Main Menu Map

The Main Menu Map is the first thing that appears after starting and loading the International Futures program. The Main Menu Map is a world map that allows the user to easily access a range of information related to the countries tracked by IFs. The user is also able to adjust the view of the Main Menu Map by right-clicking, which allows the user to zoom in or out, re-center the map, and reset to the original view.

The user can view the information on any of the countries for which the IFs program has data by simply left-clicking on the desired country, which causes a small dialogue box to appear with options from which the user can select. This section outlines the functions performed by the multiple options, with links to the topic pages for each of the options in case the user wants a more in-depth discussion of how to use the options.

The first option in the dialogue box is Country Profile, an option unique to the Main Menu Map. After clicking this option, a new dialogue box opens which displays a map of the selected country followed by a list of various facts in bold and forecasted values in blue, both organized into several categories: Population, Health, Education, Social, Economic, Energy, Environment, Political-International and Political-Domestic. See Issues and Modules for more information on these categories. Clicking on a blue value causes a table to appear that displays both historical and forecasted data. Click on table to learn how to use this feature. Note, however, that Country Profile is listed as a display package in Flex Packaged Display.

The next option in the dialog box is Basic Report for Countries/Regions or Groupings. This option displays similar forecasted data as the country profile, but allows the user to adjust the forecasted data by running alternate scenarios. Click on Basic Report to learn how to use this feature in greater depth.

Most of the remaining options can be also found under the Specialized Display option, which is located on the Display Menu.

The next option is Cohorts of Population. This option shows the distribution of the total population for a given country across age groups and divided between genders.

The next option is Cohorts of Education. The diagram displays the distribution of levels of completed education from none to tertiary across age groups and separated by gender. Click on Cohorts of Education to learn more about using the features along the top of the screen.

Next on the list is Cohorts of World Values Survey (WVS). The WVS displays three different value orientations: Material vs. Postmaterial (MATPOSTR), Survival vs. Self-expression (SURVSE), and Traditionalist vs. Secular-Rationalist (TRADSRAT). The user can advance and regress years using functions at the top of the screen. The user can also change countries in the left-hand option box.

The next option is Mortality by Age, Sex, and Cause. This option displays number of deaths per 1000 people due to injury, non-communicable disease, and communicable disease.

The next option is Morbidity by Age, Sex, and Cause. The use of this feature is similar to that of Mortality by Age, Sex, and Cause, albeit with less features. Cohorts of Morbidity deals with the number of years of life lost due to disabilities stemming from injury, communicable diseases, and non-communicable diseases.

The next option is Development Profile. The purpose of the Development Profile display feature is to track how Human Capital, Social Capital, Physical Capital and Knowledge contribute to the annual growth of a country/region or a group.

The next option is Financial Profile. This option displays domestic and international financial information for a given country or region in absolute numbers and as percentages of GDP and of exports.

The next option is the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). SAM is an input-output table of various stocks and flows among actor-classes in a given economy of a country or region.

The next option is the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This option allows the user to track the progress made towards meeting the MDGs, and to experiment with what is necessary for those goals to be met.

The next option is World Bank Financial Flows. This option allows the user to view the annual flows from and to the bank, the cumulative position of the country/region or group, and the flow of World Bank funds to various sectors.

The next option is the Advanced Sustainability Analysis. This option displays the relationships between material inputs, such as fossil fuels, flowing into human systems and emission from these systems, and the size of GDP, population, and the labor force.

The next option is Evaluate Priorities. This feature allows the user to set numerical weights to the categories, subcategories, and variables, in order to evaluate which of them most heavily affects the output of the model.

The last option is Infrastructure Profile. This option displays the value of the categories of water and sanitation, transportation, energy, information communication technology, and knowledge systems that collectively represent the level of development of the infrastructure for a country/region or group.