Exploring historical, social and natural heritage: challenges for tangible interaction design at Sheffied General Cemetery

This paper presents current research on the design, deployment and evaluation of tangible interaction concepts for an outdoor heritage space, the Sheffield General Cemetery. The Cemetery is an area of historical and natural importance managed and maintained by a community group. Following a co-design approach, we have conducted a series of activities at the Cemetery with the goal of developing novel physical/digital installations to support visitor experiences at the site. In this paper, we describe our work so far, particularly focusing on the “Companion Novel” – a fully operational prototype installation we have evaluated on and off site. We reflect on the challenges posed by such a complex site when developing novel tangible interactions for heritage interpretation

Environmental costs of natural resource commodities : magnitude and incidence

The carrying capacity of our natural environment is an important unpriced input to production. A consensus is growing that users should pay for the environmental damage that they cause. Although most people can accept this policy in principle, many are concerned with magnitude and incidence of its associated costs and the disruptions that would be created during a transition period. Of particular concern is the burden that might be placed on the economics of developing countries. When the industrial world was developing, it was able to benefit from cheap natural-resource commodities. It is fair to expect countries that are trying to imitate this pattern to pay more? Unfortunately there are not reliable estimates of the effects of environmental protection costs on production, consumption, revenues, and foreign exchange. The author explores these issues for the energy and nonfuel-mineral markets, sectors responsible for much of the current industrial pollution. Using a model, the author, examines the consequences of the developing world adopting the environmental standards of the industrialized world. The author assumes: all producers incur clean-up costs; most adjustment is made through changes in prices and quantities, not through altered trade patterns; and the industrialized world increases its environmental expenditures by the same fraction as the developing world. The author finds that increased revenue resources will more than compensate the average developing country for the costs of pollution control, so no assistance or intervention would be required. This assumes, however, that capital markets are perfect, which is far from the case in many developing countries. These imperfections constitute the greatest obstacle to successful environmental regulation. Loans of subsidies from North to South should be considered. Developing country producers should be given access to credit dollars, prices of imported pollution-abatement equipment could be reduced, or aid could be tied to the installation and maintenance of environmental capital. The author finds that environmental protection costs are small. Compliance costs of roughly three percent of product prices lead to changes in export revenues of less than one percent. The principal reason for this result is that mineral commodity demand and supply are inelastic in the long run. As for the incidence of environmental costs, an environmental"tax"is on average progressive, because low-income countries are typically net exporters of mineral commodities, where as high-income countries are net importers.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Energy and Environment,Health Economics&Finance,Consumption

Exploring historical, social and natural heritage: challenges for tangible interaction design at Sheffield General Cemetery

This paper presents current research on the design, deployment and evaluation of tangible interaction concepts for an outdoor heritage space, the Sheffield General Cemetery. The Cemetery is an area of historical and natural importance managed and maintained by a community group. Following a co-design approach, we have conducted a series of activities at the Cemetery with the goal of developing novel physical/digital installations to support visitor experiences at the site. In this paper, we describe our work so far, particularly focusing on the “Companion Novel” – a fully operational prototype installation we have evaluated on and off site. We reflect on the challenges posed by such a complex site when developing novel tangible interactions for heritage interpretation

Ecological and economical aspects of solar energy use

The natural environment is devastated by the industry and by households, which use fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas for heating water and buildings as well as for generating electricity. One of the ways to limit the degradation of the environment and the usage of natural resources is to use unconventional and renewable resources and to implement energy-saving technologies in construction, industry and households. A dynamic development of systems based on renewable energy sources such as biomass, water, wind, heat from inside the Earth and sunbeams has recently occurred in the whole world. This thesis is related to the purest and the least onerous for environment source of energy which is undoubtedly the energy that comes directly from the solar radiation. In this article the solar energy application is presented, taking into account its impact on the environment and financial costs of developing solar techniques. The installation of alternative energy sources are entitled to grants and credits, which reduces the investment costs. Ecological effects, although immeasurable, are significant and definitely testify in favor of the solar system

A GIS-based methodological framework to identify superficial water sources and their corresponding conduction paths for gravity-driven irrigation systems in developing countries

The limited availability of fresh water is a major constraint to agricultural productivity and livelihood security in many developing countries. Within the coming decades, smallholder farmers in drought-prone areas are expected to be increasingly confronted with local water scarcity problems, but their access to technological knowledge and financial resources to cope with these problems is often limited. In this article, we present a methodological framework that allows for identifying, in a short period of time, suitable and superficial water sources, and cost-effective water transportation routes for the provisioning of gravity-driven irrigation systems. As an implementation of the framework, we present the automated and extensible geospatial toolset named “AGRI’’, and elaborate a case study in Western Honduras, where the methodology and toolset were applied to provide assistance to field technicians in the process of identifying water intake sites and transportation routes. The case study results show that 28 % of the water intake sites previously identified by technicians (without the support of AGRI) were found to be not feasible for gravity-driven irrigation. On the other hand, for the feasible water intake sites, AGRI was able to provide viable and shorter water transportation routes to farms in 70 % of the cases. Furthermore, AGRI was able to provide alternative feasible water intake sites for all considered farms, with correspondingly viable water transportation routes for 74 % of them. These results demonstrate AGRI’s potential to reduce time, costs and risk of failure associated with the development of low-cost irrigation systems, which becomes increasingly needed to support the livelihoods of some of the world’s most vulnerable populations

Towards an Ecosophical Praxis of New Media

We live under the enduring shadow of ecological crisis. Contemporary theorists have suggested that this ‘problem of ecology’ indicates a more general crisis of human subjectivity. Having observed much new media art praxis operates largely without awareness of the ecological implications of those practices I began developing new processes for conceptualising and developing media art works which I termed ‘Ecosophical’. My objective was to discover whether such works could be used to create contexts within which participants might reflect upon connections between the ‘problem of ecology’ and the proposed problem of human subjectivity

Dynamic mapping strategies for interactive art installations: an embodied combined HCI HRI HHI approach

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for dealing with the paradigm of interactivity in new media art, and how the broad use of the term in different research fields can lead to some misunderstandings. The paper addresses a conceptual view on how we can implement interaction in new media art from an embodied approach that unites views from HCI, HRI and HHI. The focus is on an intuitive mapping of a multitude of sensor data and to extend upon this using the paradigm of (1) finite state machines (FSM) to address dynamic mapping strategies, (2) mediality to address aisthesis and (3) embodiment to address valid mapping strategies originated from natural body movements. The theory put forward is illustrated by a case study

BUDIDAYA IKAN AIR TAWAR DI LAHAN KERING DESA CAMPLONG II KECAMATAN FATULEU KABUPATEN KUPANG, NTT

Increasing the economy of rural communities is a process of improving an economic effort to meet the needs of life through an empowerment system form that meets human needs by utilizing surrounding natural resources. Natural resources owned by rural communities are the potential to be developed to improve the economy of the village community. If freshwater aquaculture is well developed and managed properly, it will bring beneficial results in line with the increase in fulfillment of public’ requirements. The purpose of community service program activities in Camplong II Village, Fatuleu District, Kupang Regency was community empowerment through freshwater aquaculture using the pond method. The people of Camplong II village have limited access to obtaining fresh fish products as its location is around 45-50 km from Kupang city which is known for its fresh sea products. Thus, the activities implemented were training on the installation of a square pond, providing 500 fish seeds and fish feed for 2 periods, mentoring and monitoring the maintenance of this pond, and developing human resources. The results obtained: installation of several fish pond with a diameter of 3 meters and a height of 4.0 m, an increase in community knowledge and skills, an early fish harvest stocked from this period which can improve the welfare of the community in Camplong II Village, Kupang Regency. From the results obtained there is potential in the form of land, water sources, and facilities that can be empowered to increase fish water farming production

UC Berkeley's Cory Hall: Evaluation of Challenges and Potential Applications of Building-to-Grid Implementation

From September 2009 through June 2010, a team of researchers developed, installed, and tested instrumentation on the energy flows in Cory Hall on the UC Berkeley campus to create a Building-to-Grid testbed. The UC Berkeley team was headed by Professor David Culler, and assisted by members from EnerNex, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California State University Sacramento, and the California Institute for Energy & Environment. While the Berkeley team mapped the load tree of the building, EnerNex researched types of meters, submeters, monitors, and sensors to be used (Task 1). Next the UC Berkeley team analyzed building needs and designed the network of metering components and data storage/visualization software (Task 2). After meeting with vendors in January, the UCB team procured and installed the components starting in late March (Task 3). Next, the UCB team tested and demonstrated the system (Task 4). Meanwhile, the CSUS team documented the methodology and steps necessary to implement a testbed (Task 5) and Harold Galicer developed a roadmap for the CSUS Smart Grid Center with results from the testbed (Task 5a) and evaluated the Cory Hall implementation process (Task 5b). The CSUS team also worked with local utilities to develop an approach to the energy information communication link between buildings and the utility (Task 6). The UC Berkeley team then prepared a roadmap to outline necessary technology development for Building-to-Grid, and presented the results of the project in early July (Task 7). Finally, CIEE evaluated the implementation, noting challenges and potential applications of Building-to-Grid (Task 8). These deliverables are available at the i4Energy site: http://i4energy.org/