Design interventions, prediction and science in the sustainable transition of large, complex systems,

The way that human beings live and consume the natural and environmental resources of the planet are not sustainable. Sustainability involves changes in individual beliefs, expectations, values and behaviours at the microlevel, changes in policy at the macrolevel of governments, and changes in the design of objects, social organisations and structures at the mesolevels. Design for sustainability has a big challenge: we need a ninety percent gain in energy and material efficiencies over the next thirty years. Bottom-up and top-down design and policy interventions are needed at all levels. These multilevel dynamics interact in ways not understood by conventional social and natural science: human beings and their physical environment form a bewilderingly complex multilevel system of systems of systems. The science of complex systems must, necessarily, conduct experiments through policy: scientists do not have the mandate or the money to perform large interventionist experiments. Policy can be construed as designing the future. Thus complex systems are entangled in both policy and design. We conclude that (i) the design professions impact on the community at all levels, and that 'good? design at any level is relative to design at all other levels, and the emergent design of the whole, (ii) design, complex systems science and policy must all work together to create a sustainable future, and (iii) policy and complex systems science must progress through a designerly way of thinking to achieve sustainable design coherently applied at all levels in the complex multilevel system of humankind living on planet earth in the decades, centuries and millennia of the future. This view puts design and complexity science at the centre of policy for sustainability

Principled Multilayer Network Embedding

Multilayer network analysis has become a vital tool for understanding different relationships and their interactions in a complex system, where each layer in a multilayer network depicts the topological structure of a group of nodes corresponding to a particular relationship. The interactions among different layers imply how the interplay of different relations on the topology of each layer. For a single-layer network, network embedding methods have been proposed to project the nodes in a network into a continuous vector space with a relatively small number of dimensions, where the space embeds the social representations among nodes. These algorithms have been proved to have a better performance on a variety of regular graph analysis tasks, such as link prediction, or multi-label classification. In this paper, by extending a standard graph mining into multilayer network, we have proposed three methods ("network aggregation," "results aggregation" and "layer co-analysis") to project a multilayer network into a continuous vector space. From the evaluation, we have proved that comparing with regular link prediction methods, "layer co-analysis" achieved the best performance on most of the datasets, while "network aggregation" and "results aggregation" also have better performance than regular link prediction methods

Investigating the reward cycle for play in young pigs

A reward cycle for investigating the emotional status in animals has been developed and it requires that animals go through three main phases, i.e. anticipation, consumption and relaxation. The reward cycle has not been tested previously for access to play in pigs. Therefore, the aim of this Master thesis was to investigate if growing pigs showed more behaviours indicative of excitement than pigs that were not allowed to play, performed play in a play arena and showed more behaviours indicative of relaxation after play when they were back to their home pen than pigs that were in their home pen the whole time. Forty undocked piglets (10 litters of Specific Pathogen Free half pure-bred Yorkshire and half hybrids of Yorkshire x Landrace balanced for breed between two treatments were used. From 44 days of age the selected pigs were housed in a weaner stable with four per pen, two castrated males and two females with the most average weights, in their original litter in pens with a size of 6.5 m2 called “home pen”. Within each litter two non-play and two play pigs were randomly selected. Focal animals were individually marked by pig marking spray. After five days of acclimatization to the new environment, four days of training started during which two pigs were allowed to walk to the holding pen (2.0 m2) where they were kept for three minutes. After that the mesh gate opened and the pigs walked in freely to the play arena (5.8 m2) where they stayed for 15 minutes. Two of each of the following objects were used as toys in the play arena: wellingtons, brush, traffic cone, rubber pipe, ball and knotted rope. Half of the piglets had previous experience of objects (i.e. knotted rope, ball and tire) around weaning. Play pigs were observed (instantaneously at 30 s intervals and continuously within each 30 s) 3 min. in the holding pen and 15 min. in the play arena. Non-play pigs were only taken to the holding pen (3 min.) and brought back to their home pen. Play pigs were directly after coming back to the home pen observed for 10 min. and non-play pigs were observed on days without play sessions for 10 min. Statistical analysis was done with Generalized Linear Model for Mixed procedures that tested effect of treatment, time, week, sex and previous toy experience. In the holding pen play pigs performed significantly more locomotor play (P<0.01), play fight (P<0.05), elimination (P<0.01) and had more curled tail position (P<0.01) than non-play pigs. However, non-play pigs performed significantly more explore bar than play pigs (P<0.05) in the holding pen. Pigs of both treatments were numerically more often recorded in zone 1 and orient 1 (i.e. closest proximity to the play arena). In the play arena object play was the most performed play type and then locomotor play which both decreased over time (P<0.001). Social play was the least performed play behaviour but even if it stayed close to zero it showed a slight gradual increase over time (P<0.001). Thus, as predicted they performed all three types of play. The most and the least preferred toys were numerically the brush and the ball respectively. In the home pen play pigs performed significantly more social contact (P<0.001), moving (P<0.001) and exploring (P<0.001), a tendency for drinking more (P<0.1) and significantly less locomotor play (P<0.05) than non-play pigs. In the home pen, non-play pigs performed significantly more lying (P<0.001) and had the tail in a hanging position more (P<0.001). Those behaviours expected to be relaxation-related, such as drinking, eating and rubbing against pen structures, were not significantly higher in play pigs. In conclusion, play pigs showed some behaviours indicative of anticipation in the holding pen, they performed all three types of play in the play arena. However, play pigs did not show behaviours expected to indicate relaxation in the home pen.En belöningscykel för att undersöka det emotionella tillståndet hos djur har utvecklats och den kräver att djur går igenom tre faser, dvs. förväntan, konsumtion och avkoppling. Belöningscykeln har inte testats tidigare för tillgång till lek hos grisar. Syftet med detta examensarbete var att undersöka om växande grisar visade fler beteenden som tyder på förväntan att leka än grisar som inte fick möjlighet att leka, om de utförde lekbeteenden i en lekarena och om de visade flera beteenden som tyder på avkoppling efter lek när de var tillbaka i sin hembox än grisar som var i sin hembox hela tiden. Fyrtio ej svanskuperade smågrisar (10 kullar) av specifikt patogenfria halvt renrasiga Yorkshire och halvt hybrider av Yorkshire x Lantras som balanserades för ras mellan två behandlingar användes. Från 44 dagars ålder hölls de utvalda grisarna i ett avväjningsstall med fyra per box, två kastrerade hanar och två honor med de mest genomsnittliga vikterna, i sin ursprungliga kull i boxar med en storlek på 6,5 m2 kallade "hembox". Inom varje kull valdes slumpmässigt två lekgrisar och två icke-lekgrisar ut. Fokaldjuren märktes individuellt med grismärkspray. Efter fem dagars acklimatisering till den nya miljön, började fyra dagars träning under vilka två grisar fick gå till förväntansboxen (2,0 m2) där de hölls under tre min. Efter att gallergrinden öppnades fick grisarna gå fritt i lekarenan (5,8 m2) där de stannade i 15 min. Två av vart och ett av följande objekt användes som leksaker i lekarenan: stövel, borste, trafikkon, gummirör, boll och knutet rep. Hälften av smågrisarna hade tidigare erfarenhet av objekt (dvs. knutet rep, boll och däck) runt avvänjningen. Lekgrisar observerades (momentant med 30 s intervall och kontinuerligt inom varje 30 s intervall) 3 min. i förväntansboxen och 15 min. i lekarenan. Icke-lek grisar togs endast till förväntansboxen (3 min.) och togs sedan tillbaka till sin hembox. Lekgrisarna observerades 10 min. direkt efter det att de kom tillbaka till hemboxen och icke-lek grisar observerades under 10 min. på dagar utan lek. Statistisk analys gjordes med generaliserad linjär modell för blandade förfaranden och testade effekten av behandling, tid, vecka, kön och tidigare leksakserfarenhet. I förväntansboxen utförde grisarna signifikant mer rörelselek (P<0,01), kamplek (P<0,05), eliminering (P<0,01) och hade mer knorr på svansen (P <0,01) än icke-lek grisar. Men, icke-lek grisar utförde signifikant mer undersökande av gallergrinden än lekgrisarna (P<0,05) i förväntansboxen. Grisar av båda behandlingarna var numeriskt oftare i zon 1 och orientering 1 (dvs. närmast lekarenan). I lekarenan var objektetlek den mest utförda lektypen och sedan rörelselek som båda minskade över tid (P<0,001). Social lek var det minst utförda lekbeteendet, men även om det stannade nära noll visade det en svag successiv ökning över tid (P<0,001). Som förväntat utförde de alla tre typer av lek. De mest och de minst föredragna leksakerna var numeriskt borsten respektive bollen. I hemboxen utförde lekgrisarna signifikant mer social kontakt (P<0,001), förflyttning (P<0,001) och undersökning (P<0,001), en tendens till att dricka mer (P<0,1) och signifikant mindre rörelselek (P<0,05) än icke-lek grisar. I hemboxen utförde icke-lek grisar signifikant mer liggande (P <0,001) och hade svansen mer i en hängande position (P<0,001). De beteenden som ansågs vara avkopplingsrelaterade, såsom dricka, äta och stryka kroppen mot inredningen, var inte signifikant högre hos lekgrisar. Sammanfattningsvis visade lekgrisarna vissa beteenden som indikerar förväntan i förväntansboxen, utförde alla tre typer av lek i lekarenan. Däremot visade lekgrisarna inte beteenden som ansågs indikera avkoppling i hemboxen

Wicked but worth it: student perspectives on socio-hydrology

harvestPolicy AnalysisMulti Actor System

Four domains of complexity

In this short paper, which reflects on one of my contributions to the systems literature in 1992 (Pluralism and the Legitimation of Systems Science), I discuss the context at that time. Systems scientists were embroiled in a paradigm war, which threatened to fragment the systems research community. This is relevant, not only to understanding my 1992 contribution, but also because the same paradigms are evident in the complexity science community, and therefore it potentially faces the same risk of fragmentation. Having explained the context, I then go on to discuss my proposed solution to the paradigm war: that there are four domains of complexity, three of which reflect the competing paradigms. The problem comes when researchers say that inquiry into just one of these domains is valid. However, when we recognise all four as part of a new theory of complexity, we can view them as complementary. The four domains are natural world complexity, or “what is” (where the ideal of inquiry is truth); social world complexity, or the complexity of “what ought to be” in relation to actual or potential action (where the ideal of inquiry is rightness); subjective world complexity, or the complexity of what any individual (the self or another) is thinking, intending or feeling (where the ideal of inquiry is understanding subjectivity); and the complexity of interactions between elements of the other domains of complexity in the context of research and intervention practice. Following a discussion of the relevance of this theory for complexity scientists, I end the paper with a final critical reflection on my 1992 paper, pointing to some theoretical assumptions and terminology that I would, in retrospect, revise