4,521 research outputs found

    A Decision Support System for Economic Viability and Environmental Impact Assessment of Vertical Farms

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    Vertical farming (VF) is the practice of growing crops or animals using the vertical dimension via multi-tier racks or vertically inclined surfaces. In this thesis, I focus on the emerging industry of plant-specific VF. Vertical plant farming (VPF) is a promising and relatively novel practice that can be conducted in buildings with environmental control and artificial lighting. However, the nascent sector has experienced challenges in economic viability, standardisation, and environmental sustainability. Practitioners and academics call for a comprehensive financial analysis of VPF, but efforts are stifled by a lack of valid and available data. A review of economic estimation and horticultural software identifies a need for a decision support system (DSS) that facilitates risk-empowered business planning for vertical farmers. This thesis proposes an open-source DSS framework to evaluate business sustainability through financial risk and environmental impact assessments. Data from the literature, alongside lessons learned from industry practitioners, would be centralised in the proposed DSS using imprecise data techniques. These techniques have been applied in engineering but are seldom used in financial forecasting. This could benefit complex sectors which only have scarce data to predict business viability. To begin the execution of the DSS framework, VPF practitioners were interviewed using a mixed-methods approach. Learnings from over 19 shuttered and operational VPF projects provide insights into the barriers inhibiting scalability and identifying risks to form a risk taxonomy. Labour was the most commonly reported top challenge. Therefore, research was conducted to explore lean principles to improve productivity. A probabilistic model representing a spectrum of variables and their associated uncertainty was built according to the DSS framework to evaluate the financial risk for VF projects. This enabled flexible computation without precise production or financial data to improve economic estimation accuracy. The model assessed two VPF cases (one in the UK and another in Japan), demonstrating the first risk and uncertainty quantification of VPF business models in the literature. The results highlighted measures to improve economic viability and the viability of the UK and Japan case. The environmental impact assessment model was developed, allowing VPF operators to evaluate their carbon footprint compared to traditional agriculture using life-cycle assessment. I explore strategies for net-zero carbon production through sensitivity analysis. Renewable energies, especially solar, geothermal, and tidal power, show promise for reducing the carbon emissions of indoor VPF. Results show that renewably-powered VPF can reduce carbon emissions compared to field-based agriculture when considering the land-use change. The drivers for DSS adoption have been researched, showing a pathway of compliance and design thinking to overcome the ‘problem of implementation’ and enable commercialisation. Further work is suggested to standardise VF equipment, collect benchmarking data, and characterise risks. This work will reduce risk and uncertainty and accelerate the sector’s emergence

    The Adirondack Chronology

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    The Adirondack Chronology is intended to be a useful resource for researchers and others interested in the Adirondacks and Adirondack history.https://digitalworks.union.edu/arlpublications/1000/thumbnail.jp

    Pedagogia através de performance: um programa de literacia musical para coros comunitários baseado em Kodály

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    Doutoramento em MúsicaThe primary objective of this research was to develop a musical literacy programme – with correlated repertoire written specifically for the programme –that was implemented during choral rehearsals, creating a bridge between pedagogy and performance. Data from the Música no Meio project’s survey of choral conductors in Portugal shows that although 80% of the surveyed choirs use scores, only 15% of the singers have developed the musical literacy skills required to autonomously read the score. Previous research (Hiney, 2012) has also shown that in the absence of musical literacy, rote-learning (imitating the conductor until the music is memorised) is the most common technique used to transmit repertoire. This thesis addressed two main problems associated with a lack of musical literacy skills; firstly the impact of rote-learning on repertoire selection, rehearsal efficiency and hence standards of performance and secondly the implications for artistic creativity, as the singers confined to the oral as opposed to the literate area (Williams, 1981) may be considered artisans, making art without any involvement in creative or artistic processes (Reimer, 1970). The musical literacy programme, based on Kodály’s Concept of Music Education, was developed with the members of the communitarian choir, Voz Nua in Aveiro, Portugal. Six composers participated in this project, writing pieces with progressive levels of difficulty that corresponded to each of the three phases of the literacy programme. Qualitative data produced through interviews and focus groups with the singers of Voz Nua and the composers was analysed in order to gain an understanding of their experience of participating in the musical literacy programme. This data showed that the development of musical literacy skills increased the efficiency with which the choir learns new repertoire, allowing more time for interpretation and impacting positively on the choir’s quality of performance.O objectivo principal deste trabalho foi o desenvolvimento de um programa de literacia musical, recorrendo a repertório expressamente escrito para este programa, que foi implementado no contexto de ensaios corais, construindo uma ligação entre a pedagogia e a performance. Em anteriores pesquisas, nomeadamente no projecto ‘Música no Meio’, foi realizado um inquérito nacional com maestros de coros em Portugal que demonstrou que, apesar de cerca de 80% dos coros usarem partituras, apenas 15% dos cantores conseguem ler essas mesmas partituras de um modo autónomo. Num dos estudos presentes neste projeto (Hiney, 2015) foi possível ainda perceber que, na ausência de literacia musical, a aprendizagem por memorização (rote-learning) é a técnica mais frequentemente utilizada na transmissão do repertório. Esta tese concentra-se em dois dos problemas ligados à escassez de literacia musical, sendo o primeiro o impacto da aprendizagem por memorização na seleção de repertório, na eficiência do ensaio, e portanto, no nível de performance de um coro, e o segundo nas implicações para a criatividade artística, uma vez que os cantores que pertencem à zona da oralidade ao invés da zona da literacia (Williams, 1981) poderiam ser considerados artesãos, ao ‘fazer’ arte sem participar nos processos criativos ou artísticos (Reimer, 1970). Foi assim concebido um programa de literacia musical, baseado em Kodály, que foi realizado com os cantores do coro comunitário Voz Nua em Aveiro, Portugal. Participaram ainda neste projecto seis compositores que escreveram obras com graus de dificuldade e objectivos específicos para cada uma das três fases do programa. Os dados qualitativos produzidos através de entrevistas e focus groups com os cantores de Voz Nua e com os compositores, foram analisados tendo em vista uma melhor compreensão das experiências vividas pelos participantes no decorrer programa. Estes dados permitiram perceber que, após a desenvolvimento do programa de literacia musical, se verificou um aumento da eficiência nos ensaios e na aprendizagem de novo repertório, libertando mais tempo de ensaios para a componente interpretativa, com impacto positivo na qualidade da performance do coro

    Using Social Media to build a Counter-Power Movement: Multiple Sclerosis and CCSVI, a Case Study

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    The research is focused on a patient-based social media movement which advocated for clinical research into a discovery rejected by key elements of the medical establishment. This thesis aims to examine how social media interactions empowered patients, what motivated them to become a movement, and the elements which propelled the movement to create alternative patient associations. This research comprises 62 individual, in-person, audio-recorded interviews with movement activists, and the researcher’s autoethnography as the founder and administrator of the movement’s Facebook Page. These methods are triangulated with academic publications, newspaper and television news, as well as other publicly-sourced materials relating to the case study. The research finds that while the movement’s activities, from planning through protest, occurred solely on the streets of social media, activists experienced the same passion and urgency as the academic literature has described for on-the-street activists. That is, social media paralleled the “real streets” as a forum for the movement’s core activities. The research further finds that the traditional patient associations’ initial strategy of stonewalling the contested discovery was undercut by the momentum of the social media movement’s activities. They subsequently sought to quell the movement by lambasting social media as well as deploying a co-optation strategy, as described by the activists. To conclude, social media function as streets and city halls where decisions taken can be implemented in the real world and permit geographically distributed as well as differently abled people to gather in significant numbers. The space where human interactions can foster social life and deepen personal emotional relations could be named the space of humanity. This is the space where timeless time and the realities of the counter power experience can happen, independent of whether that space is surrounded by real or digital bricks

    Deformed, Dismembered, and Disembodied: Reinventing the Body Politic in William Blake

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    This thesis examines William Blake’s illuminated books from 1794–1820, suggesting that he reinvents the traditional body politic metaphor through disabled and deformed figures inspired by Norse myth. The body politic figures society within a metaphorical body to imply that diverse parts are united within the parameters of the nation. Blake’s bodies are traditionally seen as moving towards Christian ideas of renewal, a ‘perfect’ form, but this thesis argues that this is not always the case in the illuminated books. Typical body metaphors are predicated on wholeness, in other words, an able-body politic, however Blake disassembles this model in the illuminated books to reveal a nation body that continues to be in contention with itself. Throughout the eighteenth century, ideas of nation, identity, and ‘Britishness’ were topics of debate. Britain’s collective anxiety over its identity was expressed within eighteenth-century Northern antiquarianism, a literary and artistic movement interested in Old Norse culture and its influence on individual nations across the British Isles. Eighteenth-century scholars, poets, and artists such as Thomas Gray, Henry Fuseli, and James Macpherson, mediated an idea of ancient Scandinavia, recasting it as a land of wild, untamed liberty from which different British heritages could source cultural narratives. This thesis proposes that Northern antiquarianism provided Blake with the necessary language and imagery to critique formations of British identity at the turn of the century

    The Sharing Economy in Europe: Developments, Practices, and Contradictions

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    This open access book considers the development of the sharing and collaborative economy with a European focus, mapping across economic sectors, and country-specific case studies. It looks at the roles the sharing economy plays in sharing and redistribution of goods and services across the population in order to maximise their functionality, monetary exchange, and other aspects important to societies. It also looks at the place of the sharing economy among various policies and how the contexts of public policies, legislation, digital platforms, and other infrastructure interrelate with the development and function of the sharing economy. The book will help in understanding the future (sharing) economy models as well as to contribute in solving questions of better access to resources and sustainable innovation in the context of degrowth and growing inequalities within and between societies. It will also provide a useful source for solutions to the big challenges of our times such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and recently the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19). This book will be of interest to academics and students in economics and business, organisational studies, sociology, media and communication and computer science

    Terminological Methods in Lexicography: Conceptualising, Organising, and Encoding Terms in General Language Dictionaries

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    Os dicionários de língua geral apresentam inconsistências de uniformização e cientificidade no tratamento do conteúdo lexicográfico especializado. Analisando a presença e o tratamento de termos em dicionários de língua geral, propomos um tratamento mais uniforme e cientificamente rigoroso desse conteúdo, considerando também a necessidade de compilar e alinhar futuros recursos lexicais em consonância com padrões interoperáveis. Partimos da premissa de que o tratamento dos itens lexicais, sejam unidades lexicais (palavras em geral) ou unidades terminológicas (termos ou palavras pertencentes a determinados domínios), deve ser diferenciado, e recorremos a métodos terminológicos para tratar os termos dicionarizados. A nossa abordagem assume que a terminologia – na sua dupla dimensão linguística e conceptual – e a lexicografia, como domínios interdisciplinares, podem ser complementares. Assim, apresentamos objetivos teóricos (aperfeiçoamento da metalinguagem e descrição lexicográfica a partir de pressupostos terminológicos) e práticos (representação consistente de dados lexicográficos), que visam facilitar a organização, descrição e modelização consistente de componentes lexicográficos, nomeadamente a hierarquização das etiquetas de domínio, que são marcadores de identificação de léxico especializados. Queremos ainda facilitar a redação de definições, as quais podem ser otimizadas e elaboradas com maior precisão científica ao seguir uma abordagem terminológica no tratamento dos termos. Analisámos os dicionários desenvolvidos por três instituições académicas distintas: a Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, a Real Academia Española e a Académie Française, que representam um valioso legado da tradição lexicográfica académica europeia. A análise inicial inclui um levantamento exaustivo e a comparação das etiquetas de domínio usadas, bem como um debate sobre as opções escolhidas e um estudo comparativo do tratamento dos termos. Elaborámos, depois, uma proposta metodológica para o tratamento de termos em dicionários de língua geral, tomando como exemplo dois domínios, GEOLOGIA e FUTEBOL, extraídos da edição de 2001 do dicionário da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. Revimos os termos selecionados de acordo com os princípios terminológicos defendidos, dando origem a sentidos especializados revistos/novos para a primeira edição digital deste dicionário. Representamos e anotamos os dados usando as especificações da TEI Lex-0, uma extensão da TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), dedicada à codificação de dados lexicográficos. Destacamos também a importância de ter etiquetas de domínio hierárquicas em vez de uma lista simples de domínios, vantajosas para a organização dos dados, correspondência e possíveis futuros alinhamentos entre diferentes recursos lexicográficos. A investigação revelou que a) os modelos estruturais dos recursos lexicais são complexos e contêm informação de natureza diversa; b) as etiquetas de domínio nos dicionários gerais da língua são planas, desequilibradas, inconsistentes e, muitas vezes, estão desatualizadas, havendo necessidade de as hierarquizar para organizar o conhecimento especializado; c) os critérios adotados para a marcação dos termos e as fórmulas utilizadas na definição são díspares; d) o tratamento dos termos é heterogéneo e formulado de diferentes formas, pelo que o recurso a métodos terminológicos podem ajudar os lexicógrafos a redigir definições; e) a aplicação de métodos terminológicos e lexicográficos interdisciplinares, e também de padrões, é vantajosa porque permite a construção de bases de dados lexicais estruturadas, concetualmente organizadas, apuradas do ponto de vista linguístico e interoperáveis. Em suma, procuramos contribuir para a questão urgente de resolver problemas que afetam a partilha, o alinhamento e vinculação de dados lexicográficos.General language dictionaries show inconsistencies in terms of uniformity and scientificity in the treatment of specialised lexicographic content. By analysing the presence and treatment of terms in general language dictionaries, we propose a more uniform and scientifically rigorous treatment of this content, considering the necessity of compiling and aligning future lexical resources according to interoperable standards. We begin from the premise that the treatment of lexical items, whether lexical units (words in general) or terminological units (terms or words belonging to particular subject fields), must be differentiated, and resort to terminological methods to treat dictionary terms. Our approach assumes that terminology – in its dual dimension, both linguistic and conceptual – and lexicography, as interdisciplinary domains, can be complementary. Thus, we present theoretical (improvement of metalanguage and lexicographic description based on terminological assumptions) and practical (consistent representation of lexicographic data) objectives that aim to facilitate the organisation, description and consistent modelling of lexicographic components, namely the hierarchy of domain labels, as they are specialised lexicon identification markers. We also want to facilitate the drafting of definitions, which can be optimised and elaborated with greater scientific precision by following a terminological approach for the treatment of terms. We analysed the dictionaries developed by three different academic institutions: the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, the Real Academia Española and the Académie Française, which represent a valuable legacy of the European academic lexicographic tradition. The initial analysis includes an exhaustive survey and comparison of the domain labels used, as well as a debate on the chosen options and a comparative study of the treatment of the terms. We then developed a methodological proposal for the treatment of terms in general language dictionaries, exemplified using terms from two domains, GEOLOGY and FOOTBALL, taken from the 2001 edition of the dictionary of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. We revised the selected terms according to the defended terminological principles, giving rise to revised/new specialised meanings for the first digital edition of this dictionary. We represent and annotate the data using the TEI Lex-0 specifications, a TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) subset for encoding lexicographic data. We also highlight the importance of having hierarchical domain labels instead of a simple list of domains, which are beneficial to the data organisation itself, correspondence and possible future alignments between different lexicographic resources. Our investigation revealed the following: a) structural models of lexical resources are complex and contain information of a different nature; b) domain labels in general language dictionaries are flat, unbalanced, inconsistent and often outdated, requiring the need to hierarchise them for organising specialised knowledge; c) the criteria adopted for marking terms and the formulae used in the definition are disparate; d) the treatment of terms is heterogeneous and formulated differently, whereby terminological methods can help lexicographers to draft definitions; e) the application of interdisciplinary terminological and lexicographic methods, and of standards, is advantageous because it allows the construction of structured, conceptually organised, linguistically accurate and interoperable lexical databases. In short, we seek to contribute to the urgent issue of solving problems that affect the sharing, alignment and linking of lexicographic data

    Occupational Health and Safety in the Healthcare Sector

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    Healthcare workers are exposed to several different occupational risk factors, and they pay an important tribute in terms of occupational diseases and work-related injuries. Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic has focused the attention on the problem of the infectious risk, which is certainly among the risks typically expected and specifically recognized for the health personnel, but also other occupational risks should not be overlooked, such as, e.g., the risks associated with work-organization factors and with the exposure to chemical and physical agents. The health consequences associated with the exposure to all these factors have relevant impacts in terms of induced diseases, DALYs, sickness absence from work and costs for the health systems. According to these premises, this reprint has collected manuscripts addressing topics related to the prevention of the occupational risks in the healthcare sector, including original articles and reviews on the prevention of work-related illnesses and injuries of the health personnel, as well as on the evaluation of the risks in the healthcare workplaces, and on the topics of risk perception and of the knowledge and attitudes of the workers towards the preventive procedures and the use of protections. The themes of the prevention of occupational infectious risk, biomechanical overload of the musculoskeletal system and work-related psychosocial factors are specifically discussed in the papers collected
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