Dynamics of design collaboration. BIM models as intermediary digital objects

Engineering and architectural design research has studied the uses of various kinds of artefacts and visual representations like sketches, drawings and design plans. The implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) creates a new constellation of instruments and calls for further reconceptualising of the collaborative design process. The paper presents analysis of BIM models as co-developed intermediary objects in the design. They function both as objects of joint problem solving and as a concrete but dynamic means for collaboration both virtually and in face-to-face meetings. We suggest that BIM models provide novel forms of 'virtual materiality': in design meetings BIM models provide a tangible means for designers' collaboration. Versatile indexical use of 3D BIM models dominates discussion and problem solving in design meetings.Peer reviewe

ULiS: An Expert System on Linguistics to Support Multilingual Management of Interlingual Semantic Web Knowledge bases

International audienceWe are interested in bridging the world of natural language and the world of the semantic web in particular to support multilingual access to the web of data. In this paper we introduce the ULiS project, that aims at designing a pivot-based NLP technique called Universal Linguistic System, 100% using the semantic web formalisms, and being compliant with the Meaning-Text theory. Through the ULiS, a user could interact with an interlingual knowledge base (IKB) in controlled natural language. Linguistic resources themselves are part of a specific IKB: The Universal Lexical Knowledge base (ULK), so that actors may enhance their controlled natural language, through requests in controlled natural language. We describe a basic interaction scenario at the system level, and provide an overview of the architecture of ULiS. We then introduce the core of the ULiS: the interlingual lexical ontology ILexicOn), in which each interlingual lexical unit class (ILUc) supports the projection of its semantic decomposition on itself. We validate our model with a standalone ILexicOn, and introduce and explain a concise human-readable notation for it.Nous nous intéressons à lier le monde du langage naturel et le monde du web sémantique en particulier pour permettre l'accès multilingue au web de données. Dans cet article nous introduisons le projet ULiS, qui porte sur la conception d'une technique de TAL basée sur un pivot appelé le Système Linguistique Universel, qui utilise les formalismes du web sémantique à 100%, et qui est conforme à la théorie Sens-Texte. A l'aide d'ULiS, un utilisateur peut interagir avec une base de connaissances interlingue (IKB) en langage naturel contrôlé. Les ressources linguistiques sont elles-mêmes une IKB: la base de connaissance lexicale universelle (UKB), de sorte que les acteurs peuvent améliorer leur langage naturel contrôlé, en interagissant en langage contrôlé avec le système. On décrit un scénario d'interaction basique au niveau du système, et on survole l'architecture d'ULiS. Ensuite on présente le cœur d'ULis : l'ontologie lexicale interlingue ILexicOn, où chaque classe de lexie interlingue (ILUc) représente la projection de sa décomposition sémantique sur elle-même. On valide notre modèle avec un petit ILexicOn, et on introduit une notation concise compréhensible par l'humain pour l'ILexicOn

The Norwegian eHealth Platform: Development Through Cultivation Strategies and Incremental Changes

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The Norwegian eHealth Platform: Development Through Cultivation Strategies and Incremental Changes

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Promoters, Planters, and Pioneers

In this comprehensive study of Belgian settlement in western Canada, Cornelius Jaenen shows that Belgian immigration was unique in its character and brought with it significant benefits out of proportion to its comparatively small numbers. Canadas first Immigration Act (1869) included Belgium among the "preferred countries" from which immigrants should be sought, but unlike many other European countries, Belgium did not encourage its nationals to emigrate to relieve economic, demographic, and social crises, and Belgian officials took a strong interest in their emigrants, monitoring the conditions of settlement and, where fraud was discovered, intervening diplomatically and paying for repatriation. The result was a resourceful body of settlers adaptable to both anglophone and francophone communities and adept at promotion and raising of capital. The first wave of immigration, beginning in the 1880s, consisted mainly of farmers to southern Manitoba and miners to Vancouver Island. A second wave after 1896, facilitated by a direct steamship link to Antwerp, brought more miners, as well as orchard planters to the Okanagan, sugar beet farmers to Alberta, and dairymen to Manitoba. World War I was followed by a further wave of agriculturally oriented settlement, and World War II by a mainly urban and skill-oriented cohort. In all cases, Belgians differed from the larger immigrant groups in that they were not recruited by important immigration societies and did not settle in ethnic blocs. There is probably no one better equipped than Cornelius Jaenen to write the history of the Belgians in western Canada. An eminent historian and the son of Flemish and Walloon Belgian immigrants himself, Professor Jaenen has gleaned, from Belgian and Canadian archival sources and from local, community, and family histories, a story rich in detail and context that will be invaluable to Canadians of Belgian origin as well as scholars and students of western Canadian ethnic and immigration studies

A Microhistory of Migrants and Their Identifications in a Paris Tenement (1882-1932)

This dissertation offers a micro-analysis of migration from a social and a cultural perspective. It is premised on the conviction that the micro scale can be of great value to avoid, or at least control for, the perils of taking ethnic, national, racial or gender boundaries for granted. Recounted across four different chapters combining individual stories with quantitative analysis, the action of this thesis spans five decades of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and takes place in a Paris tenement building. Or, more precisely, in a disparate complex of constructions located just outside the capital, in the heart of the Plaine-Saint-Denis, a banlieue which from the 1870s became a magnet for working-class migrants of many origins, whether in France or abroad. That crowded place, whose unity is as much a narrative device as an epistemological tactic, is itself at the core of the first chapter. Both the buildings, situated at Nos. 96-102 Avenue du Président-Wilson, and their demographic make-up, far from being mere micro-structural conditions, appear as fluid realities whose delineations depend not only upon the residents’ perceptions, but also upon our analytical choices. The second chapter investigates the inhabitants’ migrations, demonstrating that the salience of categories of difference depended partly on spatial movements. This also was partly determined by personal interactions, which are addressed in the third chapter, through a focus on the inhabitants’ intricate, and ever-evolving, networks. When identifications based on origin were given relevance in the people’s affinities, local and micro-regional solidarity was generally more operative than a broadly conceived ethnicity. As for antagonisms, they were often less contingent upon origin than upon other variables. Finally, the fourth chapter addresses the extent to which public institutions played a role in the construction of difference, and how in turn the buildings’ inhabitants negotiated, co-defined, or altered the dynamics of national identification.Doctoral research funded by the AHRC and a Gates Cambridge scholarshi

Critical Dictionary on Borders, Cross-Border Cooperation and European Integration

This Critical Dictionary on Borders, Cross-Border Cooperation and European Integration is the first encyclopaedia which combines two so far not well interconnected interdisciplinary research fields, i.e. Border Studies and European Studies. Organised in an alphabetical order, it contains 207 articles written by 115 authors from different countries and scientific disciplines which are accompanied by 58 maps. The articles deal with theory, terminology, concepts, actors, themes and spaces of neighbourhood relations at European borders and in borderlands of and around the European Union (EU). Taking into account a multi-scale perspective from the local to the global, the Critical Dictionary follows a combined historical-geographical approach and is co-directed by Birte Wassenberg and Bernard Reitel, with a large contribution of Jean Peyrony and Jean Rubio from the Mission opérationnelle transfrontalère (MOT), especially for the cartography. The Dictionary is also part of four Jean Monnet activities supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union for the period 2016-2022: two Jean Monnet projects on EU border regions (University Strasbourg), one Jean Monnet network (Frontem) and the Franco-German Jean Monnet excellence Center in Strasbourg, as well as the Jean Monnet Chair of Bernard Reitel on borders and European integration. Rather than being designed as an objective compilation of facts and figures, it should serve as a critical tool for discussion between researchers, students and practitioners working in the field of borders, cross-border cooperation and European Integration