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Interconnected. Globalized. Complex. Our world is getting ever more intertwined. As we progress into the future and our knowledge about the world expands, we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation where we are more capable than ever to tackle problems, yet we are confounded by the ever more intricate problems facing us. Koios is being developed to help people rise up and combat these difficult problems. What is Koios? Koios is an online collaborative tool for solving difficult social problems. With difficult social problems we mean complex social systemic issues. Some also call these wicked problems. We do not mean everyday people problems. With solving a problem we do not mean applying a fix but instead working towards holistic solutions for systemic change. In common for these problems is that stakes are high, there is a high degree of uncertainty, and human judgement is required. Knowledge is incomplete. The problem situation and its boundaries are hard to define. (Uncertain facts) The causes of the problem are uncertain. The possible solutions are uncertain. Decisions of others are unpredictable. Evaluation of solutions require multi-criteria decisions including moral and ethical considerations. Future external factors that may influence the situation are uncertain. Behaviour and values of the people involved are in dispute. The best ways to measure or monitor solutions are uncertain. "…[Societal] structures of which we are unaware hold us prisoner. " - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline. Koios empowers You to solve long term, open-ended, systemic, complex, messy, ill-structured, real world problems that often seem unsolvable. These can be issues on all levels from the community, to city, regional, national and on to the global level. Koios provides the tools to help you collaborate with thousands of other people to analyse and shift a difficult situation towards a more optimal, fair and sustainable future state. It is all about getting the require

Gert de Roo & Elisabete A. Silva (eds.), A Planner's Encounter With Complexity (New Directions in Planning Theory). Ashgate Pub Co. 2010. 336 pp. Published at: 13 March 2011 Spatial planning is about dealing with our 'everyday' environment. In the "Planners' Encounter with Complexity", the authors present various understandings of complexity and how the environment is considered accordingly. One of these considerations is the environment as subject to processes of continuous change, being either progressive or destructive, evolving non-linearly and alternating between stable and dynamic periods. If the environment that is subject to change is adaptive, self-organizing, robust and flexible in relation to this change, a process of evolution and co-evolution can be expected. This understanding of an evolving environment is not mainstream to every planner. However, in this book the authors argue that environments confronted with discontinuous, non-linear evolving processes might be more real than the idea that an environment is simply a planner's creation. Above all, they argue that recognizing the 'complexity' of our environment offers an entirely new perspective on our world and our environment, on planning theory and practice, and on the raise on d'etre of the planners that we are.

RSA Annual International Conference 2011 17th - 20th April 2011, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK Academic Papers Author(s) Title of Paper/Presentation Cristina Aragón, Mari Jose Aranguren, Maria Angeles Diez, Cristina Iturrioz and James R. Wilson Creating cooperation for clusters? Lessons from the implementation of a participatory policy evaluation process Jānis Balodis Polieconomics of African Civil Wars: Period 1950. - 2010 - Military Geographical Distribution Professor Andrew Beer Subversive Leadership: Hegemony, Contestation and the Future of Regions Professor Andrew Beer and Dr Selina Tually The Drivers of Regional Housing Markets in Australia: Evidence and Implications for Future Growth Paul Benneworth and Roel Rutten Territorial Innovation Models beyond the Learning Regions Bianchi P. and Labory S. Industrial Policy after the Crisis: the Case of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy Michail Biniakos The changing politics of Local and Regional Development and Governance in Romania Ph.D. Luis Felipe Martí Borbolla Business and social responsibility Petter Boye (Econ. Dr.) The changing role of OECD Territorial Reviews in policy conception and regional development David L. Brown, Benjamin C. Bolender, Laszlo J. Kulcsar, Nina Glasgow and Scott Sanders Inter-County Variability of Net Migration at Older Ages as a Path Dependent Process Dr Ignazio Cabras Community Cohesion in Rural UK: The Case of Rural Co-operatives and their Potential for Local Communities H. Caraveli and M. Tsionas Regional Inequalities in Greece: Determining factors, trends and perspectives Tony Champion and Alan Townsend British City Regions' Economies into Recession Anastassios Chardas Exploring the differential enforcement of the EU's Cohesion Policy added value: Administrative and institutional adjustments in Greece and Ireland. Nick Clifton, Phil Cooke and Høgni Kalsø Hansen Creative Knowledge Workers across 'Varieties of Capitalism': evidence from Sweden and the UK Joa

Reducing complexity: transformation of capital citiesConvenorsIlka Thiessen (Vancouver Island University)Goran Janev (Institute for Sociological Political and Juridical Research,Skopje) Short AbstractThis panel will explore the responses to the post-1989 transformation ofEuropean capitals, as well as recent responses to the financial crisis, bylooking at how the symbolic power of cities experience the transformationof public spaces. Long AbstractJust twenty years ago half of Europe hastily jumped from socialism towardscapitalism. Reinforcing nationalism was one of the ways to overcome thetransitional anxiety. The European version of cosmopolitan supra-nationalidentity had and still has to compete with particular nationalistrepresentations in the 'new' countries of a united Europe.As most revolutions happen in capital cities, we seek for ethnographicaccounts, that reveal the discrepancy between the imposition of thegovernmental symbolic order in the public space of capital cities, andcreation of everyday lived spaces. Considering the symbolic power thatcapitals pose, the transformations of the public space in these cities canreveal the aspirations of the political elites in these countries. Thispanel will explore the responses to the post-1989 transformation ofEuropean capitals, as well as recent responses to the financial crisis,and constant threat of recession and economic downfall. We are interestedboth in the nation-state abuse of the idea of capital cities, and theproduction of appropriate political subjects. Following this, we will lookat the resistance produced by ordinary citizens, artists, and other actorswho exercise their right to create a public space that is an inclusiveopen democratic space. http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2012/panels.php5?PanelID=1360

Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies Ignacio Farfas, Thomas Bender 0 Resenhas Taylor & Francis, 16/08/2011 - 352 páginas This book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects "space, culture, politics, economy "but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human aspects of cities "from nature to socio-technical networks, to hybrid collectivities, physical artefacts and historical legacies, and the virtual or imagined city. This book proposes "and its various chapters offer demonstrations "importing into urban studies a body of theories, concepts, and perspectives developed in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and, more specifically, Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The essays examine artefacts, technical systems, architectures, place and eventful spaces, the persistence of history, imaginary and virtual elements of city life, and the politics and ethical challenges of a mode of analysis that incorporates multiple actors as hybrid chains of causation. The chapters are attentive to the multiple scales of both the object of analysis and the analysis itself. The aim is more ambitious than the mere transfer of a fashionable template. The authors embrace ANT critically, as much as a metaphor as a method of analysis, deploying it to think with, to ask new questions, to find the language to achieve more compelling descriptions of city life and of urban transformations. By greatly extending the chain or network of causation, proliferating heterogeneous agents, non-human as well as human, without limit as to their enrolment in urban assemblages, Actor-Network Theory offers a

Urban Assemblages By PE A new book edited by Ignacio Farías and Thomas Bender (2009): Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies, in the Questioning Cities Series by Routledge. This book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects-space, culture, politics, economy-but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human aspects of cities-from nature to socio-technical networks, to hybrid collectivities, physical artefacts and historical legacies, and the virtual or imagined city. This book proposes-and its various chapters offer demonstrations-importing into urban studies a body of theories, concepts, and perspectives developed in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and, more specifically, Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The essays examine artefacts, technical systems, architectures, place and eventful spaces, the persistence of history, imaginary and virtual elements of city life, and the politics and ethical challenges of a mode of analysis that incorporates multiple actors as hybrid chains of causation. The chapters are attentive to the multiple scales of both the object of analysis and the analysis itself. The aim is more ambitious than the mere transfer of a fashionable template. The authors embrace ANT critically, as much as a metaphor as a method of analysis, deploying it to think with, to ask new questions, to find the language to achieve more compelling descriptions of city life and of urban transformations. By greatly extending the chain or network of causation, proliferating heterogeneous agents, non-human as well as human, without limit as to their enrolment in ur

The City as a Terminal The Urban Context of Logistics and Freight Transport Imprint: Ashgate Published: November 2008 Format: 234 x 156 mm Extent: 224 pages Binding: Hardback ISBN: 978-0-7546-0913-1 Price : £55.00 » Website price: £49.50 BL Reference: 388.3'3 LoC Control No: 2008025990   Print friendly information sheet Send to a friend Markus Hesse, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Series : Transport and Mobility The on-time delivery of goods is regarded as a primary factor of the urban economy and is being monitored by businesses and government alike. However, much analysis of freight transportation and the flow of goods into, out of and within urban areas focuses on functional, business-related approaches. This book examines the interrelationship between logistics development on one hand and urban development and geographical issues, such as land use and location, on the other. Avoiding certain one-dimensional views on 'logistics impacts on the city', it discloses the complex interaction of the logistics system with the entire urban environment. It also bridges the gap between recent geographical research into new production systems and (post)modern consumption patterns. Illustrated with case studies from the United States, Germany, France, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, it examines issues such as: the historical nexus between urban areas and logistics; current urban developments with regards to goods distribution; city-region related characteristics of freight flows; locational dynamics; and specific freight related urban problems and conflicts. Contents: Preface; Introduction: the city as terminal. Logistics and freight distribution in an urban context; The city - from market place to terminal; Technocapitalism and logistics transformation; Geographies of distribution; The Berlin-Brandenburg case study; The Northern California case study; Logistics and freight distribution from a policy and planning perspective; Stability and change: lo

A Life Cycle for Clusters? The Dynamics of Agglomeration, Change, and Adaption Series: Contributions to Economics Press, Kerstin 2006, XIV, 245 p. 40 illus., Softcover ISBN: 978-3-7908-1710-2 A Physica Verlag Heidelberg book Ships in 3 - 5 business days $99.00 ABOUT THIS BOOK REVIEWS The phenomenon of non-random spatial concentrations of firms in one or few related sectors (clusters) is intensively debated in economic theory and policy. The euphoria about successful clusters however neglects that historically, many thriving clusters did deteriorate into old industrial areas. This book studies the determinants of cluster survival by analyzing their adaptability to change in the economic environment. Linking theoretic knowledge with empirical observations, a simulation model (based in the N/K method) is developed, which explains when and why the cluster's architecture assists or hampers adaptability. It is found that architectures with intermediate degrees of division of labour and more collective governance forms foster adaptability. Cluster development is thus path dependent as architectures having evolved over time impact on the likelihood of future survival. Content Level » Research Keywords » Adaptation - Clusters - Complex Systems - N/K Model - Simulation Modelling Related subjects » Complexity - Economic Theory - Geography - Industrial Organization - Regional / Spatial Science TABLE OF CONTENTS Download Table of contents (pdf, 266 kB) Download Table of contents (txt, 5

Research Papers 220)     Cowen, Deborah and Vanessa Parlette Inner Suburbs at Stake: Investing in Social Infrastructure in Scarborough, June 2011, 86pp. ISSN 0316-0068; ISBN 978-0-7727-1482-4. 219)     Jim Simmons, Larry Bourne, and Shizue Kamikihara, The Changing Economy of Urban Neighbourhoods: An Exploration of Place of Work Data for the Greater Toronto Region, December 2009, 44 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1477-0 218)     Greg Suttor, Rental Paths from Postwar to Present: Canada Compared, December 2009, 59 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1476-3 217)     Michael Noble, Lovely Spaces in Unknown Places: Creative City Building in Toronto's Inner Suburbs, March 2009, 50 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1474-9 216)     Jason Hackworth, Habitat for Humanity and the Neoliberal Media: A Comparison of News Coverage in Canada and the United States, March 2009, 39 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1473-2 215)     David Wachsmuth, From Abandonment to Affordable Housing: Policy Options for Addressing Toronto's Abandonment Problem, November 2008, 48 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1472-5 214)     Katharine N. Rankin, with the assistance of Jim Delaney, Courtney Hood, Justin Ngan and Sabin Ninglekhu, Commercial Change in Toronto's West-Central Neighbourhoods, September 2008 ISBN-13 978-0-7727-1471-8 213)     Emily Paradis, Sylvia Novac, Monica Sarty, J. David Hulchanski, Better Off in a Shelter? A Year of Homelessness and Housing among Status Immigrant, Non-Status Migrant, and Canadian-Born Families, July 2008, 89 pp. ISBN-13 978-0-7727-1469-5 212)     Duncan Maclennan, Housing for the Toronto Economy, July 2008, 72 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1468-8 211)     R. Alan Walks and Richard Maaranen, The Timing, Patterning, & Forms of Gentrification & Neighbourhood Change in Montreal, Toronto, & Vancouver, 1961 to 2001, May 2008, 109 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-1465-7 210)     Jason Hackworth, Neoliberalism, Social Welfare, and the Politics of Faith in the United States, June 2007, 36 pp. ISBN 978-0-7727-145

"Soft Means" to Advance Public Policy The so-called "soft means" to advance public policy seek the support of the humanities and social sciences to enhance the formulation and implementation of public policies. A classical example, on political philosophy, is The Republic of Plato. More recent examples are the writings on nonviolence by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Engagement in the political process, and adherence to the principle of nonviolence, are tactics of choice for "global citizen" organizations. Plato by Silanion Source: Wikipedia KEY LINKS: Framing of Issues How the media frames political issues, Scott London, 1993 Framing the issues: George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics, Bonnie Azab Powell, UC Berkeley News, 27 October 2003. Framing Public Issues, Frameworks Institute, 2004. Framing the issues, News Hounds, 23 July 2004. Simple Framing: An introduction to framing and its uses in politics, George Lakoff, Rockridge Institute, February 2006. Framing effect' influences decisions: Emotions play a role in decision-making when information is too complex, Charles Choi, LiveScience, August 2006. Framing of climate issues, IPCC, 2007. Framing issues for public deliberation, Kettering Foundation, 25 June 2009. Naming and framing difficult issues to make sound decisions, NCDD/Kettering Foundation, 19 August 2009. The art of framing, Gisela Dütting and David Sogge, The Broker Online, 1 July 2010. Framing of issues, Wikipedia, retrieved 27 July 2011. Frame Analysis, Thomas Konig, retrieved 27 July 2011. What is issue framing?, WiseGeek, web site as of 31 July 2011.

City Solutions The City Solution Why cities are the best cure for our planet's growing pains By Robert Kunzig Photograph by Chia Ming Chien At the time of Jack the Ripper, a hard time for London, there lived in that city a mild-mannered stenographer named Ebenezer Howard. He's worth mentioning because he had a large and lingering impact on how we think about cities. Howard was bald, with a bushy, mouth-cloaking mustache, wire-rim spectacles, and the distracted air of a seeker. His job transcribing speeches did not fulfill him. He dabbled in spiritualism; mastered Esperanto, the recently invented language; invented a shorthand typewriter himself. And dreamed about real estate. What his family needed, he wrote to his wife in 1885, was a house with "a really nice garden with perhaps a lawn tennis ground." A few years later, after siring four children in six years in a cramped rental house, Howard emerged from a prolonged depression with a scheme for emptying out London. London in the 1880s, you see, was booming, but it was also bursting with people far more desperate than Howard. The slums where the Ripper trolled for victims were beyond appalling. "Every room in these rotten and reeking tenements houses a family, often two," wrote Andrew Mearns, a crusading minister. "In one cellar a sanitary inspector reports finding a father, mother, three children, and four pigs! … Elsewhere is a poor widow, her three children, and a child who had been dead thirteen days." The Victorians called such slums rookeries, or colonies of breeding animals. The chairman of the London County Council described his city as "a tumour, an elephantiasis sucking into its gorged system half the life and the blood and the bone of the rural districts." Urban planning in the 20th century sprang from that horrified perception of 19th-century cities. Oddly, it began with Ebenezer Howard. In a slim book, self-published in 1898, the man who spent his days transcribing the ideas of others articu

CALL FOR PAPERS RETHINKING URBAN INCLUSION: SPACES, MOBILISATIONS, INTERVENTIONS to be held in Coimbra, Portugal, 28-30 June 2012 With almost half the world's population living in cities, questioning the urban dimension of social inclusion and exclusion is imperative. Urban inclusion is increasingly influenced - and often constrained - by intertwined processes of economic globalization, state re-articulation, polarization and diversification of (local) populations and the political practices they add to the city. Educational, health and environmental inequalities, segregation, unemployment, lack of political participation, discrimination and the inability to deal with different forms of participation are all phenomena of exclusion with a local dimension but a multi-scalar nature. At the same time, acting towards social inclusion is developed around ideas, knowledge(s), experiences, resources and capacities which are (dis)located across an array of arenas and distributed among different actors. While traditional concepts and practices of urban inclusion centered on institutions and top-down decision-making seem inadequate to tackle this complexity, new ones are often in their infancy and may be in tension with more established policies. Contesting the centrality of the state and market pervasiveness, a new variety of counter-hegemonic positions and projects, and alternative visions of urban democracy and justice that inform bottom-up and participatory approaches to urban inclusion, have become popular in the Global South, while their transposition to cities in the Global North have met resistance or hardly gone beyond theorization.  The Conference aims to understand and ultimately rethink social inclusion at the urban scale, as the product of broader dynamics and the interaction of different actors and languages. How can we trace, define, and challenge the new subtle forms of social and territorial exclusion, trying to reinvent urban in

Governance of Europe's city regions: planning, policy and politics Tassilo Herrschel, Peter Newman 0 Resenhas Routledge, 2002 - 233 páginas This work considers the changing role of the European Union in regional issues, explores how national governments have become increasingly involved at the regional scale and examines the constitutional and political contexts in which regional and local governments operate. Detailed case studies of regions in Germany and England, illustrate contrasts in European approaches to the scale of government, and the complex interactions of international, national, regional and local scales of policy intervention.

SFI's focus area on Cities, Scaling, and Sustainability will attempt to create an interdisciplinary quantitative synthesis of organizational and dynamical aspects of human social organizations, with an emphasis on cities. Different disciplinary perspectives will be integrated in terms of the search for similar dependences of urban indicators on population size - scaling analysis - and other variables that characterize the system as a whole. A particularly important focus of this research area is to develop theoretical insights about cities that can inform quantitative analyses of their long term sustainability in terms of the interplay between innovation, resource appropriation and consumption and the make up o their social and economic activity. This focus area will bring together urban planners, economists, sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists and complex system theorists with the aim of generating an integrated and quantitative understanding of cities. Outstanding areas of research include the identification of general scaling patterns in urban infrastructure and dynamics around the world, the quantification of resource distribution networks in cities and their interplay with the city's socioeconomic fabric, issues of temporal acceleration and spatial density and the long term dynamics of urban systems.  These pages will showcase publications, meetings, discussions, and videos of the participants in this area. Please see our ad for a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Quantitative Research on Urban Scaling

CITIES, SCALING AND SUSTAINABILITY Organizers: Luis Bettencourt, Geoffrey West SFI's focus area on Cities, Scaling, and Sustainability will attempt to create an interdisciplinary quantitative synthesis of organizational and dynamical aspects of human social organizations, with an emphasis on cities. Different disciplinary perspectives will be integrated in terms of the search for similar dependences of urban indicators on population size - scaling analysis - and other variables that characterize the system as a whole. A particularly important focus of this research area  is to develop theoretical insights about cities that can inform quantitative analyses of their long term sustainability in terms of the interplay between innovation, resource appropriation and consumption and the make up o their social and economic activity. This focus area will bring together urban planners, economists, sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists and complex system theorists with the aim of generating an integrated and quantitative understanding of cities. Outstanding areas of research include the identification of general scaling patterns in urban infrastructure and dynamics around the world, the quantification of resource distribution networks in cities and their interplay with the city's socioeconomic fabric, issues of temporal acceleration and spatial density and the long term dynamics of urban systems. To see more information click HERE.

Session 1 : Débats et controverses sur l'interprétation des relations entre TIC, Sociétés et Territoires (to read the text in english, please roll down to english flag) 9h-12h L'épistémologie des sciences insiste sur le rôle des controverses dans les changements paradigmatiques. Où se situent désormais les débats, controverses et polémiques autour d'objets tels que les villes et les territoires en relation avec les TIC ? Des notions telles que « commutateur urbain », « territoires en réseaux », « espaces virtuels », « territoires augmentés », « hyperurbain » (liste non exhaustive) … rendent compte de plusieurs objets et de débats que nous invitons à passer au crible de l'analyse. Dans la confrontation des champs scientifiques, ils constituent des témoins utiles, tant d'un point de vue qui serait celui d'une sociologie des sciences que de celui du dévoilement progressif de réalités sociales complexes. Ce qui est ici en question est la façon dont des objets, en l'occurrence, les Tic, la ville et les territoires, apparaissent reliés dans le champ académique des sciences sociales ; comment ces disciplines s'efforcent de constituer leur propre corpus en parallèle avec les autres disciplines des sciences sociales, en concurrence parfois autour de ces objets. Face à ces nouveaux objets et aux nouvelles questions qui émergent, parfois en lien avec la demande sociale et l'ambition affichée des politiques publiques, on assiste, au sein du monde académique, à des réactions très diversifiées selon les disciplines. Ainsi, la plupart des travaux scientifiques des années 1960 (au demeurant fort peu nombreux), se caractérisent-ils généralement par un fort tropisme interdisciplinaire. Comme si le croisement des objets et des questions autour de TIC/Sociétés/Territoires amenait à revisiter les frontières des champs disciplinaires. Ce tropisme s'observe notamm

Session 1 : Débats et controverses sur l'interprétation des relations entre TIC, Sociétés et Territoires (to read the text in english, please roll down to english flag) 9h-12h L'épistémologie des sciences insiste sur le rôle des controverses dans les changements paradigmatiques. Où se situent désormais les débats, controverses et polémiques autour d'objets tels que les villes et les territoires en relation avec les TIC ? Des notions telles que « commutateur urbain », « territoires en réseaux », « espaces virtuels », « territoires augmentés », « hyperurbain » (liste non exhaustive) … rendent compte de plusieurs objets et de débats que nous invitons à passer au crible de l'analyse. Dans la confrontation des champs scientifiques, ils constituent des témoins utiles, tant d'un point de vue qui serait celui d'une sociologie des sciences que de celui du dévoilement progressif de réalités sociales complexes. Ce qui est ici en question est la façon dont des objets, en l'occurrence, les Tic, la ville et les territoires, apparaissent reliés dans le champ académique des sciences sociales ; comment ces disciplines s'efforcent de constituer leur propre corpus en parallèle avec les autres disciplines des sciences sociales, en concurrence parfois autour de ces objets. Face à ces nouveaux objets et aux nouvelles questions qui émergent, parfois en lien avec la demande sociale et l'ambition affichée des politiques publiques, on assiste, au sein du monde académique, à des réactions très diversifiées selon les disciplines. Ainsi, la plupart des travaux scientifiques des années 1960 (au demeurant fort peu nombreux), se caractérisent-ils généralement par un fort tropisme interdisciplinaire. Comme si le croisement des objets et des questions autour de TIC/Sociétés/Territoires amenait à revisiter les frontières des champs disciplinaires. Ce tropisme s'observe notamm

Due to request of delaying the submission by several authors, the deadline of "Cities, Technologies and Planning" (CTP 12) for submitting full paper has been extended to 28 February, 2012.  Due to request of delaying the submission by several authors, the deadline of "Cities, Technologies and Planning" (CTP 12) for submitting full paper has been extended to 28 February, 2012. "Cities, Technologies and Planning" CTP 12   http://www.unibas.it/utenti/murgante/ctp_12/descr.html in conjunction with The 2012 International Conference on Computational Science and its Applications (ICCSA 2012) June 18th  - June 20th, 2012 Federal University of Bahia , Salvador de Bahia, Brasil  http://www.iccsa.org/ Description 'Share' term has turned into a key issue of many successful initiatives in recent times. Following the advent of Web 2.0, such positive experiences based on mass collaboration generated "Wikinomics" have become "Socialnomics", where "Citizens are voluntary sensors". During the past decades, the main issue in GIS implementation has been the availability of sound spatial information. Nowadays, the wide diffusion of electronic devices providing geo-referenced information have resulted in the production of extensive spatial information datasets. This trend has led to "GIS wikification", where mass collaboration plays a key role in main components of spatial information frameworks (hardware, software, data, and people). Some authors (Goodchild, 2007) talk about "Volunteered Geographic Information" (VGI), as the harnessing of tools to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic information provided by individuals voluntarily creating their own contents by marking the locations of occurred events or by labeling certain existing features. not already been shown on map. The term "neogeography" is often adopted to describe people activities when using and creating their own maps, geo-tagging pictures,

[URBGEOG] CALL FOR PAPERS: Networked Regions and cities in times of fragmentation, 13-16 May 2012, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands Entrada X   Responder a todos Cristina Comunian Cristina.Comunian@regionalstudies.org para URBGEOG mostrar detalhes 10:13 (3 horas atrás) Regional Studies Association International Conference 2012 13 - 16 May 2012 - Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands Networked regions and cities in times of fragmentation: Developing smart, sustainable and inclusive places Call for papers Extended deadline for abstract submission: 20th February 2012 (early bird rates are also extended to the 20th February, after this date the full rate will apply)   http://www.regionalstudies.org/events/2012/May-Delft/    "…..Regions and cities are increasingly interdependent; economically, socially and environmentally. They are becoming more reliant on interregional flows of trade, labour and resources. Patterns of interactions between regions are experiencing rapid changes as a result of dramatic shifts in production and consumption patterns, advances in communication technologies and the development of transport infrastructure(…) The governance of regions faces multi-level, multi-actor and multi-sectoral challenges. New spatial interactions at new scales demand new approaches for consultation and coordination. More flexible forms of governance are emerging, working around traditional governmental arrangements. The result is a complex pattern of overlapping governance and fuzzy boundaries(…)"   The 2012 RSA conference in Delft provides a timely opportunity for participants to come together and reflect on the various strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities of networked cities and regions within these different contexts of fragmentation.   Gateway Themes A. EU Regional policy and practice B. Climate change, energy and sustainability

CITERES UMR CItés, TERritoires, Environnement et Sociétés Notre société est confrontée à des bouleversements sociaux et spatiaux liés à des phénomènes complexes. Les modèles sur lesquels s'appuyaient jusqu'à peu la réflexion et l'action apparaissent obsolètes. Les sciences sociales et historiques doivent aujourd'hui viser à mieux comprendre l'évolution des rapports de nos sociétés à leur espace. Composée de quatre équipes, l'UMR CITERES entend répondre à ce défi. Ses équipes mènent leurs travaux avec un même souci de l'échange et de l'interdisciplinarité, dans différentes aires chrono-culturelles mais sur un domaine commun, les processus de spatialisation et de territorialisation