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Rede Wageningen

The availability of digitised cultural heritage content held by archives and other memory institutions improves their visibility, facilitate and increases access to information, allowing new kinds of research of digital heritage, namely Digital Humanities. This study intends to report how Municipal Archives of mainland Portugal are ensuring access to their digitized cultural heritage content. For this purpose, an analysis was held to collect data about online catalogues with digital objects linked to the archival description in 278 Municipal Archives of mainland Portugal. The data revealed that the openness of the primary information sources preserved by the municipal archives, which can be reused by all those who need them and particularly by digital humanists, is still in infancy.

Nowadays, assessing geo-hazards in cultural heritage sites in most cases takes place after the hazard has occurred. Monitoring structural and ground deformation resulting from geo-hazards facilitates the early recognition of potential risks and encourages effective conservation planning. This paper presents an integrated ground deformation monitoring approach based on the combined use of satellite SAR data, campaign-based GPS/GNSS observations, and aerial images from UAVs within the Choirokoitia UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cyprus. The Neolithic settlement of Choirokoitia is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. The site is located on a steep hill, which makes it vulnerable to rock falls and landslides. As part of the PROTHEGO project, a series of field measurements were collected at the Choirokoitia site and compared against satellite SAR data to verify kinematic behavior of the broader area and to assist in monitoring potential geo-hazards over time. The results obtained indicate displacement rates of the order of 0.03 m/year. These results indicate that ground deformation should be monitored in the area surrounding the Choirokoitia using long-term, low-impact monitoring systems such as SAR images and UAV-based and geodetic techniques. The combination of such monitoring technologies can be compared to monitor and assess potential geo-hazards on archeological sites with increased accuracy.

Erosion of soils due to human activities such as deforestation, pastoralism, and agriculture is a problem that has been recognized since Antiquity. Greece, like much of the of the Mediterranean world, is particularly susceptible to soil loss due to the arid climate and steep, rocky terrain, and many previous studies have sought to date and attribute the aggradation of soil to human activity, climatic changes, or a combination of the two. This study uses near-shore sediment cores from Antikyra Bay in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece, to understand the sources and timing of erosional events in the study area of the Kastrouli–Antikyra Bay Land and Sea Project. Sedimentological analysis and radiocarbon dating of foraminifera and twigs show that there are two major periods of soil aggradation in this record: the first occurred in the Hellenistic and/or Roman period (ca. 1900 – 2100 BP), and the second starts in the Ottoman Period (ca. 350 BP) and persists until present day. In addition to documentation of soil aggradation, two paleo-shorelines were identified during the geophysical survey. A local relative sea level curve constructed for this study suggests the shallower of the two is between ~7.7 and 8.7 thousand years old, while the deeper feature formed around 8.9 to 9.7 thousand years ago.

In conformity with its objective of functioning as a local Government, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) sought the assistance of the World Bank for the preparation of a City Development Strategy (CDS) for Kathmandu. The various sectoral as well as integrated strategies presented in this document seem to be an overwhelming demand on KMC with its limited manpower and money. However, a CDS is essential if KMC is to focus its development potential. The optimism lies in political leadership, enabling environment and necessary support that will be rendered to KMC from civil society. The vision for Kathmandu stresses the need to develop the valley as administrative, cultural and tourism center. The strategy to move towards that vision through improvement in the overall situation of the KMC, however, is likely to be a long drawn struggle, yet achievable. The urban planning study strongly recommends that Kathmandu should be accorded special status as a capital city and large polluting and manufacturing industries should be discouraged immediately and if possible, re-location plans be drawn for existing industries in the near future. Alternatively, service and light industries should be promoted to replace the economic opportunities. Urban areas in KMC are not designated by a functional and occupational structure or contiguity criteria for managing housing and squatter settlements. Housing problems are a serious challenge in a situation where a historically planned city is fast transforming itself into a trade-cum-service center. On the other hand, it is encouraging to note that despite the absence of city specific policies and programs for housing, slums and squatters, the communities are highly organized and are gradually improving their conditions at their own costs, which show their potential for mobilization in participatory home improvement programs.

“Connected Worlds: the Caribbean, Origin of Modern World”. This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement Nº 823846. European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement Nº 823846 Peer reviewed

This dissertation will focus on several land use strategies utilized during the Late and Terminal Classic periods at the archaeological site of Actuncan, Belize (a Late Preclassic and Early Classic regional center), including terracing, water channeling, agricultural plots, and chich cobble mounds. Excavations in commoner settlement zone of the site exposed three terracing and water management system methods: 1) terraforming, in which earthen berms were created to facilitate water drainage, 2) low plastered walls utilized for water channeling, and 3) two small agricultural plot systems filled with a large amount of redeposited domestic trash. These features are representative of household-level land transformation, as well as localized land use based on microenvironments and specific social and political contexts. In addition, GIS flooding models indicate a number of linear cobble mounds to the east of the Actuncan site core, along the Mopan River floodplain, may have been used as a cacao orchard, thus creating an economic opportunity or tribute system that could have benefitted the entire community. Together, these systems reflect how the ancient Maya at Actuncan managed water and agricultural production based on site-level environmental knowledge, and the scale at which these technologies were administered. In addition, while the Late and Terminal Classic period was a time of elite loss of power at the site of Actuncan, the agricultural plot systems and chich cobble mounds created and utilized during these periods denote commoner endurance in the face of political turbulence.

Hlavním cílem této bakalářské práce je představit zámořská území Francie, jež jsou plně integrovanou součástí Francie a vystupují pod zkratkou DROM, objasnit jaký je jejich vztah k metropolitní Francii dle právních statusů a dále to, jaké jsou příčiny vedoucí ke vzniku těchto území, které mají původ v bývalé koloniální říši. V této práci je jedna část věnována historickému vývoji daných území od počátku kolonizace přes departmentalizaci až po současnost a v následujících kapitolách jsou představeny jednotlivá území tak, aby bylo jasné o jaké země se jedná, jaká je jejich poloha a jaké prostředí se na těchto místech nachází. Tato práce zkoumá jak jsou jednotlivá území zalidněna a o jaký typ obyvatelstva se jedná, čím tyto země prosperují, proč tomu tak je a jakým způsobem jsou tyto zámořské regiony spravovány metropolitní Francií. Katedra ruského a francouzského jazyka Obhájeno The main objective of this thesis is to introduce overseas territories of France, which are fully integrated part of France and use the abbreviation DROM, to clarify what is their relationship to metropolitan France in the legal status and what are the causes leading to these areas which have their origins in the former colonial empire.In this work, there is a section about the historical development of the area from early colonization through departmentation to the present and in the following chapters, each area is presented to be clear what kind of country it is, how they are located and which ambiance in these places is. This work examines how individual territory is peopled and what kind of inhabitants they are, how these countries prosper, why it is like that and how these regions are managed by metropolitan France.

Malawi sits amid a vibrant Travel and Tourism (T&T) region that is growing rapidly and increasing its world market share. Proximate to countries with thriving T&T sectors, Malawi has a relatively underdeveloped diversity of natural, cultural, and man-made attractions. It is challenged to embrace effective policies that will enable public and private sector alignment to achieve a viable niche as an economically productive, multi experience destination in its own right. It is important to view tourism as a national priority across sectors and ministries in Malawi. Thus, there is the need to better understand the economic potential of Malawi's T&T sector and recommend strategies to promote a level of competitiveness that leads to further economic growth, employment generation, and poverty reduction. The goal is to identify the economic potential of T&T in Malawi. The objective of T&T in Malawi is to delivering economic growth and diversification is to analyze the value of T&T in Malawi.

There are many environments on Earth that are so remote that they are inhospitable to humans and conventional sensing equipment. Yet, these environments can hold information of ecological and cultural significance that cannot be gathered anywhere else. Current methods of gathering information in these environments give an important window, but utilizing modern sensors to capture 3D information can allow us to interpret existing data and understand the environments in new and unique ways. This thesis will demonstrate how 3D capture can improve data collection and interpretation in three separate remote environments. First, I will show how Synthetic Aperture Sonar on autonomous underwater vehicles paired with optimized feature detectors can improve target detection and seafloor recognition. Next, I will show how RGBD cameras, photogrammetry, and LIDAR can be used in isolated Guatemalan archaeological excavations to visualize and contextualize ancient sites in relation to each other and to our broader understanding of Mayan history. Finally, I will demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of RGBD cameras for fish stock assessment through detection and length and biomass measurement in open waters and in aquaculture.