The Pacific Neighborhood Consortium will hold its 2011 Annual Conference and Joint Meetings at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand between October 19 and 21. This year's conference entitled "Managing Climate Change: From Science to Digital Humanities and Sustainability" aims to present useful experiences and solutions to deal with catastrophes resulting from hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and floods that may be related to climate change.

        Academia Sinica Vice Presidents Chao-Han Liu and Fan-Sen Wang will lead a group of Taiwan researchers to join the conference, which is expected to be attended by more than 100 specialists from more than 10 countries around the pacific area.

        This year's keynote speeches will be delivered by six speakers. On October 19, Academia Sinica Distinguished Research Fellow Ts'ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶) will present "Climate Changes and Water Resources in Taiwan History". On October 20, Dr. Zoran Vojinovic from UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands will present "Climate Change and Urban Flood Management"; and Dr. Shu-min Huang (黃樹民), Distinguished Research Fellow from the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, will present "Contemporary Adaptation among Taiwanese Austronesian People". On October 21, Dr. Meigen Zhang (張美根) from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, China will give a lecture entitled "Interdecadal Variability of East Asian Summer Monsoon and Precipitation"; Dr. Qingwen Min (閔慶文) from the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences, China will present "Traditional Agriculture: Adaptation to Climate Change"; and Dr. Jianya Gong (龔健雅) from State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing (LIESMARS), Wuhan University, China, will present "Cyber Infrastructure for Service-oriented Geospatial Science and Technology".

        Among the 21 sessions given over three days, speakers will present issues related to climate change ranging from Climate Changes Practices and Disaster Management to Humanity and Environmental History. The conference this year hopes to enhance the comprehension of historical adaptation efforts and at the same time explore nature preservation and culture heritage preservation.

In addition to climate change-related issues, this conference, as usual, will include topics related to digital archives, digital museums, e-learning, information technology and information sharing. Further, the workshop organized by the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative will provide a platform to discuss Maritime Buddhism in China, South Asia and East Asia. 

        The Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC) has been devoted to integrating global internet technology, digital humanities and e-Learning for 18 years. It was founded at the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. The mission of the PNC is to facilitate information exchange among institutions of higher education in the Pacific Rim through computing and communications technology. In 1997, PNC administrative operations were transferred to Academia Sinica. The Annual Conference has been held in the USA, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

        Related Websites:
        http://www.PNCLink.org
        http://www.pnclink.org/pnc2011/english/index.html