehouse and Spatial OLAP;
Integration of Spatial OLAP and Spatial data mining;
Spatial Decision Support Systems;
Spatial Multicriteria Decision Analysis;
Spatial Rough Set;
Spatial extension of Fuzzy Set theory;
Ontologies for Spatial Analysis;
Urban modeling;
Applied geography;
Spatial data analysis;
Dynamic modelling;
Simulation, space-time dynamics, visualization and virtual reality.

Each paper will be independently reviewed by 3 programme committee members. Their individual scores will be evaluated by a small sub-committee and result in one of the following final decisions: accepted, or accepted on the condition that suggestions for improvement will be incorporated, or rejected. Notification of this decision will take place March 24, 2009.
Individuals and groups should submit complete papers (10 to 16 pages).
Accepted contributions will be published in the Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) volumes.

Authors Guideline
Please adhere strictly to the formatting provided in the template to prepare your paper and refrain from modifying it.
The submitted paper must be camera-ready and formatted according to the rules of LNCS. For formatting information, see the publisher's web site
( http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html).
Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper.

Submission
papers should be submitted at:
http://cyb09.iccsa.org/
please don't forget to select "Geographical Analysis, Urban Modeling, Spatial Statistics GEOG-AN-MOD 09" workshop from the drop-down list of all workshops.

Proceedings
Papers accepted to GEOG-AN-MOD 09 (Geographical Analysis, Urban Modeling, Spatial Statistics) will be published in the ICCSA Conference proceedings, in Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series.

Extended version of GEOG-AN-MOD 08 papers have been included in three special issues:
Transactions on Computational Science Journal.
Murgante B., Borruso G., Lapucci A. (2009) "Geocomputation and Urban Planning" Studies in Computational Intelligence , Vol. 176. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Murgante B., Borruso G., Lapucci A. (2009) "Environmental geocomputation for sustainable development" Studies in Computational Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.

Important dates

27 February 2009: Deadline for full paper submission
24 March 2009: Notification of acceptance
12 April 2009: Deadline for Camera Ready Papers
June 29 - July 2, 2009: ICCSA 2009 Conference.

Organising Committee:
Stefania Bertazzon, University of Calgary, Canada.
Giuseppe Borruso, University of Trieste, Italy
Beniamino Murgante, University of Basilicata, Italy

Programme Committee
Stefania Bertazzon, University of Calgary, Canada
Giuseppe Borruso, University of Trieste, Italy
Beniamino Murgante, University of Basilicata, Italy
Yong Ge, State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Stefano Crocchianti, University of Perugia, Italy
David C. Prosperi, Florida Atlantic University, Usa
Andrea Taramelli, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Usa
Alex Hagen-Zanker, Urban Planning Group, Technical University of Eindhoven, Netherlands
Bianca Schoen, University College Dublin , Ireland
Nicola Masini, Archaeological and monumental heritage institute, National Research Council, Italy
Devis Tuia, Institute of Geomatics and Analysis of Riske, Univeristy of Lausanne, Switzerland
Dmitry Kurtener , Agrophysical Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
Giuseppe A. Trunfio, Department of Architecture and Planning - University of Sassari, Italy
Henning Sten Hansen, Aalborg University, Danmark
Ivan Blecic, Department of Architecture and Planning, University of Sassari, Italy
Jérôme Gensel, Spatio-TEmporal information, Adaptability, Multimedia and knowlEdge Representation Laboratory (STEAMER), Grenoble, France
Maria Danese, University of Basilicata, Italy
Elke Moons, Transportation Research Institute, Hasselt University, Belgium
Paola Perchinunno, Department of Statistical Science, University of Bari, Italy
Christine Voiron-Canicio, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis – CNRS – UMR ESPACE, France
Rosa Lasaponara, Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis, National Research Council, Italy
Pablo Vanegas, Centre for Industrial Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Marta G. Vivanco, Atmospheric Pollution Unit, Environmental Department, CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
Massimiliano Petri, University of Pisa, Italy
Michela Bertolotto, University College Dublin, Ireland
Itzhak Omer, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Urska Demsar, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland
Carmelo Torre, Polytechnic of Bari, Italy
Dafna Fisher-Gewirtzman, Technion –Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Maurizio Lazzari, Archaeological and monumental heritage institute, National Research Council, Italy
Dimos N. Pantazis, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Greece
Salem Chakhar, University Paris Dauphine, France
Sandro Bimonte, University Lumiere Lyon 2, Laboratory ERIC, Bron, France
Silvana Grella, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy
Hexiang Bai, State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Belen Palop, University Valladolid, Spain
Alessandra Lappucci, University of Pisa, Italy
Baris Kazar, Oracle Corporation, Usa
Maurizio Gibin, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College of London, UK
Antonino Marvuglia, University of Palermo Italy

Further information
For further information or questions, please send an e-mail to:
Giuseppe Borruso (University of Trieste, Italy) giuseppe.borruso@econ.units.it
Beniamino Murgante (University of Basilicata, Italy) beniamino.murgante@unibas.it

_____________________________

You can find a link to it and other NGAC stuff at

http://www.fgdc.gov/ngac

Ahmedabad : It is day three of police custody for the duo nabbed by cops for snooping around Jamnagar. And, yet Gujarat police is not sure whether the two are indeed guilty of subversive activities.

ATS officials are quizzing the two men, Mahesh Parab and Anil Jagtap, about what exactly were they doing close to Jamnagar. Sources said: "They are being grilled on what data were they collecting. We have to cross-check their credentials."

According to ATS officials, Mahesh and Anil claim to be employees of Biond Software Ltd, a Dombivali-based software company in Mumbai. They were caught from Khambhalia on Saturday night as they were travelling in a car fitted with a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device. They also had some area topography maps and a laptop containing distance charts, digital maps of Guajrat coastal line and even Wagha border.

"We have not given them a clean chit so far, nor have we declared them guilty. The investigation is on, officials are going through the material seized from them," said a senior ATS official.

A police official told TOI that more than the data, the agency is interested in knowing to what end is the data used. "A detailed map can show strategic locations or disclose sensitive information, it can be used by terrorists or people with malafide interests. Thus, we are going through the maps and also questioning them about their clients," said the official.

When TOI contacted Biond's corporate office, the spokesperson said that the company is assigned to collect the Geographical Information (GI) for GPS-enabled devices in mobile phones, cars and digital maps used by private and government organisations.

"Usually an application intimating the district administration and police, detailing our nature work is sent. However, sometimes it happens that due to our elaborate mapping and presence of GPS device, our personnel have to explain their work. In this case, it seems, the application did not reach the district or police headquarters," said company spokesperson, Tulsi Das.

"Managing director of the company will be in Gujarat on Tuesday to meet ATS and other senior police officials. In all our projects we get our maps approved by national security agencies and armed forces, thus, we do not have anything to hide," said Das.

Obtaining IDRISI
Idrisi is available for $39 directly from Clark Labs as part of the UMN site licence; the student version would otherwise cost $95. (Download the order form at: http://www.clarklabs.org/buy/order-form.cfm and fax or email them the completed form) In parallel contact Clark Labs and inform them that you are a U of Minnesota student.
For students enrolled in a current geography course, ask your professor to contact Clark Labs directly and give them the class roster, in which case they will match your name against the list.
If you are currently not in a class, they will want a copy of a paid tuition bill or official registration for the present semester. If you are in the field or otherwise not around, let your advisor know and he/she may be able to contact Clark Labs directly.
Important: when ordering, choose the "IDRISI Student Starter" product (normally retails for $95) and indicate "Univ. of Minnesota - $39 license" in the Comments section of the order. Note that site will not give you the choice of the $39 package nor will the confirmation email indicate this price.

ArcGIS
ArcGIS is available for free for students enrolled in a GIS class (ArcView with ArcGIS extensions). Your instructor may have the necessary installation disk or may choose to register the class at ESRI. Your professor may or may not decide to do this.
When installing the program, consult the guide below in addition to the one provided in the CD case if necessary. (thanks to Mark Lindberg for this information).

Important Note
There is no guarantee that you will be able to complete any given lab assignment for one of your classes with the student version of ArcView plus ArcGIS extensions. So, try these programs out at home and use them where possible to complete your own research and labs, but expect to complete the majority of the labs in the manner your professor has established for his/her class. Generally, no allowances will be made for labs submitted late or incomplete due to differences between the lab software and the student software.

(Based on Steve Manson's HEGIS student software page)

http://makingmaps.owu.edu/blogs/long_lat-160.mp3

Enjoy

http://wetellstories.co.uk/stories/week1/