On Information Granulation via Data Filtering for Granular Computing-Based Pattern Recognition: A Graph Embedding Case Study

Granular Computing is a powerful information processing paradigm, particularly useful for the synthesis of pattern recognition systems in structured domains (e.g., graphs or sequences). According to this paradigm, granules of information play the pivotal role of describing the underlying (possibly complex) process, starting from the available data. Under a pattern recognition viewpoint, granules of information can be exploited for the synthesis of semantically sound embedding spaces, where common supervised or unsupervised problems can be solved via standard machine learning algorithms. In this companion paper, we follow our previous paper (Martino et al. in Algorithms 15(5):148, 2022) in the context of comparing different strategies for the automatic synthesis of information granules in the context of graph classification. These strategies mainly differ on the specific topology adopted for subgraphs considered as candidate information granules and the possibility of using or neglecting the ground-truth class labels in the granulation process and, conversely, to our previous work, we employ a filtering-based approach for the synthesis of information granules instead of a clustering-based one. Computational results on 6 open-access data sets corroborate the robustness of our filtering-based approach with respect to data stratification, if compared to a clustering-based granulation stage

Impact of opening geometry on the Indoor Environmental Quality in deep, open-plan, naturally ventilated office typologies in temperate climates

Natural ventilation is one means of enriching internal environmental quality (IEQ) whilst reducing the energy consumption of buildings. In an attempt to increase productivity, offices are often deep and open-plan. The typically large energy demands of this type of building indicates the potential to ascertain significant energy savings and a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Through careful design, the forces associated with natural ventilation can be harnessed and utilised. These small forces mean opening geometry and building form can determine the internal natural airflow patterns, potentially creating unexpected flow characteristics. In these cases, this could lead to a naturally ventilated space overheating, exposing the occupants to thermal discomfort and, in such events, the supply of fresh air may also be reduced. With respect to an energy conscious environment, some leading architectural firms are beginning to explore the use of high-aspect-ratio (HAR) facade openings to improve the IEQ of these spaces. In addition to this, architects are encouraged by client briefs to design deep, open-plan offices without the typical central core; this being a vital element in any multi-storey building, comprising vertical circulation, services, toilets and lifts. To assist in the ventilation of these spaces, they are often broken-up by impressive atrium/atria. Research suggests, the design of facade openings, atrium and building core may influence the performance of the proposed natural ventilation strategy. The thorough examination of innovative design solutions should address these uncertainties and avoid them where possible. However, there is a lack of detailed evidence and guidance is needed to increase design confidence and the utilisation of optimal office design. To better understand natural ventilation, computer and physical airflow modelling, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and water-bath modelling (WBM) are used. The use of multiple techniques not only allows the opportunity to validate the results from each, but also increases the amount of highly detailed data in various formats. Nevertheless, such physical models are often under-utilised, difficult to construct and operate, and expensive. The investigation of the ventilation performance of HAR openings in a generic office environment was carried out using computational models and a novel WBM. Overall ventilation performance was obtained through the installation of the variants of opening geometries into several office configurations with differing core and atrium designs. The utilisation of multiple validated models improved the examination of ventilation performance, thus, providing reliable results to compliment those from the main body of the study. The parametric study was formed of many CFD cases, enabling the juxtaposition of the ventilation performance of all office configurations. The transient nature of WBM and spatial detail of CFD gave the ability to scrutinize issues associated with IEQ; air velocity and thermal stratification and distribution, mean room air temperatures and ventilation flow rates. Therefore, the acknowledgement of the optimal office design allowed the better performing design variants to be highlighted in terms of ventilation performance, also providing a greater understanding of how the design of the space affects IEQ. To start, an archetypal building, which would be subjected to the alternative design parameters, was established. The WBM's form, enabled multiple experiments to be performed by a relatively cheap and easy to run and maintain WBM, thus, increasing the rigour of the validation process and resultant design guidance. A comparison of the results from both modelling techniques showed them to be working correctly, as errors concerning validation metrics were deemed negligible. Results from the WBM experiments and CFD simulations suggested the supply flow from high-level horizontal (HLH) openings brought warm, potentially stale air down into the occupied zones. Conversely, the flow from mid-level vertical (MLV) openings was shown by the CFD to assist in the formation and lowering of thermal stratification. Nonetheless, significant improvements in ventilation flow rates and cooler air temperatures were possible. Moreover, the ventilation performance of this opening design was independent of the means of air removal. Additional enhancements were achieved by a transition from a typical to a perimeter core, as the prevalence of unventilated areas and excessive air velocities was reduced. Nevertheless, when specific variants of atrium design were employed into the perimeter core cases, further performance improvements were perceived. The conditions pervading the now open floor plate, were shown to be enhanced by an atrium design closely replicating the building's footprint. It could be said, the optimal core location is on the perimeter furthest away from the atrium. This configuration, when used in combination with MLV fa\c cade openings, was shown to form the best performing. Substantial advancements have been proposed in the physical modelling procedure of natural ventilation. Further understanding has also been obtained from the results produced, which formed the foundation of the design guidance. The inclusion of these modelling modifications and evidenced guidance throughout the design stage will alleviate performance uncertainties, making the undertaking of naturally ventilated building projects more attractive, simultaneously enhancing the IEQ of low-energy offices.</div

DASS Good: Explainable Data Mining of Spatial Cohort Data

Developing applicable clinical machine learning models is a difficult task when the data includes spatial information, for example, radiation dose distributions across adjacent organs at risk. We describe the co-design of a modeling system, DASS, to support the hybrid human-machine development and validation of predictive models for estimating long-term toxicities related to radiotherapy doses in head and neck cancer patients. Developed in collaboration with domain experts in oncology and data mining, DASS incorporates human-in-the-loop visual steering, spatial data, and explainable AI to augment domain knowledge with automatic data mining. We demonstrate DASS with the development of two practical clinical stratification models and report feedback from domain experts. Finally, we describe the design lessons learned from this collaborative experience.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

BIM semantic-enrichment for built heritage representation

In the built heritage context, BIM has shown difficulties in representing and managing the large and complex knowledge related to non-geometrical aspects of the heritage. Within this scope, this paper focuses on a domain-specific semantic-enrichment of BIM methodology, aimed at fulfilling semantic representation requirements of built heritage through Semantic Web technologies. To develop this semantic-enriched BIM approach, this research relies on the integration of a BIM environment with a knowledge base created through information ontologies. The result is knowledge base system - and a prototypal platform - that enhances semantic representation capabilities of BIM application to architectural heritage processes. It solves the issue of knowledge formalization in cultural heritage informative models, favouring a deeper comprehension and interpretation of all the building aspects. Its open structure allows future research to customize, scale and adapt the knowledge base different typologies of artefacts and heritage activities

Information Complexity in Material Culture

Humans invest a substantial amount of time in the creation of artworks. For generations, humans around the world have learned and shared their knowledge and skills on artistic traditions. Albeit large experimental settings or online databases have brought considerable insights on the evolutionary role and trajectory of art, why humans invest in art, what information artworks carry and how art functions within the community still remain elusive. To address these unresolved questions, this present thesis integrates ethnographic accounts with data governance and statistical approaches to systematically investigate a large corpus of art. This thesis specifically focuses on a large corpus of Tamil kolam art from South India to provide an exemplary case study of artistic traditions. The foundation for the projects presented in this thesis was the design and construction of a robust data infrastructure that enabled the synthesis of raw data from various sources into one database for systematic analyses. The data infrastructure on the kolam artistic system enabled the development of complex statistical methods to explore the substantial investments and information complexity in art. In the first chapter, I examine artists’ strategic decisions in the creation of kolam art and how they strive to optimize the complexity of their artworks under constraints using evolutionary signaling theory and theoretically guided statistical methods. Results revealed that artists strive to maintain a stable and invariant complexity measured as Shannon information entropy, regardless of the size of the artwork. In order to achieve an optimal artistic complexity “sweet spot”, artists trade-off two standard measures of biological diversity in ecology: evenness and richness. Additionally, results showed that although kolam art arises in a highly stratified and multi-ethnic society, artistic complexity is strategically optimized across the population and not constrained by group boundaries. Instead, the trade-off can most likely be explained by aesthetic preferences or cognitive limitations. While artistic complexity in kolam art can be strategically optimized across the population, distinct styles and patterns can still be employed by artists. Thus, in the second chapter, I focus on how artistic styles in kolam art covary along cultural boundaries. I employ a novel statistical method to measure the mapping between styles onto group boundaries on a large corpus of kolam art by decomposing the system into sequential drawing decisions. In line with Chapter 1, results demonstrate limited group-level variation. Distinct styles or patterns in kolam art can only be weakly mapped to caste boundaries, neighborhoods or previous migration. Both chapters strongly suggest that kolam art is primarily a sphere where artists differentiate themselves from others by displaying their unique skill set and knowledge. Thus, variability in kolam art is largely dominated by individual-level variation and not reflective of group boundaries or narrow socialization channels. This thesis contributes to an emergent understanding of how artists conceptualize what they are doing and how art functions within the community. Taken together, this thesis serves as an example approach that demonstrates an optimized workflow and novel approaches for the evolutionary study of a large corpus of artistic traditions

4D evolution of fluvial system and channel-fill architecture of the Cretaceous Blackhawk Formation, Wasatch Plateau, Utah: An integrated fluvial rock record analysis

Using an integrated dataset comprising outcrop, core, GPR and LiDAR data, this study targets a high-quality outcrop window of the upper Cretaceous Blackhawk Formation in the eastern Wasatch Plateau in central Utah, spanning a fairly large spatial (~30 km2 area comprising eight contiguous, and vertical cliff faces) and temporal (~4 my) range. This research provides field-validation and -calibration of a wider range of fluvial heterogeneity: 1) large-scale heterogeneity (10’s of m vertically and 100’s of m laterally), 2) intermediate-scale heterogeneity (1’s of m vertically and 10’s of m laterally), and 3) small-scale heterogeneity (10’s of cm vertically and 1’s of m laterally). These sandbody- to facies-scale heterogeneities generate potential for stratigraphic compartmentalization for analogous fluvial reservoirs and prospects. Moreover, these results specifically constitute an outcrop analog to the producing tight-gas fluvial reservoirs of the adjacent hydrocarbon-prolific Uinta and Piceance Basins of Utah and Colorado, including the giant Jonah Field of Wyoming. 3D virtual outcrop model generated from LiDAR-integration has helped in avulsion-scale (~1\u27s-10\u27s kyr) to basin-fill scale (~100\u27s kyr-1\u27s myr) fluvial sandbody organization analysis down to channel-storey level. This high-resolution analysis has brought several intriguing insights. single-storey sandbodies are preferentially attendant to clustering organization, whereas multi-lateral sandbodies (i.e. channel-belt) show compensational-prone behavior. Sandbody organization is broadly compensational for the lower Blackhawk Formation, where the floodplain facies diversity is the highest. In contrast, floodplain diversity decreases stratigraphically upward such that the upper Blackhawk Formation shows the least heterogeneous floodplain with clustering-prone sandbody organization. In the quest of differentiating autogenic from allogenic signal in dynamic systems where their interplay is complexly intertwined, this study presents two incised-valley examples, where resultant fluvial organization has been interpreted, contrary to conventional wisdom, to be preferentially modulated by a dominant controlling mechanism of autogenic forcing. In filling these incised valley deposits, each of which is up to ~15-20 m thick, the dominating behavior of substrate coal compaction as an autogenic mechanism supplanted allogenic forcing (i.e. sea-level fluctuation)

Atoll research bulletin.

no.531-542 (2005

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

Inequality in digital personas - e-portfolio curricula, cultural repertoires and social media

Digital and electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios) are playing a growing role in supporting admission to tertiary study and employment by visual creatives. Despite the growing importance of digital portfolios, we know very little about how professionals or students use theirs. This thesis contributes to knowledge by describing how South African high school students curated varied e-portfolio styles while developing disciplinary personas as visual artists. The study documents the technological and material inequalities between these students at two schools in Cape Town. By contrast to many celebratory accounts of contemporary new media literacies, it provides cautionary case studies of how young people’s privileged or marginalized circumstances shape their digital portfolios as well. A four-year longitudinal action research project (2009-2013) enabled the recording and analysis of students’ development as visual artists via e-portfolios at an independent (2009-2012) and a government school (2012-2013). Each school represented one of the two types of secondary schooling recognised by the South African government. All student e-portfolios were analysed along with producers’ dissimilar contexts. Teachers often promoted highbrow cultural norms entrenched by white, English medium schooling. The predominance of such norms could disadvantage socially marginalized youths and those developing repertoires in creative industry, crafts or fan art. Furthermore, major technological inequalities caused further exclusion. Differences in connectivity and infrastructure between the two research sites and individuals’ home environments were apparent. While the project supported the development of new literacies, the intervention nonetheless inadvertently reproduced the symbolic advantages of privileged youths. Important distinctions existed between participants’ use of media technologies. Resourceintensive communications proved gatekeepers to under-resourced students and stopped them fully articulating their abilities in their e-portfolios. Non-connected students had the most limited exposure to developing a digital hexis while remediating artworks, presenting personas and benefiting from online affinity spaces. By contrast, well-connected students created comprehensive showcases curating links to their productions in varied affinity groups. Male teens from affluent homes were better positioned to negotiate their classroom identities, as well as their entrepreneurial and other personas. Cultural capital acquired in their homes, such as media production skills, needed to resonate with the broader ethos of the school in its class and cultural dimensions. By contrast, certain creative industry, fan art and craft productions seemed precluded by assimilationist assumptions. At the same time, young women grappled with the risks and benefits of online visibility. An important side effect of validating media produced outside school is that privileged teens may amplify their symbolic advantages by easily adding distinctive personas. Under-resourced students must contend with the dual challenges of media ecologies as gatekeepers and an exclusionary cultural environment. Black teens from working class homes were faced with many hidden infrastructural and cultural challenges that contributed to their individual achievements falling short of similarly motivated peers. Equitable digital portfolio education must address both infrastructural inequality and decolonisation