scholarly journals A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 180468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erneson A. Oliveira ◽  
Vasco Furtado ◽  
José S. Andrade ◽  
Hernán A. Makse

The shape of urban settlements plays a fundamental role in their sustainable planning. Properly defining the boundaries of cities is challenging and remains an open problem in the science of cities. Here, we propose a worldwide model to define urban settlements beyond their administrative boundaries through a bottom-up approach that takes into account geographical biases intrinsically associated with most societies around the world, and reflected in their different regional growing dynamics. The generality of the model allows one to study the scaling laws of cities at all geographical levels: countries, continents and the entire world. Our definition of cities is robust and holds to one of the most famous results in social sciences: Zipf’s law. According to our results, the largest cities in the world are not in line with what was recently reported by the United Nations. For example, we find that the largest city in the world is an agglomeration of several small settlements close to each other, connecting three large settlements: Alexandria, Cairo and Luxor. Our definition of cities opens the doors to the study of the economy of cities in a systematic way independently of arbitrary definitions that employ administrative boundaries.

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 37-58
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Dojwa-Turczyńska

Problematyka kreacji instytucjonalnych elit władzy jest zagadnieniem, które absorbowało i nadal absorbuje przedstawicieli nauk społecznych. Procesy rekrutacji i selekcji, zdobywania poparcia społecznego i oddolnej legitymacji zdają się interesować nie tylko świat ludzi nauki, praktyków sfery politycznej, lecz także obywateli — wyborców. W niniejszym artykule podjęto próbę udzielenia odpowiedzi na pytania dotyczące udziału radnych sejmików województw wybranych w 2014 r. w wyborach parlamentarnych kolejnego roku. Zastanawiano się nad kwestią samej skali aktywności radnych, problemami ich związania lub nie z poszczególnym blokiem politycznym i z określonym terytorium, wreszcie analizie poddano zmiany dotyczące uzyskanego przez nich poparcia wyborczego. “Winners” and “losers.” Analysis of changes in the support received by provincial assembly councillors running for parliamentThe issues of the creation of institutional elites of the authorities constitute a problem that absorbs representatives of social sciences to this day. The processes of recruitment and selection, gaining social support and bottom-up legitimization seem to absorb not only the world of academics and practitioners of the political sphere but also citizens-electors. In this paper, an attempt has been made to give answers to questions concerning the participation of provincial assembly councillors elected in 2014 in the parliamentary elections held the following year. The issue of the scale of councillors’ activity, problems of their connection or its lack with a specific political bloc and specific territory have been considered, while the rest of the analysis refers to changes regarding the electoral support they gained.


Author(s):  
Susan B. Rifkin

In 1978, at an international conference in Kazakhstan, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund put forward a policy proposal entitled “Primary Health Care” (PHC). Adopted by all the World Health Organization member states, the proposal catalyzed ideas and experiences by which governments and people began to change their views about how good health was obtained and sustained. The Declaration of Alma-Ata (as it is known, after the city in which the conference was held) committed member states to take action to achieve the WHO definition of health as “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Arguing that good health was not merely the result of biomedical advances, health-services provision, and professional care, the declaration stated that health was a human right, that the inequality of health status among the world’s populations was unacceptable, and that people had a right and duty to become involved in the planning and implementation of their own healthcare. It proposed that this policy be supported through collaboration with other government sectors to ensure that health was recognized as a key to development planning. Under the banner call “Health for All by the Year 2000,” WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund set out to turn their vision for improving health into practice. They confronted a number of critical challenges. These included defining PHC and translating PHC into practice, developing frameworks to translate equity into action, experiencing both the potential and the limitations of community participation in helping to achieve the WHO definition of health, and seeking the necessary financing to support the transformation of health systems. These challenges were taken up by global, national, and nongovernmental organization programs in efforts to balance the PHC vision with the realities of health-service delivery. The implementation of these programs had varying degrees of success and failure. In the future, PHC will need to address to critical concerns, the first of which is how to address the pressing health issues of the early 21st century, including climate change, control of noncommunicable diseases, global health emergencies, and the cost and effectiveness of humanitarian aid in the light of increasing violent disturbances and issues around global governance. The second is how PHC will influence policies emerging from the increasing understanding that health interventions should be implemented in the context of complexity rather than as linear, predictable solutions.


1972 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Arthur Davies

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. By definition it is concerned with the atmosphere and atmospheric processes and, hence, with the human environment, for whatever definition of the human environment may be adopted, the atmosphere is clearly one of its essential elements. Many atmospheric processes are intimately, indeed inextricably, related to processes and phenomena the study of which falls within the compass of other geophysical disciplines — notably hydrology and oceanography. The WMO has therefore certain responsibilities in these fields also, and as a result its interest in the human environment is somewhat wider than its title may suggest.


1966 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inis L. Claude

As the United Nations has developed and as its role in world affairs has been adapted to the necessities and possibilities created and the limitations established by the changing realities of international politics, collective legitimization has emerged as one of its major political functions. By this I mean to suggest that the world organization has come to be regarded, and used, as a dispenser of politically significant approval and disapproval of the claims, policies, and actions of states, including, but going far beyond, their claims to status as independent members of the international system. In this essay I shall undertake to refine and elaborate this rough definition of collective legitimization and to discuss the performance of this role by the United Nations. It is essential in the beginning, however, to provide a foundation by offering some observations about the general problem of political legitimacy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-273
Author(s):  
Sonia Virgínia Moreira ◽  
Cláudia Lago

Journalism education started in Brazil in 1947. Today, it comes under the field of Social Communication, along with Advertising, Public Relations, Film, and Radio & TV. For almost 40 years, from 1970 to 2009, a journalism diploma was mandatory to work in a newsroom. As part of the field of Applied Social Sciences, journalism remains popular among the young generation: The demand for undergraduate bachelor’s programs has attracted fairly high levels of enrollment in the last three decades. For the purposes of this article, we analyze the application of the 2013 Guidelines for Journalism Education to verify whether bachelor’s programs in journalism include or neglect an important axis in the process of instruction: knowledge of the world and the intellectual challenges of journalistic routines, as suggested in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Model Curricula for Journalism Education.


Author(s):  
Thomas S. Bianchi

In this chapter, I will explore the concept of sustainability, as viewed in the United States and around the world, and examine how we have arrived at our current thinking about conservation practices in a continually evolving, complex geopolitical sphere. I will do this to link delta restoration with the broader, global issues of providing food and clean water as described in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (http:// www.un.org/millenniumgoals). Many people have written on global environmental sustainability, so I will only briefly summarize these views here and conclude with a brief statement about delta sustainability. During the short time that humans have been on this planet, we have altered nearly 50% of the land surface, and 50% of the wetlands in the world have been lost—a consequence of the unsustainable mindset of human civilizations. Sustainability embodies “stewardship” and “design with nature,” with well-defined goals and an agreed upon “carrying capacity,” that can be developed and modeled by scientists and planners. The most popular definition of sustainability can be traced to a 1987 United Nations conference, in which sustainable development programs were described as those that “meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Robert Gillman, editor of In Context magazine, extends this goal-oriented definition by stating “sustainability refers to a very old and simple concept (The Golden Rule) … do unto future generations as you would have them do unto you.” These well-established definitions set forth an ideal premise, but they do not specify the human and environmental parameters needed to model and measure sustainable development. So, here are some more specific definitions: “Sustainable means using methods, systems and materials that won’t deplete resources or harm natural cycles.” Sustainability “identifies a concept and attitude in development that looks at a site’s natural land, water, and energy resources as integral aspects of the development.”


2021 ◽  
pp. 151-176
Author(s):  
Séverine Autesserre

Chapter Six explains how people who work in war zones can learn from the success stories presented throughout the book. Building on the stories of remarkable individuals and organizations from various parts of the world, it offers concrete ideas that can inspire readers and give them models to follow. The chapter first identifies the main characteristics of effective peacebuilders (whether donors, diplomats, United Nations peacekeepers, non-governmental organization staff members, or grassroots activists), and explains how outsiders can best help host populations resolve conflicts. It then recognizes the need for international involvement, emphasizing the value that foreigners have as outsiders in conflict zones while acknowledging the challenges that their presence poses, and discussing the benefits and limitations of relying on local elites and ordinary citizens. Throughout, this chapter advocates for a different, more effective approach to building peace—both from the bottom up and from the top down.


Litera ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 101-112
Author(s):  
Erzhen Gendenovna Sangadieva

The problem of the concept of world in a literary work has always been fundamental within the framework of literary studies. This article examines the definition of the concept of world in the anthology of Bair Dugarov “The Saga of Samsara. The author reviews the key concepts, such as space and time, their analysis within the structure of compilation, which attracted poet’s attention to the concepts of ethnic world of Mongolian-language peoples, taking into account the specificity of traditional ethnic culture, confessional views, peculiarities of mentality and philosophical aspects of the problem of the world and human being. Research methodology is based on the semiotic approach, structural-semantic, axiological and narrative methods. The scientific novelty consists in analysis of the concept of world in the works of Bair Dugarov as a unique phenomenon of Buryat poetry with vivid ethno-national and religious-sacral traits. The main conclusion lies in the fact that the supertemporal essence of a human being – as an intrinsic part of an ethnic group, carries of moral, and ethical values, capable of assessing himself and the entire world – is being reached through the examined concepts.


Sains Insani ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-14
Author(s):  
Ira Meilita Ibrahim ◽  
Taufik A. Latif ◽  
Afi Roshezry Abu Bakar ◽  
Muthualagan Thangavelu

The advancement of European dress to the rest of the world was linked to the definition of civilization as “a stage of social development considered to be more advanced” and “polite and good-mannered”. The widespread of their fashion style in the 19th and 20th centuries influenced the way the rest of the world attire. The fashion trend and dressing style thus change the purpose of dressing through time. The dressing style in campuses especially in private institutions of higher learning is under particular scrutiny, as it is often said to be inappropriate for a learning environment. This study looked at the importance of moral education, and its role in implementing the dress code for students among university students especially between two types of university i.e. public university and private university. It looked on the dressing style of students, both male and female, and the factors that lead to their dressing pattern which is common among students. This study also advocated the students’ understanding of the content of dress codes in their learning institution and the role played by moral education in regard to dress code. The overall study highlighted students’ perception towards the implementation of the dress code and punishment in their learning institution. The methodologies used to carry out this study are questionnaires and interviews. This study will therefore ascertain the important of dress code among students at higher learning institution and the role of moral education in cultivating values in order to dress properly or decently. Key Words: moral education, dress code, higher learning institution, civilization.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. A. Strelkova

The paper examines various approaches to the definition of the term «digital economy» in the scientific and business environment along with factors and forms of its development in different countries taking into account the specifics of the current stage of the Russian economy, which is a matter of particular importance in seeking new sources of the world economy growth. The subject of the research is opportunities and threats inherent in the process of digitalization of economies and their impact on the operation of international and national markets as well as the development of the world economy as a whole. The purpose of the paper was to analyze the practical experience in the formation and development of the digital economy in foreign countries and Russia and identify the changes it brings to the activities of state institutions and business structures, established rules of market exchange, the process of promotion and use of innovations. All the above made it possible to determine the country-level specifics of the digital economy evolution reveal the contradictory nature of its manifestations and justify the necessity for active participation of the state in stimulation and support of potentially promising digital innovations in various sectors of the economy. It is concluded that the level of the digital economy development depends on the real-sector performance, the maturity of markets, the state of the national economy. It is highlighted that the criteria for a comprehensive assessment of the results of the economy digitalization must be developed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document