Optimisation and Decision Support during the Conceptual Stage of Building Design

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/726 on 28.02.2017 by CS (TIS)Modern building design is complex and involves many different disciplines operating in a fragmented manner. Appropriate computer-based decision support (DS) tools are sought that can raise the level of integration of different activities at the conceptual stage, in order to help create better designs solutions. This project investigates opportunities that exist for using techniques based upon the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to support critical activities of conceptual building design (CBD). Collective independent studies have shown that the GA is a powerful optimisation and exploratory search technique with widespread application. The GA is essentially very simple yet it offers robustness and domain independence. The GA efficiently searches a domain to exploit highly suitable information. It maintains multiple solutions to problems simultaneously and is well suited to non-linear problems and those of a discontinuous nature found in engineering design. The literature search first examines traditional approaches to supporting conceptual design. Existing GA techniques and applications are discussed which include pioneering studies in the field of detailed structural design. Broader GA studies are also reported which have demonstrated possibilities for investigating geometrical, topological and member size variation. The tasks and goals of conceptual design are studied. A rationale is introduced, aimed at enabling the GA to be applied in a manner that provides the most effective support to the designer. Numerical experiments with floor planning are presented. These studies provide a basic foundation for a subsequent design support system (DSS) capable of generating structural design concepts. A hierarchical Structured GA (SGA) created by Dasgupta et al [1] is investigated to support the generation of diverse structural design concepts. The SGA supports variation in the size, shape and structural configuration of a building and in the choice of structural frame type and floor system. The benefits and limitations of the SGA approach are discussed. The creation of a prototype DSS system, abritrarily called Designer-Pro (DPRO), is described. A detailed building design model is introduced which is required for design development and appraisal. Simplifications, design rationale and generic component modelling are mentioned. A cost-based single criteria optimisation problem (SCOP) is created in which other constraints are represented as design parameters. The thesis describes the importance of the object-oriented programming (OOP) paradigm for creating a versatile design model and the need for complementary graphical user interface (GUI) tools to provide human-computer interaction (HCI) capabilities for control and intelligent design manipulation. Techniques that increase flexibility in the generation and appraisal of concept are presented. Tools presented include a convergence plot of design solutions that supports cursor-interrogation to reveal the details of individual concepts. The graph permits study of design progression, or evolution of optimum design solutions. A visualisation tool is also presented. The DPRO system supports multiple operating modes, including single-design appraisal and enumerative search (ES). Case study examples are provided which demonstrate the applicability of the DPRO system to a range of different design scenarios. The DPRO system performs well in all tests. A parametric study demonstrates the potential of the system for DS. Limitations of the current approach and opportunities to broaden the study form part of the scope for further work. Some suggestions for further study are made, based upon newly-emerging techniques

Deliberation, Representation, Equity

"What can we learn about the development of public interaction in e-democracy from a drama delivered by mobile headphones to an audience standing around a shopping center in a Stockholm suburb? In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens’ input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools. This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University. Editors Love Ekenberg (senior research scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [IIASA], Laxenburg, professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Karin Hansson (artist and research fellow, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Mats Danielson (vice president and professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, affiliate researcher, IIASA) and Göran Cars (professor of Societal Planning and Environment, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) draw innovative collaborations between mathematics, social science, and the arts. They develop new problem formulations and solutions, with the aim of carrying decisions from agenda setting and problem awareness through to feasible courses of action by setting objectives, alternative generation, consequence assessments, and trade-off clarifications. As a result, this book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences.

Intelligent interface agents for biometric applications

This thesis investigates the benefits of applying the intelligent agent paradigm to biometric identity verification systems. Multimodal biometric systems, despite their additional complexity, hold the promise of providing a higher degree of accuracy and robustness. Multimodal biometric systems are examined in this work leading to the design and implementation of a novel distributed multi-modal identity verification system based on an intelligent agent framework. User interface design issues are also important in the domain of biometric systems and present an exceptional opportunity for employing adaptive interface agents. Through the use of such interface agents, system performance may be improved, leading to an increase in recognition rates over a non-adaptive system while producing a more robust and agreeable user experience. The investigation of such adaptive systems has been a focus of the work reported in this thesis. The research presented in this thesis is divided into two main parts. Firstly, the design, development and testing of a novel distributed multi-modal authentication system employing intelligent agents is presented. The second part details design and implementation of an adaptive interface layer based on interface agent technology and demonstrates its integration with a commercial fingerprint recognition system. The performance of these systems is then evaluated using databases of biometric samples gathered during the research. The results obtained from the experimental evaluation of the multi-modal system demonstrated a clear improvement in the accuracy of the system compared to a unimodal biometric approach. The adoption of the intelligent agent architecture at the interface level resulted in a system where false reject rates were reduced when compared to a system that did not employ an intelligent interface. The results obtained from both systems clearly express the benefits of combining an intelligent agent framework with a biometric system to provide a more robust and flexible application

Deliberation, Representation, Equity: Research Approaches, Tools and Algorithms for Participatory Processes

What can we learn about the development of public interaction in e-democracy from a drama delivered by mobile headphones to an audience standing around a shopping center in a Stockholm suburb? In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens’ input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools. This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University. Editors Love Ekenberg (senior research scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [IIASA], Laxenburg, professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Karin Hansson (artist and research fellow, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Mats Danielson (vice president and professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, affiliate researcher, IIASA) and Göran Cars (professor of Societal Planning and Environment, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) draw innovative collaborations between mathematics, social science, and the arts. They develop new problem formulations and solutions, with the aim of carrying decisions from agenda setting and problem awareness through to feasible courses of action by setting objectives, alternative generation, consequence assessments, and trade-off clarifications. As a result, this book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences