Geographical distance

Harrington (1999) proposes that technology will have a part to play in enabling mentoring relationships under otherwise difficult environmental factors, such as large geographical distances between mentor and mentee. The terms online and e-mentoring are still ill defined and therefore quite variable in... 

Developers of expert systems for the EPA must recognize important Agency considerations, such as the varying nature of the problems addressed, a staff with diverse experience, decentralization of tasks, computer resource constraints, geographical distance, and high personnel turnover. 

In physical markets, geographical distance and political boundaries hinder the free movement of goods and people. Similarly, closed proprietary networks separate virtual markets artificially by establishing barriers to interoperability. This is equivalent to having a railway system with different track widths so that several sets of identical rail cars must be maintained and passengers must be transferred at all exchange points. 

Fig. 8.4. Overcoming geographical distance in an image workflow (connecting left and middle sites) is much easier than overcoming organizational distance in which images are exchanged between independent organizations (middle and right sites)...

Although so far we stressed geographical distance, this is often the lesser problem. Instead, A distinguishing aspect in most telematics projects, is that cooperation extends outside the own organization. 

This organizational distance typically is more difficult to overcome than geographical distance. 

In other micrometazoans, either an isolation-by-distance pattern has not been tested or insignificant genetic differences have been found when correlated with geographic distances (for a more detailed analysis of this processes, refer to Chapter 16). 

Ramachandran, S., Deshpande, O., Roseman, C. et al. (2005). Support from the relationship of genetic and geographic distance in human populations for a serial founder effect originating in Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 102, 15942-15947. 

As for evacuation on foot, it is generally thought that the evacuation speed is not affected by road conditions. Therefore, the best evacuation route is the shortest path of actual geographical distance. The evacuation time can be calculated according to the path and average walking speed. In view of related research (Revi A, Singh AK, 2005), in flat area, the evacuation speed on foot is 5 km/h with the old person 4 km/h and child 2 km/h. 

The seafarers experience of a profound distance -propelled by the nature of their work situation and a geographic distance - may give rise to a notion of an us vs. them Mentality. With this in mind, it should be feasible to understand the origin of local and deviating work practices. Seen from this angle, the vessel can be portrayed as a self-contained work community, manned by skilled professionals that know best how to run and operate their ship. According to the seafarers, members of the onshore staff are not on board and are therefore not able to obtain hands-on experience and knowledge for how to solve the variety of daily work task on board. 

Here, we emphasize that trust not only becomes a condition for communication (as communication is a condition for trust), but also becomes part of a mutual understanding (shared situational awareness). Despite the geographical distance, a shared imderstanding emerges through frequent communication at formal and informal arenas. 

As always many people were involved in the preparation and running of the Symposium. We are particularly grateful to the members of the Scientific Committee who at all stages during the preparation of the conference, maintained a very close rapport, in spite of the large geographical distances between them. 

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