Please note: The opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of Ancient Faith Radio or Conciliar Press. In this hour long special edition program, Steve McMeans welcomes two guest co-hosts, Mary Braun and Andrew Honore! Our guest today is John Granger, a noted Harry Potter expert - www.HogwartsProfessor.com. Mr. Granger has traveled about the country speaking about these books, his predictions since they were being written, and their place in the canon of English Literature. Warning - if you have not read the latest Harry Potter book and don't want to know the plot, be aware that it is revealed in the discussion.

an Android phone hidden in the Mission is set to Shazam all audio 24/7 and post the roughly 120 songs/day it can identify #

Let us take hope that, acquainted as we are with our sin and weakness, God can make a wonderful work of glory from the raw material of our brokenness.

Fr. Gregory Hallam describes the short shrift given to the Holy Theotokos and her Annunciation in some Christian circles as "Flower Pot Theology."

Bobby Maddex interviews Seraphim Hanisch, the Director of Little Spot Productions, a mobile, on-site, studio-level recording company.

Ananias and Sapphira's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Ding Junhui beats Xu Si 9-6 to set up a final against Chris Wakelin at the International Championship in Nanjing.

Barry Crisp will be one of the experts at the BBC Radio Northampton Headfest event on 25 October.

Middleport Pottery has been given £250,000 by the National Lottery's heritage fund.

Do not "approach or attempt to catch the emu unless you have experience", a charity says.

New road markings are being installed on the slip road following a fatal crash in September.

A Norwich disability group thanks a charity for making a city beauty spot more accessible.

Back in November 2016 Music Ally wrote an article about how Laura Marling fans could pre-save her new album on Spotify. This was the first ever pre-save. This functionality wasn’t (and still isn’t) an official Spotify tool, it was put together by David Emery (who now works at Apple Music) who was VP of global...

Yesterday I noticed that the Spotify Windows desktop app had changed and instead of a “follow” button under a playlist there was now a heart icon. If you hover over the heart it says “Save to Your Library” and when you click on it the playlist appears with all of the other playlists that you...

We all know that getting a song added to an editorial or algorithmic playlist on Spotify can help boost streams and lead to more fans discovering your music. It’s well documented that you need to submit your upcoming releases for editorial submission via either Spotify For Artists or Spotify Analytics. But how do you get...

“Investors, both individual and professional, want more than just the data that independent services can provide. They want the company’s own story and investment vision. What they don’t want is to wade through complex or irrelevant information.” Investor Relations on Corporate Websites, Nielsen Norman Group

Understand investor jobs-to-be-done

Primary users of investor relations areas on a website include, obviously, investors themselves but also analysts and financial journalists. There is an important secondary audience of potential customers and employees too. But the core audience is generally looking for:

• Company background and overview
• Press releases
• Stock exchange filings
• One-page financial overview
• Annual reports
• Quarterly reports
• Historical financial information
• Executive biographies
• Share price information
• Press and IR contact details
• Corporate governance information

Of course, each company will go beyond statutory reporting to add content and user journeys specific to their needs. For example, if they are dealing with specific events in their company history, such as acquisitions, crises or if they are approaching an IPO.

Interestingly, according to NN/Group, some of the fancier functionality that you often see on an IR site, such as webcasts, slides and investment calculators, were less important to real users. “People research company financials are more interested in getting facts quickly than in the technology used to deliver them.”

Best practice examples

GE Aerospace does well with very clear navigation on a fast-loading site that is designed to get people to the information they are looking for quickly.

Microsoft’s IR site clearly surfaces stock price information with a tidy design and recent company news, but we are not fans of carousels as a user interface solution.

In contrast, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) has the leanest, text-only IR page, which, like GE’s, aims to get visitors to key information as quickly as possible. Notably, they offer HTML and PDF versions of key reports, and we think this is good practice. PDFs are not great for usability but have an important role in communicating statutory information in a compliant way, so it’s important to find a user-friendly, SEO-friendly parallel structure to sit alongside them.

Michelmersh combines Microsoft’s visual approach with direct access to the most important information.

Core and optional functionality

We use a tool called Octopus to collaborate with clients to design a website’s information architecture and the high-level structure of individual pages.

For investor relations areas, the following site map templates from NN/Group are good starting points for high, medium and low-priority content. But each client is different and so understanding client needs and their users’ needs is always a project in itself.

Don’t forget basic website usability

For more information about how Articulate tackles the website design and development process, including information architecture and user journeys, see How we build websites at Articulate. For the end results, take a look at our Portfolio.

We think all sites - and all visitors - deserve a well-designed, easy-to-use website that helps them find the information they want. In particular, this means that IR areas need to be:

• Mobile-friendly. The widespread use of PDFs makes many IR sites difficult to use on mobile devices, representing an opportunity for forward-thinking companies to improve the user experience by offering HMTL options.
• Searchability. IR information should be searchable alongside other site content, either with a domain-specific search box (i.e. just the IR section) or as part of an integrated site-wide search.
• Accessibility is a basic requirement for a modern website, yet 97 percent of websites have fundamental accessibility issues. Designing for accessibility is good for every visitor. For example, our blog’s speed reading mode and audio player help people engage with our content whether they have specific needs or not. See our article about why accessibility is crucial for website design.
• Loading speed. Google and GE prioritise loading speed and ‘time to find’ for visitors over fancy imagery and functionality. This is in line with NN/Group’s user study findings. Some clients prefer more fizz and ginger on their IR sites as part of their investor brand, but this should never come at the expense of loading speed. For more on improving Core Web Vitals (as Google calls them) see: Don't lose traffic because of Google’s Core Web Vitals.
• SEO. Investors, journalists and advisors, like most of us, use Google to find information. IR areas should get the same SEO attention as the rest of the site. For more on our approach to SEO see: The ultimate SEO guide for B2B technology companies.
• PDFs vs. web pages. IR pages are loaded with PDFs for annual reports, statutory filings, and other important documents. It may be the case that these files have to be in PDF format—we’re not lawyers, so we can’t say for certain—but we think it would be valuable, as with Google, not to also make them available as web pages, even if it is a high-level summary page with a link to the downloadable PDF. There are strong usability reasons to avoid PDF files if at all possible.
• Carousels. We strongly recommend against Carousels. Buy us a pint, and we’ll bore for England about why.
• Use of videos, webcasts and podcasts. IR pages often feature investor briefings and other content in video format. This should never be a substitute for clear, scannable, searchable text. Where possible, provide transcripts or summaries. Where possible, provide short (<4 minutes) highlight reels as well as longer content. Videos should have captions and chapter headings so that people can find what they need quickly. Never autoplay videos.

Examples of investor-specific functionality

Company overview

“Offer a brief company overview that highlights a few significant facts, along with a link to more detailed corporate information.” For example, Causeway’s website has this succinct summary right on its homepage as well as more detailed information in a ‘Why us’ section.

Biographies

“Provide information about the company’s high-level managers, including each person’s name and job title, a recent picture, and a link to a full biography,” advises The Nielsen Norman Group. For example, HealthHero has a really easy-to-use, highly visual, and on-brand biographies section on its About Us page.

Press information

Journalists don’t just need press information, they need relevant, high-resolution images, logos, PR contacts and company information.

Press releases

Your news page should look like high-end news site or blog with all the support infrastructure such as the ability to sign up for alerts, search for specific information, filter and sort the information, as on this example from TCN.

ESG reports. Your investor brand goes beyond statutory reporting. Increasingly, environmental, social and governance information influences investment decisions and build investor confidence. HPE does a great job of communicating its progress in this area, and, ahem, we think our own Impact Report is pretty good, too. (Related to this, see our guide to establishing a strong ESG tone of voice.)

Security, availability, access controls and approvals

• Security and access control. IR areas often include market-sensitive information such as earnings announcements or new product introductions. For this reason (and others), it is important that any content management system (CMS) used for IR pages should have robust security and access controls, meaning that only authorised users can add or modify IR pages. We recommend HubSpot Content Hub which has granular user permissions, access control to specific assets (e.g. individual web pages) and (with an Enterprise tier) SSO integration and role-based permissions.
• Content approvals. HubSpot also has the option to require approvals before website changes are published. This may be valuable to ensure that legally responsible people, e.g. directors, have a final review and approval of statutory updates to the site, even if they delegate the content creation to others.
• Scheduling for publication. With time-sensitive and embargoed information, it is important to be able to set a specific publication time and date for content so that you can prepare the pages in advance but make sure they are published at the right time. With HubSpot, this is possible for pages and blog/new posts.

How Articulate can help

We design and code signature websites using our proprietary Nucleus technology, which are hosted on HubSpot Content Hub (CMS). See our website services page for more information.

Brochure websites are old-school. Instead, our team will build you a marketing engine that drives traffic, leads and customers, all while telling your brand story.

If you’d like an SEO, usability, or content review of your investor relations website or if you’d like us to help build a new one, please get in touch.

When Ariana Grande wrote “could get it again” next to Big Sean’s picture in her “Thank U, Next” video, she might not have been joking. The two were spotted hanging out yesterday, and maybe they were recording new music, maybe she was bouncing back to that dick, or maybe both. While ex-fiance Pete Davidson has […]

The post Ariana Grande Spotted with Ex, Big Sean appeared first on HecklerSpray.

Next time you're there, look out for these.

An OCR free word spotting method is developed and evaluated under a strong experimental protocol. Different feature sets are evaluated under the same experimental conditions. In addition, a tuning process in the document segmentation step is proposed which provides a significant reduction in terms of processing time. For this purpose, a complete OCR-free method for word spotting in printed documents was implemented, and a document database containing document images and their corresponding ground truth text files was created. A strong experimental protocol based on 800 document images allows us to compare the results of the three feature sets used to represent the word image.

With the emergence of the Web 2.0 phenomena, technology-assisted social networking has become the norm. The potential of social software for collaborative learning purposes is clear, but as yet there is little evidence of realisation of the benefits. In this paper we consider Information and Communication Technology student attitudes to collaboration and via two case studies the extent to which they exploit the use of wikis for group collaboration. Even when directed to use a particular wiki designed for the type of project they are involved with, we found that groups utilized the wiki in different ways according to the affordances ascribed to the wiki. We propose that the integration of activity theory with an affordances perspective may lead to improved technology, specifically Web 2.0, assisted collaboration.

Hasard du calendrier ou volontￜ de prￜserver le nouveau Premier ministre ? Selon Mediapart, une enquￜte judiciaire ouverte par le parquet de Perpignan, potentiellement gￜnante pour Jean Castex, a ￜtￜ...

International universities are changing with their style of operation, mode of teaching and learning operations. This change is noticeable rapidly in India and also in international contexts due to healthy and innovative methods, educational strategies, and nomenclature throughout the world. Technologies are changing rapidly, including ICT. Different subjects are developed in the fields of IT and computing with the interaction or applications to other fields, viz. health informatics, bio informatics, agriculture informatics, and so on. Agricultural informatics is an interdisciplinary subject dedicated to combining information technology and information science utilisation in agricultural sciences. The digital agriculture is powered by agriculture informatics practice. For teaching, research and development of any subject educational methods is considered as important and various educational programs are there in this regard viz. Bachelor of Education, Master of Education, PhD in Education, etc. Degrees are also available to deal with the subjects and agricultural informatics should not be an exception of this. In this context, Doctor of Education (EdD or DEd) is an emerging degree having features of skill sets, courses and research work. This paper proposed on EdD program with agricultural informatics specialisation for improving healthy agriculture system. Here, a proposed model core curriculum is also presented.

Aim/Purpose: This paper presents an exploratory case study into using 360° videos to present small segments of lecture content for IT students in an Australian University. The aim of this study was to understand; what is the impact of incorporating 360° videos into class content for students and teaching staff? In this study the 360° videos are described as “learning atoms”. Learning atoms are short duration videos (1 to 5 minutes) captured in 360°. Background: Within this paper we conducted experiments in the classroom using 360° videos to determine if they have an impact on student's feeling of presence with class content. Additionally, to follow up, how does the inclusion of 360° impact on the teaching experience. Methodology: The methodology used in this study focused on both quantitative and qualita-tive aspects. Data was captured at the same time during the teaching period to address the research questions. In order to gauge the feeling of presence within the classroom a short survey was administered to students in the undergraduate IT class at the start (pre) and end (post) of the semester using the same questions to measure any change. Contribution: The main contributions from this study were that we demonstrated there is a potential for providing an alternative ‘immersive’ content presentation for students. This alternative content took the form of 360° learning atoms, whereas further showed our nuance process for creating and publishing of these atoms. Findings: The results show that for students, learning atoms can help improve the sense of presence, particularly for remote students, however the interactive experience can take student’s attention away from the lecturer. The results present potential for providing an alternative ‘immersive’ content presentation for students, however problems for uptake are present for both students and teachers, such as image capture quality and file size Impact on Society: We foresee this approach as being a new approach to teaching students in higher education within online spaces to increase engagement and move towards having a richer virtual experience no matter the location. Future Research: Future research will be conducted to resolve whether presence and engagement is supported by the inclusion of 360° videos in the classroom.

The purpose of this paper was to explore the current and potential use of Facebook for learning purposes by Jordanian university students. The paper attempted to compare such use with other uses of Facebook. Further, the paper investigated Jordanian university students’ attitudes towards using Facebook as a formal academic tool, through the use of course-specific Facebook groups. To that end, quantitative data were collected from a sample of 451 students from three Jordanian public universities. Findings indicated that the vast majority of Jordanian students had Facebook accounts, which echoes its popularity amongst Jordanian youth compared to other types of online social networking sites. While both “social activities” and “entertainment” were the primary motivators for Jordanian students to create and use Facebook accounts, a growing number of them were using Facebook for academic purposes too. Further, Jordanian students had a positive attitude toward the use of “Facebook groups” as an educational tool for specific courses, and under specific conditions. Based on its findings, the paper provides suggestions for Jordanian higher institutions to invest in the application of Facebook as a formal academic tool.

Aim/Purpose: The use of digital technology, such as an electronic records management system (ERMS), has prompted widespread changes across organizations. The organization needs to support its operations with an automation system to improve production performance. This study investigates ERMS’s potentiality to enhance organizational performance in the oil and gas industry. Background: Oil and gas organizations generate enormous electronic records that lead to difficulties in managing them without any system or digitalization procedure. The need to use a system to manage big data and records affects information security and creates several problems. This study supports decision-makers in oil and gas organizations to use ERMS to enhance organizational performance. Methodology: We used a quantitative method by integrating the typical partial least squares (SEM-PLS) approach, including measurement items, respondents’ demographics, sampling and collection of data, and data analysis. The SEM-PLS approach uses a measurement and structural model assessment to analyze data. Contribution: This study contributes significantly to theory and practice by providing advancements in identity theory in the context of big data management and electronic records management. This study is a foundation for further research on the role of ERMS in operations performance and Big Data Management (BDM). This research makes a theoretical contribution by studying a theory-driven framework that may serve as an essential lens to evaluate the role of ERMS in performance and increase its potentiality in the future. This research also evaluated the combined impacts of general technology acceptance theory elements and identity theory in the context of ERMS to support data management. Findings: This study provides an empirically tested model that helps organizations to adopt ERMS based on the influence of big data management. The current study’s findings looked at the concerns of oil and gas organizations about integrating new technologies to support organizational performance. The results demonstrated that individual characteristics of users in oil and gas organizations, in conjunction with administrative features, are robust predictors of ERMS. The results show that ERMS potentiality significantly influences the organizational performance of oil and gas organizations. The research results fit the big ideas about how big data management and ERMS affect respondents to adopt new technologies. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study contributes significantly to the theory and practice of ERMS potentiality and BDM by developing and validating a new framework for adopting ERMS to support the performance and production of oil and gas organizations. The current study adds a new framework to identity theory in the context of ERMS and BDM. It increases the perceived benefits of using ERMS in protecting the credibility and authenticity of electronic records in oil and gas organizations. Recommendation for Researchers: This study serves as a foundation for future research into the function and influence of big data management on ERMS that support the organizational performance. Researchers can examine the framework of this study in other nations in the future, and they will be able to analyze this research framework to compare various results in other countries and expand ERMS generalizability and efficacy. Impact on Society: ERMS and its impact on BDM is still a developing field, and readers of this article can assist in gaining a better understanding of the literature’s dissemination of ERMS adoption in the oil and gas industry. This study presents an experimentally validated model of ERMS adoption with the effect of BDM in the oil and gas industry. Future Research: In the future, researchers may be able to examine the impact of BDM and user technology fit as critical factors in adopting ERMS by using different theories or locations. Furthermore, researchers may include the moderating impact of demographical parameters such as age, gender, wealth, and experience into this study model to make it even more robust and comprehensive. In addition, future research may examine the significant direct correlations between human traits, organizational features, and individual perceptions of BDM that are directly related to ERMS potentiality and operational performance in the future.

This study aims to identify and understand the perspectives of automotive aftersales stakeholders regarding current challenges posed by decarbonisation strategies. It examines potential responses that the automotive aftersales business could undertake to address these challenges. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with automotive industry experts from Europe and Latin America. This paper focuses primarily on impacts of decarbonisation upon automotive aftersales and the potential role of data in that business. Results show that investment in technology will be a condition for businesses that want to remain active in the industry. Furthermore, experts agree that incumbent manufacturers are not filling the technology gap that the energy transition is creating in the automotive sector, a consequence of which will be the entrance of new players from other sectors. The current aftersales businesses will potentially lose bargaining control. Moreover, policy makers are seen as unreliable leaders of the transition agenda.

The all-pervasive Internet has created serious problems, such as Internet overuse, which has triggered considerable debate over its relationship with addiction. To further explore its genetic susceptibilities and alternative explanations for Internet overuse, we proposed and evaluated four hypotheses, each based on existing knowledge of the biological bases of addiction, inattention, novelty-seeking, and harm-avoidance. Four genetic loci including DRD4 VNTR, DRD2 Taq1A, COMT Val158Met and 5-HTTLPR length polymorphisms were screened from seventy-three individuals. Our results showed that the DRD4 4R/4R individuals scored significantly higher than the 2R or 7R carriers in Internet Addiction Test (IAT). The 5-HTTLPR short/short males scored significantly higher in IAT than the long variant carriers. Bayesian analysis showed the most compatible hypothesis with the observed genetic results was based on attention (69.8%), whereas hypotheses based harm-avoidance (21.6%), novelty-seeking (7.8%) and addiction (0.9%) received little support. Our study suggests that carriers of alleles (DRD4 2R and 7R, 5-HTTLPR long) associated with inattentiveness are more likely to experience disrupted patterns and reduced durations of Internet use, protecting them from Internet overuse. Furthermore, our study suggests that Internet overuse should be categorized differently from addiction due to the lack of shared genetic contributions.

Aim/Purpose: To explore the incidence of addiction potential within the Iranian public working population, describing how many Iranian public employees fall within the diagnostic categories of low, moderate, and high addiction potential. Also, to investigate the predicting role of occupational variables such as perceived stress, job security, and job satisfaction on addiction potential and belonging to low, moderate, and high addiction potential diagnostic categories. Background: Substance addiction among employees can lead to several negative consequences at the individual and organizational levels. Also, it is the fourth cause of death in Iran. However, few studies have been conducted on the topic among employees, and non among Iranian employees. Methodology: The study participants were 430 employees working in governmental offices of the North Khorasan province, Iran. Descriptive statistical analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were conducted to explore the incidence of addiction potential within the analyzed population and to investigate whether occupational variables such as perceived stress, job security, and job satisfaction predicted low, moderate, or high addiction potential. Contribution: This paper suggests that perceived stress might act as a risk factor for developing addiction, whereas job security and job satisfaction might be protective factors against the likelihood of addiction development. Findings: More than half of the sample showed moderate to high addiction potential. Perceived stress was positively related to addiction potential. Job security and job satisfaction were negatively related to addiction potential. Recommendation for Researchers: When addressing the topic of substance addiction, researchers should focus on the preventative side of investigating it; that is, addiction risk rather than already unfolded addiction. Also, researchers should be mindful of the cultural context in which studies are conducted. Future Research: Future research might investigate other relevant occupational predictors in relation to employee addiction potential, such as leadership style, work-life balance, and worktime schedule, or expand on the relevant causal chain by including personality traits such as neuroticism.

Potplayer is a smooth media player with a great looking, minimalist user interface. It has an extensive range of configurable options to choose from and lots of functionality. The application supports Blu-ray, DVD, Audio CD, and countless othe...

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s government is monitoring developments in the United States for potential changes in policies as a new administration prepares to take office in Washington, said Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli.

He said that given the influence the US has on the global economy, any country in the world would conduct some level of due diligence on the impacts a change in the US administration might bring.

“That is part and parcel of planning. While we await the next few announcements, we will observe how the Trump administration will impact the global economy and ours,” he told reporters after the Sesi Libat Urus Industri Rancangan Malaysia Ke-13 today.

Rafizi said Malaysia must be nimble and agile to react and respond to any geopolitical and international developments that may arise from a change in administration, not only in the US but in any of its large trading partners. “And the US is a very large trading partner for us,” he pointed out.

However, Rafizi noted that many of Malaysia’s plans concerning semiconductors and energy transition are driven by domestic needs and are largely structural. “That means it’s something we have to go through to prepare our industry and economy to be more robust. So in that sense, I think all the key reforms that need to be done still have to be done.”

Additionally, he said, Malaysia’s 13th Malaysia Plan will include initiatives to position the country as a global provider of a comprehensive artificial intelligence-driven data centre ecosystem. “The government’s focus has always been to tap into the opportunities presented by the data centre boom.”

Rafizi emphasised that Malaysia aims to avoid simply attracting data centre without integrating into the data centre value chain and supply chain. “We have been working on a few catalytic interventions to create the ecosystem.”

Rafizi said that by the end of this decade, Malaysia aims to participate in the entire data centre value chain, first benefiting from existing and future data centers in the country. “But more importantly, for us to begin exporting our own data centers around the world.”

For the 13th Malaysia Plan that is being prepared, Rafizi said, the Ministry of Economy is not only holding engagement sessions with state governments but also ensuring that it includes input from key strategic industries.

The sessions focus on the electronics, aerospace and automotive industries, and the process will continue to align government and industry planning. “The main goal is to transition our industries from assembly-based to innovation and creation-based industries,” Rafizi said.

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s official visit to Egypt has bolstered Malaysia-Egypt bilateral relations, unlocking RM4.8 billion (US$1.1 billion) in potential export opportunities for Malaysia, according to the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI).

MITI stated that this export potential was largely generated through a roundtable meeting attended by 60 industry and business leaders from 47 Egyptian firms and key business associations, as well as 40 representatives from 20 Malaysian companies.

“During the session, productive discussions between Malaysian and Egyptian companies identified export potential worth RM4.8 billion (US$1.1 billion), particularly in high-value sectors such as automotive, chemicals, oleochemicals and renewable energy,” MITI said in a statement.

Egyptian companies also expressed interest in investment opportunities in Malaysia, particularly in medical devices and pharmaceuticals, MITI added.

The official visit took place from Nov 10-12, 2024.

In a bilateral meeting during the visit, MITI Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz and Egypt’s Minister of Investment and International Trade Hassan El Khatib agreed to reactivate the Malaysia-Egypt Joint Trade and Investment Committee (JTIC).

Malaysia will host the second JTIC Meeting in early 2025, focusing on collaboration in the semiconductor sector, renewable energy, the halal industry and digital transformation.

The two ministers further agreed that Malaysia’s Investment Development Board (MIDA) and Egypt’s General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) should sign a memorandum of understanding to enhance bilateral investment relations.

To support Malaysian exporters’ access to North African and Arab markets, MITI noted that Malaysia’s trade office in Cairo, managed by the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), was upgraded in January 2024, offering improved market access and export support services.

Meanwhile, national carmaker Proton has expanded into the Egyptian market with a local assembly plant.

Assembly activities began with the first delivery of Proton’s completely knocked down (CKD) vehicles in September 2024, and sales are expected to start in January 2025, with a target of 16,000 units for the period 2024–2026, MITI reported.

Bilateral trade between Malaysia and Egypt from January to September 2024 rose 21.4% year-on-year to RM3.0 billion (US$648 million), compared to RM2.4 billion (US$545.5 million) in the same period last year.

Egypt was Malaysia’s fifth-largest trading partner in Africa in 2023.

Tengku Zafrul said MITI is confident this bilateral relationship will continue to grow, positively impacting the economy and supporting the objectives of the New Malaysian Industrial Master Plan (NIMP) by 2030.

“MITI and its agencies will take prompt follow-up action to ensure that all agreed initiatives are implemented efficiently,” he added.

Fans on social media couldn’t keep their excitement at bay at the sight of the two actors side by side in a new photo

Vienna-based Figlmüller topped the list for its century-long specialisation in the Schnitzel Wiener Art

The island's close vicinity to significant marine lanes in the Bay of Bengal has piqued the interest of global powers.

The Green Shirts handed 5-1 defeat in the Asian Champions Trophy

RADIO BIKES BMX - #SPOTTERDAM

Our team rider Robin Kachfi was with the RADIO BIKES team in Rotterdam, where he and Leon Hoppe dropped a banger video for RADIO BIKES . Check their Video right now! Viel Spaß beim Video, Dein kunstform BMX Shop.

Video: Basti Nietsche

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A husband and wife from Long Island, New York, were sentenced this week for their role in a 2022 fire at their rented-out home in the Hamptons that killed two sisters from Potomac, Maryland.

On Tuesday 30 September 2014, the European Parliament Intergroup on "Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development", in collaboration with the European Commission and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), organised a full day conference entitled: "Nature-Based Solutions: Innovation potential for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Europe."

Bringing together 140 participants including representatives from the European Institutions, local and regional authorities, research institutes, NGOs and International organisations, as well as private sector representatives, this conference aimed at promoting the solutions that nature can offer in tackling major challenges, such as climate change and natural disasters, in ensuring food security to an increasing population, in protecting the health of European citizens, and the conservation of biodiversity in the EU and at the global level.

The second EU BON Roundtable took place on 27 November 2014 at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The workshop was dedicated to explore ways in which EU BON can support citizen science (CS) activities. EU BON is building a large integrated biodiversity information infrastructure in order to serve science, policy and administration as well as citizen scientists. Citizen scientists are important stakeholders, as they support the increase of knowledge in various aspects, they may debate research questions, most often they collect data, and they may interpret data and publish their results.

Many partners and interested stakeholders participated, coming from different European research institutions, Natural History Museums, SMEs or representatives from European Institutions like European Commission DG Research & Innovation, the European Environmental Agency or the JRC and EU-funded Citizen Science projects.

Participants at the 2nd EU BON Stakeholder Roundtable

The Citizen Science Roundtable started with a "Setting the scene" session where a welcome address was given by Katrin Vohland from the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN). In a brief introduction from a biodiversity data perspective, some gaps in current bio-diversity data were shown, for example the large data gaps in Eastern European data in plant datasets and the restricted access to many datasets. Christoph Häuser from the MfN outlined EU BON and its main activities in the field of Citizen Science.

As a representative from DG Research and Innovation from the European Commission, Jose-Miguel Rubio-Iglesias showed the possibilities of Citizen Science as one option to improve the science-society bridge. Lucy Robinson (ECSA/NHM London) focused on citizen science in Europe, its impact and development. 

The next session targeted the question of how EU BON can possibly support data mobilization of and for citizen scientists. Antonio García Camacho from CSIC Donana showed, with a colleague from IBM, the prototype of the future EU BON data portal, to integrate biodiversity data/metadata sources into a single user interface. In another talk, Jaume Piera pointed out the requirements that exist in a CS portal, e.g. with regards to the role of citizen collaboration, the social media channels, and particularly the conceptual requirements. Important aspects here are for example that data access tracking has to be guaranteed, for giving credits to data producers and for keeping track of data use. Simao Belchior of the SME Simbiotica showed successful ways of visualizing georeferenced data, e.g. the mapping of pan-tropical forest clearing.

The next session called "A spotlight on some (meta)data provider" was started by Veljo Runnel who presented an assessment of Citizen Science involvement in biological research. Nils Valland described in his talk key success factors for citizen science and species occurrence data in Europe. Dirk Schmeller informed the audience about Volunteer Species Monitoring in Europe. He pointed out the need that governments should invest more to support and expand current monitoring initiatives. For example the EuMon project had documented 395 monitoring schemes for species, which represents a total annual cost of about €4 million, involving more than 46,000 persons devoting over 148,000 person-days/year to biodiversity monitoring activities.

In the "Synergies of European Citizen Science projects" session, presentations outlined of the main aims of several EU funded Citizen science projects (Citclops, COBWEB, Socientize). Pierre-Philippe Mathieu from the European Space Agency highlighted the new era for Earth Observation and links to Citizen Science projects. Siro Masinde from showed the Citizen Science activities of GBIF, which is one of the largest data providers of species occurrence records.

For more detailed information on the issues discussed, please see below the presentations from the meeting or contact us:

Dr. Katrin Vohland ( katrin.vohland@mfn-berlin.de)  

Dr. Florian Wetzel (florian.wetzel@mfn-berlin.de)

PRESENTATIONS

1.Rubio-Iglesias - Citizen Science as science-society bridge

2. Häuser - EU BON

3. Robinson - Citizen science in Europe

4. Camacho - EU BON biodiversity portal

5. Piera - Requirements for the EU BON biodiversity

6. Belchior - Fall of data portals and future of data workflows

7. Runnel - Assessing Citizen Schience involvement

8.  Arvanitidis - Crowdsourcing initiatives in the Mediterranean Basin

9.  Valland - Key success factors of citizen science

10. Schmeller - Volunteer Species Monitoring

11. Mathieu - Crowd Sourcing for Space Science

12. Sanz – Socientize

13. Ceccaroni – Citclops

14. Williams – COBWEB

15. Masinde - GBIF, plans for integrating Citizen Science data

Meeting agenda

Selection of pictures from the meeting:

Stakeholders from across Europe are coming together at Green Week to discuss biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe. The European Environment Agency (EEA) will present its latest findings, recently published in its reports 'State of nature in the EU' and 'The European Environment – state and outlook 2015'. 

The European Environment Agency's recent assessments, including The European environment – state and outlook 2015 and State of Nature in the EU, show that Europe's biodiversity is still being eroded, despite significant local improvements. To halt the loss of biodiversity, stabilise and restore degraded ecosystems, the European Union has adopted the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, which sets various targets and actions. An effective implementation of the strategy depends, among others, on the data and information available on biodiversity in Europe. Through its extensive network and close collaboration with partners, the EEA contributes extensively to the knowledge base on Europe's biodiversity.

Read the full original news story on the EEA website.

The importance of measuring species diversity as an indicator of ecosystem health has been long recognized and it seems that satellite remote sensing (SRS) has proven to be one of the most cost-effective approaches to identify biodiversity hotspots and predict changes in species composition. What is the real potential of SRS and what are the pitfalls that need to be avoided to achieve the full potential of this method is the topic of a new research, published in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation.

The new study, supported by the FP7 funded EU project EU BON takes the assessment of diversity in plant communities as a case study. Showing the difficulties to achieve high results by relying only on field data, the paper discusses the advantages of SRS methods.

"In contrast to field-based methods, SRS allows for complete spatial coverages of the Earth's surface under study over a short period of time. Furthermore, it provides repeated measures, thus making it possible to study temporal changes in biodiversity," explains Dr. D. Rocchini from Fondazione Edmund Mach, lead author and WP deputy leader / task leader in EU BON. "In our research we provide a concise review of the potential of satellites to help track changes in plant species diversity, and provide, for the first time, an overview of the potential pitfalls associated with the misuse of satellite imagery to predict species diversity. "

Traditionally, assessment of biodiversity at local and regional scales relies on the one hand on local diversity, or the so called alpha-diversity, and on the other, on species turnover, or beta-diversity. Only in combination of these two measures can lead to an estimate of the whole diversity of an area.

While the assessment of alpha-diversity is relatively straightforward, calculation of beta-diversity could prove to be quite challenging. This is where increased collaboration between the remote sensing and biodiversity communities is needed in order to properly address future challenges and developments.

The new research shown the high potential of remote sensing in biodiversity studies while also identifying the challenges underpinning the development of this interdisciplinary field of research.

"Further sensitivity studies on environmental parameters derived from remote sensing for biodiversity mapping need to be undertaken to understand the pitfalls and impacts of different data collection processes and models. Such information, however, is crucial for a continuous global biodiversity analysis and an improved understanding of our current global challenges."concludes Dr. Rocchini.

Original Source:

Rocchini, D., Boyd, D. S., Féret, J.-B., Foody, G. M., He, K. S., Lausch, A., Nagendra, H., Wegmann, M., Pettorelli, N. (2016), Satellite remote sensing to monitor species diversity: potential and pitfalls. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 2: 25-36. doi: 10.1002/rse2.9