3,186 research outputs found

    Mapping Critical Practice In A Transdisciplinary Urban Studio

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    Architecture and Planning exist to make positive changes to our environment. Future practitioners in these disciplines will be responsible for how our cities develop and are managed - they will be required to exercise their professional judgement in complex and unpredictable contexts. There is increasing interest in transdisciplinary urbanism, but implementation in academic contexts has to date been relatively limited. This thesis aims to build on these examples, through a detailed account of one academic design studio which operates across architecture and urban planning; in doing so it aims to make the case for transdisciplinary, problem and place-based studio teaching. The study considers how a transdisciplinary studio environment supported students to develop a critical approach to practice through collaborative discourse. It looked at studio methods/practices; what it means to practice ā€˜criticallyā€™ in the context of design; and the role ā€˜going publicā€™ by sharing ideas in public fora might play in developing critical positions. The study was undertaken in collaboration with nine students, a single cohort undertaking the final year of a hybrid masterā€™s qualification in Architecture with Urban Planning. It adopts socio-material and spatial approaches to follow how the studio environment and the studentsā€™ emerging interdisciplinary identities shaped both their individual and their shared work. It mapped how their approach to their practice evolved through observations, interviews, and informal conversations, and through their drawings, models and journals. In carrying out these observations, and their analysis, I have returned to drawing methods common in architecture. This allowed me to explore and record aspects of studio practice which might otherwise be missed and revealed the importance of visual and spatial thinking to my own practice. Observations revealed how material spaces, tools and artefacts acted to structure social relations in the studio, and how these relations shaped individual approaches to critical practice

    1st Design Factory Global Network Research Conference ā€˜Designing the Futureā€™ 5-6 October 2022

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    DFGN.R 2022 -Designing the Future - is the first research conference organised by the Design Factory Global Network. The open event offers the opportunity for all like-minded educators, designers and researchers to share their insights and inspire others on education, methods, practices and ecosystems of co-creation and innovation. The DFGN.R conference is a two-day event hosted on-site in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. The conference is organized alongside International Design Factory Week 2022, the annual gathering of DFGN members. This year's conference is organized in collaboration with Aalto University from Helsinki Finland and hosted by the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences

    AI: Limits and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence

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    The emergence of artificial intelligence has triggered enthusiasm and promise of boundless opportunities as much as uncertainty about its limits. The contributions to this volume explore the limits of AI, describe the necessary conditions for its functionality, reveal its attendant technical and social problems, and present some existing and potential solutions. At the same time, the contributors highlight the societal and attending economic hopes and fears, utopias and dystopias that are associated with the current and future development of artificial intelligence

    Undergraduate Catalog of Studies, 2022-2023

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    Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5

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    This ļ¬fth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different ļ¬elds of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered. First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modiļ¬ed Proportional Conļ¬‚ict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classiļ¬ers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes. Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identiļ¬cation of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classiļ¬cation. Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classiļ¬cation, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well

    20th SC@RUG 2023 proceedings 2022-2023

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    A study of the inter-relationship of identity and urban heritage in Chiang Mai Old City, Thailand

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    The urban heritage identity of historical cities has received growing attention due to the weakening of their urban identity. For this reason, urban identity has been identified as a preliminary study of this research. Forty years ago, many researchers attempted to explain a broader understanding of urban heritage identity, which is relevant to human factors that affect urban, place, and built environment relationships. This involved the three interrelated concepts of identity: distinctiveness; urban heritage; and place attachment. These establish a balance between people and their identification with places. Urban heritage identity is associated a place's physicality and heritage attributes that reflect socio-cultural values. It can be concluded that urban heritage identity becomes significant through concepts of environmental psychology. Distinctiveness theory, as a part of identity theory, has been used in this study to describe the genuine perception of local participants and is a fundamental part of defining place identity. Furthermore, the definition of place attachment has been used to explain the relationship of distinct places on time of residence, frequency of use, emotional, physical, social, and activities. The study also explores Chiang Mai Old Cityā€™s built environment, which especially analyses the faƧade and streetscape characteristics that reflect the city's socio-cultural value. The research concludes with suggestions for preserving the city's urban heritage characteristics. Chiang Mai Old City has unprecedented diversity and cultural dynamics related to its intangible and tangible urban heritage. Moreover, the city is in the critical stage of being nominated as a new World Heritage Site by UNESCO, with the city's distinctiveness and place attachment being significant in supporting further heritage management strategies. The research mainly focuses on how local people interpret and understand the urban heritage identity of Chiang Mai Old City. This has been achieved through surveys of four hundred participants living in the Old City, two-way focus groups with five participants in each group, in-depth interviews with twenty-five participants, and ten architects drawing suggestions for further built environment management strategies. The results are described through seven aspects that explore the distinctiveness and place attachment theories of Chiang Mai Old City. The findings can be described in seven aspects: historical value; cultural activities; a particular character; landmark; identity; community; and everyday life. The results reveal that there are five distinct places in the city: Pra Singha Temple; Chedi Luang Temple; Three Kings monument square; Tha-Pare gate square; and Chiang Mai Old City's Moat. The results can also be used to develop an assessment indicator for defining the distinctiveness of other historic cities through the engagement of local people. The study repeatedly employs distinct places to describe in-place attachment theory. The results reveal positivity, emotion, and the spiritual anchor of place attached to local people in social engagement, explicitly divulging the rootedness of religion, culture, and community activities through the length of time. All five distinct places have an inseparable ability to display tangible heritage value and such a positive emotion to places is crucial in contributing to urban heritage characteristics. Moreover, the time or length of residency is a vital aspect to peopleā€™s perception of the city's distinctiveness; however, the value of the physical setting itself can increase the sense of belonging of newcomers.This research used a mixed methods approach in defining place identity process and socio-cultural values in distinctive streetscapes scenes in the city. This study strongly believes that the findings demonstrate that local people can help to develop the management of the city. The results presented suggest that the heritage value of streetscapes is related to historical attributes, natural objects, people, and cultural events in the scenes that explain the meanings ascribed to places associated with social and cultural values. The built environment characteristics and heritage value can be assumed from human experience. The study can be a new perspective for local authorities, urban designers, and heritage teams to determine whether projects will strengthen the existing urban heritage identity. Most importantly, this research has revealed new perspectives on urban heritage identity and practical study methods whilst also contributing to management strategies. In addition, continuing research into urban heritage identity will significantly improve knowledge development, practical support, and collaboration with local people and architects to establish and maintain cherished distinct places and living environments for urban residents

    Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

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    This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings

    IMAGINING, GUIDING, PLAYING INTIMACY: - A Theory of Character Intimacy Games -

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    Within the landscape of Japanese media production, and video game production in particular, there is a niche comprising video games centered around establishing, developing, and fulfilling imagined intimate relationships with anime-manga characters. Such niche, although very significant in production volume and lifespan, is left unexplored or underexplored. When it is not, it is subsumed within the scope of wider anime-manga media. This obscures the nature of such video games, alternatively identified with descriptors including but not limited to ā€˜visual novelā€™, ā€˜dating simulatorā€™ and ā€˜adult computer gameā€™. As games centered around developing intimacy with characters, they present specific ensembles of narrative content, aesthetics and software mechanics. These ensembles are aimed at eliciting in users what are, by all intents and purposes, parasocial phenomena towards the gameā€™s characters. In other words, these software products encourage players to develop affective and bodily responses towards characters. They are set in a way that is coherent with shared, circulating scripts for sexual and intimate interaction to guide player imaginative action. This study defines games such as the above as ā€˜character intimacy gamesā€™, video game software where traversal is contingent on players knowingly establishing, developing, and fulfilling intimate bonds with fictional characters. To do so, however, player must recognize themselves as playing that type of game, and to be looking to develop that kind of response towards the gameā€™s characters. Character Intimacy Games are contingent upon player developing affective and bodily responses, and thus presume that players are, at the very least, non-hostile towards their development. This study approaches Japanese character intimacy games as its corpus, and operates at the intersection of studies of communication, AMO studies and games studies. The study articulates a research approach based on the double need of approaching single works of significance amidst a general scarcity of scholarly background on the subject. It juxtaposes data-driven approaches derived from fan-curated databases ā€“ The Visual Novel Database and Erogescape -Erogē Hyōron KÅ«kan ā€“ with a purpose-created ludo-hermeneutic process. By deploying an observation of character intimacy games through fan-curated data and building ludo-hermeneutics on the resulting ontology, this study argues that character intimacy games are video games where traversal is contingent on players knowingly establishing, developing, and fulfilling intimate bonds with fictional characters and recognizing themselves as doing so. To produce such conditions, the assemblage of software mechanics and narrative content in such games facilitates intimacy between player and characters. This is, ultimately, conductive to the emergence of parasocial phenomena. Parasocial phenomena, in turn, are deployed as an integral assumption regarding player activity within the gameā€™s wider assemblage of narrative content and software mechanics

    Taylor University Catalog 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 academic catalog of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana.https://pillars.taylor.edu/catalogs/1128/thumbnail.jp
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