Sustainable urban development in practice:the SAVE concept

The need for sustainable development of the urban environment presents the research community with a number of challenges and opportunities. A considerable volume of research has been undertaken into the constituent parts of this complex problem and a number of tool kits and methodologies have been developed to enable and encourage the application of specific aspects of research in practice. However, there is limited evidence of the holistic integration of the body of knowledge arising from the research within real-life decision-making practices. In this paper we present an overview of the existing body of knowledge relating to sustainable development of the urban environment and propose a generic framework for its integration within current practices. This framework recognises the need to: understand social, economic, and environmental issues; understand the decision-making processes; provide a means of measurement, assessment, or valuation of the issues; provide analytical methods for the comparative assessment of complex data to enable an evaluation of strategies and design options and to communicate effectively throughout the process with a wide range of stakeholders. The components of a novel sustainability assessment, visualisation and enhancement (SAVE) framework, developed by the authors to ‘operationalise’ the body of knowledge are presented and justified. These include: decision-mapping methods to identify points of intervention; indicator identification and measurement approaches; appropriate mathematical and analytical tools and an interactive simulation and visualisation platform which integrates and communicates complex multivariate information to diverse stakeholder groups. We report on the application of the SAVE framework to a major urban development project and reflect on its current and potential impact on the development. Conclusions are also drawn about its general applicability

17 ways to say yes:Toward nuanced tone of voice in AAC and speech technology

People with complex communication needs who use speech-generating devices have very little expressive control over their tone of voice. Despite its importance in human interaction, the issue of tone of voice remains all but absent from AAC research and development however. In this paper, we describe three interdisciplinary projects, past, present and future: The critical design collection Six Speaking Chairs has provoked deeper discussion and inspired a social model of tone of voice; the speculative concept Speech Hedge illustrates challenges and opportunities in designing more expressive user interfaces; the pilot project Tonetable could enable participatory research and seed a research network around tone of voice. We speculate that more radical interactions might expand frontiers of AAC and disrupt speech technology as a whole

Source control SUDS delivery on a global scale and in Scotland including approach by responsible organisations and professional groups

Background to researchThe Sustainable Urban Drainage Scottish Working Party via CREW commissioned this work on the implementation of source control for SUDS in Scotland. The project is being carried out by researchers based at Abertay University Dundee involves three phases. These are presented in separate reports; this report covers phase 2 of that work. Source control sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) are an established technique in many parts of the world. Source control SUDS are a key component of what is termed the stormwater treatment train. Source controls manage the more frequent but smaller polluting rainfall events as close to the source as possible (where the rain falls). Site and regional control SUDS are larger downstream structures which manage the longer term rainfall events and provide additional treatment when required. One of the key advantages of managing the more frequent rainfall events at source is that downstream site and regional SUDS will have longer life spans resulting in overall cost efficiencies. Scotland is regarded as a frontrunner in the UK regarding implementation of SUDS with site and regional drainage structures now considered ‘business as usual’. However the uptake of source control is less routine than would be expected.Objectives of researchPhase one of this research looked at the background to the evolution of source control in Scotland to provide an insight into the enabling factors and obstacles for uptake of the systems since. Phase two(this report) appraises delivery of the systems in seven countries and case studies are developed to understand why source control was implemented and how it was achieved. The current delivery by responsible organisations and professional groups which encourage and influence the source control agenda in Scotland is also appraised. Using these findings, the transition pathway from traditional drainage to source control SUDS are reconstructed and mapped out to highlight the historical and current enabling (and disabling) factors to realise the transition to date. A transition framework is used to highlight the transition strengths developed by responsible organisations over the last two decades which had assisted in accelerating the transition.Key findings and recommendationsKey outcomes of this research include:* In Scotland the source control vision and agenda is fragmented due to different stakeholder drivers and funding mechanisms.* There are examples of the use of incentives in Scotland (i.e. legislative, regulatory, financial,social and environmental) to drive integrated agendas. However these have not been successfully showcased to provide the evidence base for encouraging replication and up-scaling of the methodologies and techniques.* There are limited frontier source control SUDS ‘niches’ to nurture innovative techniques such as raingardens – a learning by doing concept. A more focused research agenda to validate these systems as viable sustainable solutions for Scotland would assist in accelerating uptake.* Lack of sector engagement, particularly with the public is a disabling factor for uptake.A final observation from this phase of the study is that requests from various interested parties for CREW / SUDS Working Party to share outputs indicates the need for this research

Making asset investment decisions for wastewater systems that include sustainability

Effective integrated water management is a key component of the World Water Vision and the way in which aspirations for water equity may be realized. Part of the vision includes the promotion of sustainability of water systems and full accountability for their interaction with other urban systems. One major problem is that “sustainability” remains an elusive concept, although those involved with the provision of urban wastewater systems now recognize that decisions involving asset investment should use the “triple bottom line” approach to society, the economy, and the environment. The Sustainable Water Industry Asset Resource Decisions project has devised a flexible and adaptable framework of decision support processes that can be used to include the principles of sustainability more effectively. Decision mapping conducted at the outset of the project has shown that only a narrow range of criteria currently influence the outcome of asset investment decisions. This paper addresses the concepts of sustainability assessment and presents two case studies that illustrate how multicriteria decision support systems can enhance the assessment of the relative sustainability of a range of options when decisions are being made about wastewater asset investment

Exploring the value of a design for service approach to develop public services in the Community Voluntary Sector: a comparative analysis

This paper presents the findings from two action research case studies that explore the value of using a ‘design for service’ approach to develop public services in the community voluntary sector (CVS). Each case study was conducted within a CVS organisation that was developing or offering public services. Both were local charities that are part of UK federations; the first offering mental health and wellbeing services, the second providing community education services. The paper will present the outcomes of using a ‘design for service’ approach, including systematic inquiry, visualisation, and challenging existing stakeholder perceptions. The comparison will identify similarities and differences in each case. Factors that appear to affect the success of the approach in this context will be discussed, including organisational culture and the perception of ‘design’. These two case studies form the basis of an on-going doctoral programme. Further case studies are planned, to inform an approach framework with implications for a broad range of CVS contexts. This work will add theoretical rigour to design praxis in the emerging area service innovation for CVS organisations

A sweetspot for innovation:developing games with purpose through student-staff collaboration

Within industry as well as academia, developing games that have wider impact on society has been of particular interest in the last decade. The increasing use of terms such as ‘games with purpose’, ‘serious games’ and gamification’ has been mirrored in a flurry of activity in games research. Broader applications of games beyond entertainment are now well-understood and accepted, with universities and companies excelling in creating games to serve particular needs. However, it is not explicitly clear how undergraduates of game design and development courses can be directly involved in serious game creation. With most undergraduates inspired by commercial games development, and the games industry requiring that universities teach specific technical skills in their courses, balancing the research aspirations of academics with the educational requirements of an appropriate undergraduate course can be a difficult balancing act. In this paper, the authors present three case studies of games with purpose developed through collaboration between undergraduate students and academic staff. In all cases, the educational value of the projects for the students is considered in relation to the research value for the academics, who face increasing demands to develop research outcomes despite a necessity to provide a first-rate learning experience and nurture future game developers

Small cities for a small country: Sustaining the cultural renaissance?

Copyright @ 2006 RoutledgeThis chapter explores the implications for smaller cities of adopting culture-led regeneration strategies. It is suggested that there is a divergence between cultural planning for long term sustainable urban cultural renaissance and culture-led makeovers which rely on externally orientated projects devised to draw in new visitors, residents and enterprises. Drawing on evidence from Sheffield, an industrial city in South Yorkshire, northern England, it is suggested that small cities by thinking big, have been seduced into entering a culture-led city competition in which the stakes are high and the prospects of success limited

Structure of a rare non-standard sequence k-turn bound by L7Ae protein

Kt-23 from Thelohania solenopsae is a rare RNA kink turn (k-turn) where an adenine replaces the normal guanine at the 2n position. L7Ae is a member of a strongly conserved family of proteins that bind a range of k-turn structures in the ribosome, box C/D and H/ACA small nucleolar RNAs and U4 small nuclear RNA. We have solved the crystal structure of T. solenopsae Kt-23 RNA bound to Archeoglobus fulgidus L7Ae protein at a resolution of 2.95 Å. The protein binds in the major groove displayed on the outer face of the k-turn, in a manner similar to complexes with standard k-turn structures. The k-turn adopts a standard N3 class conformation, with a single hydrogen bond from A2b N6 to A2n N3. This contrasts with the structure of the same sequence located in the SAM-I riboswitch, where it adopts an N1 structure, showing the inherent plasticity of k-turn structure. This potentially can affect any tertiary interactions in which the RNA participates