4,321 research outputs found
UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024
The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp
Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law
This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics – and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Spatial adaptive settlement systems in archaeology. Modelling long-term settlement formation from spatial micro interactions
Despite research history spanning more than a century, settlement patterns still hold a promise to contribute to the theories of large-scale processes in human history. Mostly they have been presented as passive imprints of past human activities and spatial interactions they shape have not been studied as the driving force of historical processes. While archaeological knowledge has been used to construct geographical theories of evolution of settlement there still exist gaps in this knowledge. Currently no theoretical framework has been adopted to explore them as spatial systems emerging from micro-choices of small population units.
The goal of this thesis is to propose a conceptual model of adaptive settlement systems based on complex adaptive systems framework. The model frames settlement system formation processes as an adaptive system containing spatial features, information flows, decision making population units (agents) and forming cross scale feedback loops between location choices of individuals and space modified by their aggregated choices. The goal of the model is to find new ways of interpretation of archaeological locational data as well as closer theoretical integration of micro-level choices and meso-level settlement structures.
The thesis is divided into five chapters, the first chapter is dedicated to conceptualisation of the general model based on existing literature and shows that settlement systems are inherently complex adaptive systems and therefore require tools of complexity science for causal explanations. The following chapters explore both empirical and theoretical simulated settlement patterns based dedicated to studying selected information flows and feedbacks in the context of the whole system.
Second and third chapters explore the case study of the Stone Age settlement in Estonia comparing residential location choice principles of different periods. In chapter 2 the relation between environmental conditions and residential choice is explored statistically. The results confirm that the relation is significant but varies between different archaeological phenomena. In the third chapter hunter-fisher-gatherer and early agrarian Corded Ware settlement systems were compared spatially using inductive models. The results indicated a large difference in their perception of landscape regarding suitability for habitation. It led to conclusions that early agrarian land use significantly extended land use potential and provided a competitive spatial benefit. In addition to spatial differences, model performance was compared and the difference was discussed in the context of proposed adaptive settlement system model. Last two chapters present theoretical agent-based simulation experiments intended to study effects discussed in relation to environmental model performance and environmental determinism in general. In the fourth chapter the central place foragingmodel was embedded in the proposed model and resource depletion, as an environmental modification mechanism, was explored. The study excluded the possibility that mobility itself would lead to modelling effects discussed in the previous chapter.
The purpose of the last chapter is the disentanglement of the complex relations between social versus human-environment interactions. The study exposed non-linear spatial effects expected population density can have on the system and the general robustness of environmental inductive models in archaeology to randomness and social effect. The model indicates that social interactions between individuals lead to formation of a group agency which is determined by the environment even if individual cognitions consider the environment insignificant. It also indicates that spatial configuration of the environment has a certain influence towards population clustering therefore providing a potential pathway to population aggregation. Those empirical and theoretical results showed the new insights provided by the complex adaptive systems framework. Some of the results, including the explanation of empirical results, required the conceptual model to provide a framework of interpretation
Taylor University Catalog 2023-2024
The 2023-2024 academic catalog of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana.https://pillars.taylor.edu/catalogs/1128/thumbnail.jp
Responsive Building Envelope for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings – Thermal Performance and Control
The building sector accounts for 30% of total energy consumption worldwide. Responsive building envelopes (or RBEs) are one of the approaches to achieving net-zero energy and grid-interactive efficient buildings. However, research and development of RBEs are still in the early stages of technologies, simulation, control, and design. The control strategies in prior studies did not fully explore the potential of RBEs or they obtained good performance with high design and deployment costs. A low-cost strategy that does not require knowledge of complex systems is needed, while no studies have investigated online implementations of model-free control approaches for RBEs. To address these challenges, this dissertation describes a multidisciplinary study of the modeling, control, and design of RBEs, to understand mechanisms governing their dynamic properties and synthesis rules of multiple technologies through simulation analyses. Widely applicable mathematical models are developed that can be easily extended for multiple RBE types with validation. Computational frameworks (or co-simulation testbeds) that flexibly integrate multiple control methods and building simulation models are established with higher computation efficiency than that using commercial software during offline training. To overcome the limitations of the control strategies (e.g., rule-based control and MPC) in prior research, a novel easy-to-implement yet flexible ‘demand-based’ control strategy, and model-free online control strategies using deep reinforced learning are proposed for RBEs composed of active insulation systems (AISs). Both the physics-derived and model-free control strategies fully leverage the advantages of AISs and provide higher energy savings and thermal comfort improvement over traditional temperature-based control methods in prior research and demand-based control. The case studies of RBEs that integrate AISs and high thermal mass or self-adaptive/active modules (e.g., evaporative cooling techniques and dynamic glazing/shading) demonstrate the superior performance of AISs in regulating thermal energy transfer to offset AC demands during the synergy. Moreover, the controller design and training implications are elaborated. The applicability assessment of promising RBE configurations is presented along with design implications based on building energy analyses in multiple scenarios. The design and control implications represent an interactive and holistic way to operate RBEs allowing energy and thermal comfort performances to be tuned for maximum efficiency
Interdisciplinarity in the Scholarly Life Cycle
This open access book illustrates how interdisciplinary research develops over the lifetime of a scholar: not in a single project, but as an attitude that trickles down, or spirals up, into research. This book presents how interdisciplinary work has inspired shifts in how the contributors read, value concepts, critically combine methods, cope with knowledge hierarchies, write in style, and collaborate. Drawing on extensive examples from the humanities and social sciences, the editors and chapter authors show how they started, tried to open up, dealt with inconsistencies, had to adapt, and ultimately learned and grew as researchers. The book offers valuable insights into the conditions and complexities present for interdisciplinary research to be successful in an academic setting. This is an open access book
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