An entity-relationship model of the flow of waste and resources in city-regions: Improving knowledge management for the circular economy

Waste and resources management is one of the domains where urban and regional planning can transition towards a Circular Economy, thus slowing environmental degradation. Improving waste and resources management in cities requires an adequate understanding of multiple systems and how they interact. New technologies contribute to improve waste management and resource efficiency, but knowledge silos hinder the possibility of delivering sound holistic solutions. Furthermore, lack of compatibility between data formats and diverse definitions of the same concept reduces information exchange across different urban domains. This paper addresses the challenge of organising and standardising information about waste and resources management in city regions. Given the amount and variety of data constantly captured, data models and standards are a crucial element of Industry 4.0. The paper proposes an Entity-Relationship Model to harmonise definitions and integrate information on waste and resources management. Furthermore, it helps to formalise the components of the system and their relationships. Semi-structured interviews with government officials, mobile app developers and academics provided insights into the specific system and endorsed the model. Finally, the paper illustrates the translation of the ERM into a relational database schema and instantiates Waste Management and industrial Symbiosis cases in Buenos Aires (ARG) and Helsingborg (SWE) to validate its general applicability. The data model for the Circular Flow of Waste and Resources presented here enhances traditional waste management perspectives by introducing Circular Economy strategies and spatial variables in the model. Thus, this research represents a step towards unlocking the true potential of Industry 4.0

Supporting Database Designers in Entity-Relationship Modeling: An Ontology- Based Approach

Database design has long been recognized as a difficult problem, requiring a great deal of skill on the part of the designer. Research has been carried out that provides methodologies and rules for creating good designs. There have even been attempts to automate the design process. However, before these can be truly successful, methodologies and tools are needed that can incorporate and use domain knowledge. In this research, a methodology for supporting database design is proposed that makes use of domain-specific knowledge about an application, which is stored in the form of ontologies. The ontologies provide information that is useful in both the creation of new designs and the verification of existing ones. They also capture the constraints of an application domain. A methodology for assisting database design that takes advantage of the ontologies has been implemented in a prototype system. Initial testing of the prototype illustrates that the incorporation and use of ontologies are effective in creating database design

The VISTA Science Archive

We describe the VISTA Science Archive (VSA) and its first public release of data from five of the six VISTA Public Surveys. The VSA exists to support the VISTA Surveys through their lifecycle: the VISTA Public Survey consortia can use it during their quality control assessment of survey data products before submission to the ESO Science Archive Facility (ESO SAF); it supports their exploitation of survey data prior to its publication through the ESO SAF; and, subsequently, it provides the wider community with survey science exploitation tools that complement the data product repository functionality of the ESO SAF. This paper has been written in conjunction with the first public release of public survey data through the VSA and is designed to help its users understand the data products available and how the functionality of the VSA supports their varied science goals. We describe the design of the database and outline the database-driven curation processes that take data from nightly pipeline-processed and calibrated FITS files to create science-ready survey datasets. Much of this design, and the codebase implementing it, derives from our earlier WFCAM Science Archive (WSA), so this paper concentrates on the VISTA-specific aspects and on improvements made to the system in the light of experience gained in operating the WSA.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figures. Minor edits to fonts and typos after sub-editting. Published in A&

An Integrated Engineering-Computation Framework for Collaborative Engineering: An Application in Project Management

Today\u27s engineering applications suffer from a severe integration problem. Engineering, the entire process, consists of a myriad of individual, often complex, tasks. Most computer tools support particular tasks in engineering, but the output of one tool is different from the others\u27. Thus, the users must re-enter the relevant information in the format required by another tool. Moreover, usually in the development process of a new product/process, several teams of engineers with different backgrounds/responsibilities are involved, for example mechanical engineers, cost estimators, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, and project manager. Engineers need a tool(s) to share technical and managerial information and to be able to instantly access the latest changes made by one member, or more, in the teams to determine right away the impacts of these changes in all disciplines (cost, time, resources, etc.). In other words, engineers need to participate in a truly collaborative environment for the achievement of a common objective, which is the completion of the product/process design project in a timely, cost effective, and optimal manner. In this thesis, a new framework that integrates the capabilities of four commercial software, Microsoft Excel™ (spreadsheet), Microsoft Project™ (project management), What\u27s Best! (an optimization add-in), and Visual Basic™ (programming language), with a state-of-the-art object-oriented database (knowledge medium), InnerCircle2000™ is being presented and applied to handle the Cost-Time Trade-Off problem in project networks. The result was a vastly superior solution over the conventional solution from the viewpoint of data handling, completeness of solution space, and in the context of a collaborative engineering-computation environment

Improving the Semantics of Conceptual-Modeling Grammars: A New Perspective on an Old Problem

A core activity in information systems development involves understanding the conceptual model of the domain that the information system supports. Any conceptual model is ultimately created using a conceptual-modeling (CM) grammar. Accordingly, just as high quality conceptual models facilitate high quality systems development, high quality CM grammars facilitate high quality conceptual modeling. This paper seeks to provide a new perspective on improving the quality of CM grammar semantics. For the past twenty years, the leading approach to this topic has drawn on ontological theory. However, the ontological approach captures just half of the story. It needs to be coupled with a logical approach. We show how ontological quality and logical quality interrelate and we outline three contributions of a logical approach: the ability to see familiar conceptual-modeling problems in simpler ways, the illumination of new problems, and the ability to prove the benefit of modifying CM grammars

Bridging understandings of behaviour and emotional needs : an exploration of educator attitudes and the affordances of a Human Givens approach

D.App.Ed.PsyLearners who present with challenging behaviours are often conceptualised as a unique inclusion challenge as behaviourist strategies of segregation, punishment and exclusion are deeply embedded within school systems. For vulnerable learners and those who have encountered adversity, such strategies often confound rather than mediate challenging behaviours. Ultimately, this may lead to a range of negative outcomes for all involved. Educational Psychologists (EPs) have a significant role in supporting both learners and educators in managing the challenges the classroom environment presents to them. Central to policy in the UK are two principles that articulate educator responsibility to ‘control’ problem behaviour for the purposes of performativity, but also aim to encourage educators to ‘understand’ behaviour as a potential reflection of social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) need. Whilst this may be viewed as a professional paradox, the current focus upon SEMH in schools provides leverage for EPs to embed a more responsive pedagogy for educators experiencing challenging behaviour. Set against this context, this thesis seeks initially to understand educators’ constructions of challenging behaviour. As educators’ perspectives are central to this research, Chapter 1 takes a meta-ethnographic approach in exploring eight qualitative papers on educator attitudes towards challenging behaviour. An interpretation of key themes is presented as a conceptual framework. Concepts of personal-professional reasoning, relationality, school ethos and narratives are presented as interdependent, serving to either support or restrict the inclusion of children with challenging behaviours. It is concluded that EPs should seek to recognise the significance of such factors in supporting educators to reframe problem behaviour and facilitate inclusive practice. Based upon the findings of the meta-ethnography, Chapter 3 then explores the efficacy of a Human Givens approach in supporting educators currently experiencing challenging behaviour. It is suggested that this approach offers educators a conceptual framework through which to interpret behaviour from an emotional needs perspective. iv In this piece of qualitative research, educators from one primary school took part in a collaborative Human Givens meeting to plan support for a Looked-After Child at risk of exclusion. Semi-structured interviews, analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, explored the ways in which this approach helped coconstruct new understandings of behaviour and support need

Extending functional databases for use in text-intensive applications

This thesis continues research exploring the benefits of using functional databases based around the functional data model for advanced database applications-particularly those supporting investigative systems. This is a growing generic application domain covering areas such as criminal and military intelligence, which are characterised by significant data complexity, large data sets and the need for high performance, interactive use. An experimental functional database language was developed to provide the requisite semantic richness. However, heavy use in a practical context has shown that language extensions and implementation improvements are required-especially in the crucial areas of string matching and graph traversal. In addition, an implementation on multiprocessor, parallel architectures is essential to meet the performance needs arising from existing and projected database sizes in the chosen application area. [Continues.

The WFCAM Science Archive

We describe the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA), which is the primary point of access for users of data from the wide-field infrared camera WFCAM on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), especially science catalogue products from the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). We describe the database design with emphasis on those aspects of the system that enable users to fully exploit the survey datasets in a variety of different ways. We give details of the database-driven curation applications that take data from the standard nightly pipeline-processed and calibrated files for the production of science-ready survey datasets. We describe the fundamentals of querying relational databases with a set of astronomy usage examples, and illustrate the results.Comment: 28 pages, 18 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS (2007 November 8