Safer From Above By Dr. Chris Lavers The world faces an unparalleled number of natural and, sadly, man-made humanitarian disasters. In 2004, for example, these disasters claimed tens of thousands of lives worldwide, the majority in the developing world. Over a quarter of a million people were estimated to have perished in the Boxing Day Tsunami with its epicenter off the Indonesian coast. However, the developed world is not immune to disaster; in 2005, Hurricane Katrina displaced 770,000 people, destroyed 300,000 homes, and required a massive aid effort by the international community. Current technology cannot prevent natural disasters, but space-based imagery can offer remote surveillance of man-made preventable disaster areas, critical for vulnerable groups at risk of human rights abuse. Since 2007, we have looked at how imaging may effectively support non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Climate change is also likely to increase the frequency of regional ethnic or resource-driven conflict. Dr.
KXEN - The Predictive Analytics Leader : KXEN, Inc. Personal Goal Setting - Goal Setting Tools from MindTools.com - StumbleUpon Planning to Live Your Life Your Way Learn how to set effective personal goals. Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality. The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. Why Set Goals? Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields all set goals. By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. Starting to Set Personal Goals You set your goals on a number of levels: This is why we start the process of setting goals by looking at your lifetime goals. Tip: Staying on Course Tip 1:
About More people than ever are making maps with a growing diversity of tools. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software is being used by a broad array of industries and users. Hundreds of web mapping sites exist, and tools for the relatively easy creation of map mashups (such as the Google Maps API) allow people to map their own data collected with GPS and by other means. Map making tools are proliferating and easily accessible: but how do you learn to make decent maps if you are not a professionally trained cartographer? The book Making Maps 2nd edition by John Krygier and Denis Wood (published by Guilford Press) was written for the Do It Yorself (DIY) cartographer – the student, the new GIS user, the internet user – anyone who wants to make maps that work and look great. This blog highlights resources that supplement the Making Maps book and help you to make better maps. John Krygier is Professor of Geography at Ohio Wesleyan University. Denis Wood‘s bio can be found here.
nelletorres's blurblog It’s another whimsical Sunday morning, a perfect time to re-examine assumptions, and the one I’m working on this morning is when smaller business is actually better, where by “better” I might mean from the perspective of someone inside the business or from the perspective of the public. I came to this question by way of two articles I’ve read recently. Women CEO’s First up we havethis article from the Wall Street Journal, written by Sharon Hadary, which is entitled, “Why Are Women-Owned Firms Smaller Than Men-Owned Ones?” Hey, that seems super irrational of women! But you know what? Women start businesses to be personally challenged and to integrate work and family, and they want to stay at a size where they personally can oversee all aspects of the business. Well that was kind of too easy. Of course, that mindset is not the entire story. CEO pay Now let’s move to a New York Times article, or really a series of articles, about CEO pay and how it’s big and only getting bigger.
Twitterscribe / Archive your tweets. nelletorres's blurblog First published online by Amelia Hill. Nicola Probert is nervous. She hasn’t let her partner, Tony Hodge, go food shopping for the family on his own since the day he came back with a £3 DVD, a six-pack of premium baked beans and two milkshakes for the children – an extra £10 on the bill that meant their two sons couldn’t go to the soft play centre that weekend. “Please don’t get Heinz baked beans,” she implores him, handing over the shopping list she’s written out in painstaking detail. Tony sighs. Nicola is a phlebotomist, taking blood samples from patients, on maternity leave after the birth of the couple’s second child seven months ago. “It makes me furious. The couple are among the more than 13 million people who live in poverty in the UK, suffering what the Joseph Rowntree Trust says are food shortages on a scale not seen since wartime rationing. In Bristol, where the Hodges live, a recent report by Oxfam revealed that 26,500 people can’t afford to eat enough.
nelletorres's blurblog Packrati.us - Bookmark your Twitter links Yemeni Tells Senators About 'Fear and Terror' Caused by U.S. Drones | Danger Room Farea al-Muslimi, center, told a Senate Judiciary committee today about a recent lethal drone strike in his Yemeni village. Photo: Spencer Ackerman/Wired For the first time, the Senate heard from someone who lives in a village where U.S. drone strikes are believed to have killed civilians. Farea al-Muslimi, who was born in the mountain village of Wessab and educated at a California high school, described a drone strike in the village that took place a week ago. His voice occasionally catching, al-Muslimi told a Senate judiciary subcommittee today that the target of the strike, Hameed Meftah, was well known to villagers, and could have been captured. A “psychological fear and terror” has now taken ahold of his old neighbors, al-Muslimi said. al-Muslimi — who actually livetweeted the strike, although he was not there — said the drone strikes have taken on a terrifying character that other weapons may not share. Sen.
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