The Mexican Regional Development Science Association (AMECIDER) held its 18^th National Meeting in the City of Pachuca (approximately 75kms away from Mexico City), State of Hidalgo, on November 19^th- 22^nd, 2013. The general theme of the meeting was “Socio-territorial integration and development: towards alternative public policies”. The theme was disaggregated in 12 axial topics that structured the discussion in 45 sessions with selected papers. Altogether, 220 papers were presented, written by 360 authors and coauthors. Together with attendees from the general public, the Meeting had a total attendance of 460 registered participants.

Highlights of the Meeting were: (A) the participation of RSAI President, Dr. Jean-Claude Thill, who shared the Presidium and delivered the keynote speech at the opening session. Besides, he shared important suggestions and advice to AMECIDER members and authorities. His sound scholarship and kind presence were an important stimulus for AMECDER (it incidentally deserved a touching verse in a folksong during a dinner meeting!); (B) the Special Forum for Undergraduate Students on regional issues competing for the “Salvador Rodriguez Award” (in memory of the late AMECIDER President assaulted and killed to steal the Association’s money); (C) each day, besides the parallel sessions, there was one plenary session featuring outstanding national regional scientists addressing key issues of Mexican regions; (D) the event had the firm and highly valued support of the local co-organizer ‘El Colegio del Estado de Hidalgo’ (the Hidalgo State College for Graduate Studies); (E) a special four session forum on local regional issues was organized by the Colegio del Estado de Hidalgo and AMECIDER, gathering a significant and diverse audience; (F) finally, the meeting culminated with the General Assembly in which the election of the Executive Committee of AMECIDER for the period 2013-2016 took place, with Dr. Serena Eréndira Serrano Oswald as new AMECIDER President! Congratulations to her, the first woman AMECIDER-President, and our warmest welcome to the NEW EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS! 

Closing Ceremony

	Thematic Axe	Working Session

Local Support Team

Call for Abstracts is now open until 15 March 2014!

The first IALE-Europe Thematic Workshop will take place in 4-5 July 2014, in Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon. Oral presentations and posters are very much welcomed in each of the following topics:

Symposium 1 – Models and methods: What are the most recent methodological developments? What methods and tools are available? How to define categories for multiple purposes – linking social, economic and environmental processes? How much “simplification” is acceptable? How to best integrate different types of knowledge?

(Organization by Francisco Moreira & Emilio Padoa-Schioppa)

Symposium 2 – Data, variables and indicators: What is the availability of data that can support the selection of variables describing the landscape characteristics? How to derive indicators related with different processes? Are there novel ways of data collection, using technological development and using informal and alternative data sources? How to integrate scale?

(Organization by Sónia Carvalho Ribeiro & Carlos Guerra)

Symposium 3 – Case studies across scales: What is experience is out there? Are we supporting a better policy practice? Can best practices be identified? How satisfyingly do they meet policy needs? Are there recommendations that can be formulated on how to progress?

(Organization by Jorge Gonçalves & Veerle van Eetvelde )

More information at: http://ialeworkshop2014.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/

The December 2013 of the newsletter of the North American Regional Science Council is now available -
http://www.narsc.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NARSCNewsDecember2013.pdf.

The newsletter is posted under the News and Announcement section of the NARSC website - 
http://www.narsc.org/newsite/?page_id=417.

Neil Reid, Ph.D.
NARSC Executive Director

The Regional Science Association International (RSAI) and the International Geographical Union Commission on the Dynamics of Economic Spaces would like to invite you to attend a conference on the theme of “Globalisation and New Patterns of Services Sector Driven Growth” to be held in Amsterdam, June 19-20, 2014. The deadline for abstract submissions is January 31, 2014.

More information about the conference can be found at http://uac.utoledo.edu/igu_commission/pdfs/2014-UvA-RSAI.pdf

Dear Sir, Madam, Friends, Students, Scholars

I am glad to inform you that Department of Geography, Bankura Christian College (NAAC accredited A+ College & Potential for Excellency) is going to publish Edited Volume in this year on "People, Environment and Management: A Developmental Perspective". (see call - pdf)

On behalf of our department I welcome you all to contribute your research paper(s) in the volume. The book will be published with ISBN number.

Last date of sending the manuscript: 31st January, 2014

Page Limit:     15 pages with maps, tables, charts

Way of contribution: Via mail. 

Regards

Dr. SOMNATH MUKHERJEE
Assistant Professor of Geography,
Bankura Christian College,
Bankura-722101
Mobile: 09932244817

Address of Correspondence
Dr. Somnath Mukherjee,
S/O Sri Jiten Mukherjee,
Bans Bungalow,
Ranchi Road,
Ward No: 3
Post & District: Purulia
Pin: 723101
Mobile: 9932244817

FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT TO LITTORAL 2014
Facing present and future coastal challenges

Dear Colleague,

On behalf of the Littoral Conference Organizing Committee we cordially invite you to a traditional, 12th coastal conference Littoral 2014 which is organized jointly by Coastal Research & Planning Institute of Klaipeda University Marine Science & Technology Centre, Lithuania and the Baltic States Office of EUCC – Coastal and Marine Union, Lithuania.

The conference will take place on September 22 to 26, 2014 in Klaipeda, Lithuania.

Conference is dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the EUCC Baltic States Office. The participants will get an opportunity to share the results and ideas from their activities in coastal research, conservation and management, and experience the impressive diversity of the southeast Baltic Sea coast.

Littoral 2014 will address a wide range of coastal research, conservation and management issues and focus on networking of coastal researchers and practitioners from all over Europe.

The priority themes of the conference are:
 Integrated Coastal Management – case studies and experiences
 GIS & marine spatial planning
 Coastal and marine nature conservation
 River basin - coast interactions
 Coastal dune management
 Green coastal tourism
 Coastal climate change adaptation
 Coastal management and aquaculture
 Coastal fisheries management
 Coastal lagoon management

Venue:

Conference complex Aula Magna of Klaipeda University
H. Manto str. 84
LT 92294 Klaipeda
Lithuania

Important dates:
January 10, 2014: First announcement, opening of the Congress website.
February 1, 2014: Second announcement with Call for abstracts.
March 31, 2014: Early registration deadline.
April 30, 2014: Abstract submission deadline.
May 10, 2014: Notification about presentations/posters acceptation.
June 10, 2014: Preliminary program announcement.
June 30, 2014: Registration (including registration fee payment) deadline.
July 15, 2014: Final program publication.

Further information about Littoral 2014 is available at the conference website
http://balticlagoons.net/littoral2014/.

Sincerely,
Prof. dr. Artūras Razinkovas-Baziukas
Chair of the Council of Marine Science & Technology Center
Priv.-Doz. Dr. habil. Gerald Schernewski
Acting President of Coastal & Marine Union - EUCC
Prof. dr. Ramūnas Povilanskas
Director of Coastal & Marine Union - EUCC Baltic States Office

Dear Researcher,

we are a group of researchers and PhD students from Technical University of Bari and University of Naples Federico II (Italy). We kindly invite you to participate in the third edition of the workshop on “Econometrics and Multidimensional Evaluation in Urban Environment” in conjunction with “The 2014 International Conference on Computational Science and its Applications”. We hope this conference will be an opportunity for discussion and debate on the topics proposed, promoting the participation of the youngest researchers.

For more information, you can find the call for papers in the following and visit the website http://uninacalzabini.altervista.org/emeue-2014.html.

In case of questions, please contact the organizing committee at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We look forward to hearing from you

Kind regards

Raffaele Attardi

On behalf of the scientific committee.

Description

Several urban policies stress the role of evaluation, as support of sustainable urban development/preservation/transformation plans and programs, moving into a novel conceptual framework that integrate economic, ecological and social dimension in spatial planning. Moreover in the last decades ICT are improving multidimensional evaluation processes in spatial planning, using the web as a powerful mean to spread and gather information, and to increase democracy and participation in/through multi-actor and multi-group assessment processes. In this perspective, the scientific effort is related to the identification of appropriate procedure to address the deliberative structure. In fact, through organizing and facilitating communication, it is possible to build consensus among various decision-makers and interest groups and generate compromise and solutions that best represent the preferences of all the ones involved in the spatial decision-making process.

Several novel researches in this field of investigation consider ‘adaptive approaches’ that try to expand the information and knowledge base underpinning policies, in order to achieve better outcomes, to cultivate broad civic engagement and, consequently, to enhance the political legitimacy of – and hence the public commitment to – policy actions. An evaluative framework for adaptive processes can be developed by considering some important approaches from ecological resilience, livelihood, consensus building, and collaborative processes defining the approach of ‘adaptive evaluation’.

The ultimate goal of the workshop is to enlighten the hot-topics and the fresh-new experimentations and ideas in multicriteria, collaborative, adaptive decision-making, multidimensional appraisal and econometrics, supported by spatial data infrastructures and ICT. These approaches are spread in many scientific fields, from the traditional spatial urban economics, to the real estate economics and to the newest bio-econometrics. The main topics of the workshop are related - and not limited - to multidimensional approaches in urban economics, from the econometric approach to qualitative evaluation; new analytical and empirical approaches, hard and soft fuzzy multicriteria analysis, multidimensional computing, bio-econometrics, spatial econometrics, MCDM in environmental, cultural and urban economics.

The programme committee especially requests high quality submissions on the following (but not limited to) Conference Themes:

• Social Multicriteria Evaluation
• Fuzzy Multicriteria Evaluation
• Hybrid Multicriteria decision-making
• AHP and ANP innovative experience
• Geostatistics
• Real estate modeling
• Urban economics
• Real Estate Mass appraisal
• Multicriteria decision-making and Gis-supported MCDM
• MCDA methods with GIS and Web for collaborative decision-making
• Multi-method evaluation systems
• Econometrics, Spatial econometrics, Bioeconometrics

Each paper will be independently reviewed by three programme committee members.

Their individual scores will be evaluated by a small sub-committee and result in one of the following final decisions: accepted, or accepted after incorporation of improvements suggested, or rejected. Notification of this decision will take place on March 2014.

Individuals and groups should submit complete papers (10 to 16 pages).

Accepted contributions will be published in the Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) volume.

Link to the conference website

http://uninacalzabini.altervista.org/emeue-2014.html

Authors Guideline

Please adhere strictly to the formatting provided in the template to prepare your paper and refrain from modifying it.

The submitted paper must be camera-ready and formatted according to the rules of LNCS. For formatting information, see the publisher’s web site:

http://www.iccsa.org/authors-instructions

Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper.

Submission

Papers should be submitted at: http://ess.iccsa.org/

Please, don’t forget to select “Econometrics and Multidimensional Evaluation in Urban Environment 14” workshop from the drop-down list of all workshops.

Proceedings

Papers accepted to “Econometrics and Multidimensional Evaluation in Urban Environment 14” will be published in the ICCSA Conference proceedings, in Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series, with doi, indexed by WOS, Scopus and DBLP.

Participants to “Econometrics and Multidimensional Evaluation in Urban Environment 14” will be invited to submit an extended version of their paper for special issues on International Journals and books.

Important dates

28 February 2014: Deadline for full paper submission

10 April 2014: Notification of acceptance

6 May 2014: Deadline for Camera Ready Papers

June 30-July 3, 2014: ICCSA 2014 Conference

International Conference on

Small Societies-Small Business-Small Cities & Villages,

25-26 August 2014, Sardinia, Akarnania, Greece

Call for Papers and Participation 

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) is organizing an International Conference on Small Societies-Small Business-Small Cities & Villages in the Greek village of Sardinia, Akarnania, Greece on the 25-26 August 2014. The conference is organized in collaboration with the Institute of Local Development-TAP based in the village of Sardinia. The village is located in central-western Greece very close to LefkadaIsland and the international airport of Preveza-Action National Airport (Airport Code: PVK). There are many flights from main European cities, usually Saturday and Sunday (click here for details). The distance from Preveza-Aktion Airport to the village is 50 kilometres, about 45 minutes by taxi. Alternatively, you can come from Athens (about 4 hours drive). Free bus transportation will be provided to all participants from Athens on specific dates and times of departure and return.

The purpose of the conference is to bring together a small number of international academics and researchers from a cross disciplinary perspective such as Local, Regional, Rural and Community Studies, Political Science, Public Administration and Policy Analysis, Sociology, Geography, Health, Tourism, Fitness, Sports and Educational Studies, Literature, Economics and Business (Small and Family Enterprises), Marketing Small Cities, Local and Regional Development, Architecture and Planning, and Natural Resources, Comparative Studies between Small and Large Cities, Small Towns in Literature and Movies, Public Health etc.  The conference website is:http://www.atiner.gr/small.htm.

The cost of participating is 300 Euro, which includes up to 4 nights of accommodation in a local hotel with breakfast (free stay for one accompanying person in the same room with breakfast), two lunches, an educational and cultural Greek night of traditional music entertainment with dinner, a tour of the area which includes the island of Lefkada with dinner (Tuesday afternoon). Accompanying persons pay no fee but they pay the cost of the activities they want to participate.

Please submit a 300-word abstract before 15 January 2014, by email, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., to Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER & Honorary Professor, University of Stirling, U.K.  Please include: Title of Paper, Full Name (s), Current Position, Institutional Affiliation, an email address and at least 3 keywords that best describe the subject of your submission. Decisions will be reached within four weeks of your submission. Please use the abstract submitting form available at http://www.atiner.gr/2014/FORM-SMC.doc. If your submission is accepted, you will receive information on registration deadlines and paper submission requirements. Should you wish to participate in the Conference without presenting a paper, for example, to chair a session, to evaluate papers which are to be included in the conference proceedings or books, to contribute to the editing of a book, or any other contribution, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) was established in 1995 as an independent academic association with the mission to become a forum, where academics and researchers - from all over the world - could meet in Athens to exchange ideas on their research and to discuss future developments in their disciplines. Since 1995, ATINER has organized more than 200 international conferences, symposiums and events. It has also published approximately 150 books. Academically, the Institute consists of six Research Divisions and twenty-seven Research Units. Each Research Unit organizes an annual conference and undertakes various small and large research projects. Academics and researchers are more than welcome to become members and contribute to ATINER's objectives. The members of the Institute can undertake a number of academic activities. If you want to become a member, please download the form (membership form). For more information or suggestions, please send an email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..                           

Currently, ATINER is upgrading its system of mailing list. Please let us know if you want to receive emails from us. Typically, we will not send you more than 5 email alerts per year.

Call for Papers and Special Session Proposals

It is our pleasure to announce the 20th APDR Congress, to be held at the University of Évora, Portugal, from July 10 to July 11, 2014. 

Theme of the Conference:

Renaissance of the Regions of Southern Europe

The 20th APDR Congress has the main theme of Renaissance of the Regions of Southern Europe. In the recent years, the southern Europe countries experienced, particularly aggravated, the economic crisis that affected much of the western world. This crisis has thus helped to exacerbate the existing inequalities between the North and South of Europe. After several decades away from levels of development and economic growth recorded elsewhere and the considerable efforts in terms of regional development policies, the southern regions of Europe need to find your way. Thus, this Congress will seek to answer the following questions: What conditions are necessary for the economic revival of southern Europe? What is wrong in regional development policies pursued so far? How can countries of southern Europe to improve their levels of development? The boundary between Europe and the Mediterranean is a threat or an opportunity? How can Southern Europe take advantage of the connection to the South Atlantic?

The 2014 APDR Congress will work through plenary sessions, conferences and round tables, workshops and parallel sessions.  Parallel sessions will include: i) abstracts submitted to Regular Sessions (RS), proposed by the organization; and ii) abstracts submitted to Special Sessions (SS), proposed by participants and discussion topics included in workshops proposed by the participants.

The call for papers and Special Session Proposals is open and your participation is very welcome!

Themes of specific interest are:

· Renaissance of the Regions of the Southern Europe

· Urban and Regional Economics

· Regional and Local Development Policies

· Financing of Economic Growth

· Spatial Dimensions of the Crisis of the State

· Regional and Local Public Finance

· Sectoral Policies and Regional Dynamics

· Infrastructure and Regional Development

· Labour Markets and Development

· Tourism and Sustainable Development

· Education, Innovation and Territory

· Rural Development and Agrarian Economy

· Modelling in Regional Economy

· Spatial Econometrics

· Regional and Urban Planning

· Economics of Environmental and Natural Resources 

Deadline for Abstracts submissions: March 20^th, 2014. Abstracts should be submitted electronically, using the platform available on the Conference website: https://events.digitalpapers.org/apdr2014/

Deadline for Special Session proposals should be sent by February 10th, 2014 to the secretariat of the Congress at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

All information at the congress website: http://www.apdr.pt/congresso/2014/

Looking forward to meeting you in Évora!

Maria Conceição Rego

Chair of the Local Organizing Committee

20th APDR Congress

January 8, 2014

Geographical Analysis Editorship

I am pleased to inform the community that Serge Rey has accepted the position of Editor of Geographical Analysis, effective July 1, 2014. Serge is Professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University. His editorship is also supported by the GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation. Serge brings a wealth of experience in editorial endeavors, and the Executive Board enthusiastically endorses his selection. His first issue will come out in January 2015.

The journal, under the capable leadership of Dan Griffith, is in great shape and is set to embark on a number of exciting developments to coincide with the editorial transition. Dan will continue to manage papers through the end of June, and starting July 1 the journal will move to an on-line manuscript submission system, with a technology platform from Wiley; more on this in due course.

Also, as of 2015, the journal will adapt to the ever-changing world of academic journals, by going to an on-line format. This is in keeping with major trends in the industry, and will make it easier for Libraries to manage and distribute the journal’s contents.

We have also arranged, with Wiley, to provide subscriptions to members of RSAI and a reciprocal courtesy will be extended to our readers. GA individual subscribers will be granted free digital access to PiRS and RSPP, while RSAI members will enjoy the benefit of digital access to GA.

Again, I want to thank Dan Griffith and Yongwan Chun, at UT Dallas, and all the current Associate Editors and Editorial Board members for their continued loyalty and support to the journal.  The Department of Geography at Ohio State is proud of its association with Geographical Analysis, and looks forward to publishing great papers in the coming years.

Please join me in welcoming Serge to the Editorship.

Morton O’Kelly

Chair, GA Exec Committee