The latest South African Journal of Geomatics

South African Journal of Geomatics has just published its latest issue and you are invited to review visit their web site to review articles and items of interest.

Articles

Evaluating an animated and static time series map of District Six:  A visual cognitive approach (189-197)
 - Nurudien Dawood, Siddique Motala

Participartory Web GIS:  The Case of Theewaterskloof Dam
- Kevin Musungu, Dorette Jacobs

The Management of Scarce Water Resources using GNSS, InSAR and In-Situ Micro Gravity Measurements as Monitoring Tools (213 - 223)
- Richard Wonnacott, Chris Hartnady, Jeanine Engelbrecht

Spatial Statistical Analysis of Dissatisfaction with the Performance of Local Government in the Gauteng City-Region, South Africa (224 - 239)
 - Koech Cheruiyot, Chris Wray, Samy Katumba

A comparison of the proportional composition of programs in geo(info)matics/ GIS&T at three universities in Europe, Africa and America respectively(240 - 249)
 - Paddington Hodza, Gertrud Schaab, Serena Coetzee, Fritz van der Merwe, Brandon Vogt

Improving the potential of pixel-based supervised classification in the absence of quality ground truth data (250 - 263)
- Erika Pretorius, Rudi Pretorius

Functional Classification of the Gauteng provincial road network using the South African Road Classification and Access Management Manual (TRH26) (264- 272)
- Pryaska Veramoothea, Andre' Breytenbach, Ethel Baloyi

Geospatial Subsidence Hazard Modelling at Sterkfontein Caves (273 - 284)
- Hamid Ashraf, Frederick Cawood

Exploring the Potential for Geographical Knowledge Systems in upgrading Informal Settlements in Cape Town (285 - 298)
- Bosiu Edward Lefulebe, Kevin Musungu, Siddique Motala

Preliminary investigation into the cause and impact of acid mine water-induced seismicity in Johannesburg (299 - 308)
- Izak du Plessis, Keagen Liebenberg, Ansie Smit, Serena Coetzee, Andrzej Kijko

Fire scar mapping for disaster response in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa using Landsat 8 imagery (309 - 316)
- Zakariyyaa Oumar

Towards a New way of Measuring Service Delivery in Gauteng: Calculating a Fortante Index (317 - 325)
- Peter Schmitz, Sanet Eksteen, Stefan de Bruin

Clarifying requirements for setting up a national observatory in support ofevidence-based planning in South Africa (326 - 338)
- Serena Coetzee, Julian Smit

Enhancing the online discovery of geospatial data through taxonomy, folksonomy and semantic annotations (339 - 350)
- Samy Katumba, Serena Coetzee

Data Collections

According to Wikipedia, Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information on variables of interest, in an established systematic fashion that enables one to answer stated research questions, test hypotheses, and evaluate outcomes.

However, there are thousands of powerful datasets available online from research institutions, free of charge; moreover, in the age of the web and social media, data pulled from social networks or your own web traffic can generate extraordinary insights about your reach.

Code for South Africa  believe that data is not just for personal use.  Data should be shareable, mash-able, available for commercial use. Their goal is to promote the release of data under an open data licence to make it available to everyone who wants it.  They have datasets for almost anything you can think of! 

For example, if you think your local pharmacy is overcharging you, check  what your medicine should cost. 

Want to know the Police statistics per police station for 29 different crime categories? This dataset includes data from 2005 - 2014, and is based on the data released by SAPS

Use their Data Portal  to browse and search their various datasets.

The danger of counter offers

Your employer offers an increase in salary to counter an offer made by a competing firm. Many employees will entertain, and a few will accept the counter-offer. Those that accept a counter-offer often do so because they will not have to address the emotions of leaving their "comfort zone" (current employer), and entering into the unknown of joining a new company.  But, what are the dangers of accepting a counter-offer? 


Before you decide to accept your employers counter-offer, consider the following:

ABC's of Hiring #14 BEWARE THE DANGERS OF COUNTEROFFERS

Receive A Job Counter-Offer? Don't Take It

Statistics show that those employees who accept a counter-offer are no longer with the same company six months later.  Accepting a counter-offer can influence the decision of a future employer from making you an offer to join their company. In effect, you may have "blackballed" yourself.

Remember the reasons you had for making a career change. Sure, part of it may be compensation. However, there were probably other motivating factors such as, upward mobility, challenge, geographic location, and so on.

Once you have made the decision to make a change in your career path, make a plan, follow your plan, and stick to it. Don't allow yourself to be "futured" into staying with your current employer. It is not worth the risk.